Whelahan All Star omission when player of year still haunts selection discussions

The All Star season is upon us. There will be criticisms of whatever teams are announced; some of these will be temperate and reasonedbut others won’t. Virtually none of the objections down the years have been irrefutable but it so happens that the coming weeks mark the 20th anniversary of the least defensible omission in the 43 years since the official scheme started.

In 1994, Brian Whelahan's outstanding contribution to Offaly's All-Ireland hurling championship victory was recognised with the award of the two hurler of the year citations, one from his fellow players in an initiative organised by the Sunday Press and the other from the well-established Texaco scheme.

He didn’t, however, get an All Star. A further hurler of the year award followed four years later, this time with an All Star, as well as inclusion in the 2000 Team of the Millennium. But the 1994 omission still haunts the awards whenever bad selections are discussed.

As one of the selectors back then – there were so many of us that it hardly qualified as a distinction – I’d often intended to set down a perspective on how this came about and the 20th anniversary seems as good a time as any. There were about two dozen of us in the room. In those days there weren’t separate panels for football and hurling so the same people stayed in the room, morning and afternoon until the two teams had been picked, but not – and this turned out to be crucial – announced.

Protocol

The protocol in those days was fairly similar to now in that one team – football or hurling in alternate years – was announced the day before the awards dinner and the other was revealed on the night.

In 1994, the hurling team would be the broadcast selection. At the time there was general paranoia about the team leaking out before the official release and, as a protection, the “live” team was picked by secret ballot just two days before the event so those aware of who had been selected would be restricted to a minimum: essentially the steering committee, at that stage mostly comprising journalists who had established the scheme, and representatives of the GAA and sponsors.

Problems arose because one of the candidates for Whelahan's position at right-wing back was Limerick's Dave Clarke, who was a consensus choice as one of the best half backs that year. A plan (best not to describe it as fool-proof) was hatched to nominate both of them for each of the wing back positions.

That was proceeding to plan when then GAA president Jack Boothman, present as an observer, expressed surprise that none of the other wing backs were receiving any consideration. At this point, long-standing issues began to surface. Amongst some of the older and founder-selectors was a firmly held view that players shouldn't be allowed to change positions.

The upshot was that Clarke and Whelahan were nominated for both positions but an additional two candidates, Offaly's Kevin Martin and Wexford's Larry O'Gorman, were put forward at left wing back so there were two nominations at right wing back and four on the left.

Voting instructions were clear for the latter selection: a form of PR was used, requiring the candidates to be voted one to four in order of preference with a first preference worth four points, a second worth three and so on. We were specifically asked to vote down the list. It turned out Clarke had beaten Whelahan on the right – maybe because the latter had been the more versatile player and had switched to centre back in the All-Ireland final – and on the left Martin had won.

It later emerged some of those who had disagreed with the concept of putting Clarke or Whelahan on the left wing hadn’t voted for either of them at all, in clear contravention of the voting instructions.

Shockingly disrespectful

Had Whelahan been given the minimum one point for each of these effectively spoiled ballots – which by rights should have been rejected altogether – he would have won the award. The outcome was shockingly disrespectful to Whelahan – these days the Offaly manager – who on the night was clearly embarrassed and unfair on Kevin Martin, who found himself in an extraordinarily awkward situation. I still have no doubt if the two dozen of us had been reassembled, the vast majority would have insisted on including Whelahan, but the steering committee (of which I was a member) decided to go with the team as “selected”.

One selector resigned on the spot and many of us wanted a meeting as soon as possible after Christmas to seek full accountability for what had happened. But it never took place. Bank of Ireland withdrew from the All Stars, not because of the controversy but to concentrate on their sponsorship of the football championship, then in its first year.

There were some consequences. For a variety of reasons, the players’ All Stars in 1995 and ’96 were not a success and a year later the GAA were back talking to the journalists – most of whom had declined to accept a diminished involvement in the above two years – who were able to insist on the abolition of the secret ballot, which had been a significant factor in the Whelahan fiasco. The result was a restructured scheme that has been in place since 1997.

Sometimes people say All Stars are trivial, but there’s no doubt players value them, especially if their counties aren’t contenders for silverware. I remember one recipient saying that the All Star had raised a first smile from his mother since the then recent death of his father.

The award is simply recognition. Selectors are conscious of that and aware of the historical importance of what has always been a journalists’ scheme, and do their best to be fair and forensic – which is why what happened 20 years ago remains so regrettable.

smoran@irishtimes.com