In further proof that this virus is truly diabolical and twisted in nature, we are now being asked to imagine a world in which golf is the only sport played. That prospect is the latest assault on society and on our senses. All of that chino, all of that plaid, all of that fidgeting and faffing over a three-foot putt for par. For many sports fans, a golf-only world is a perfect vision of hell on earth.
Little wonder, then, that the administrators of the other sports are trying to reimagine every way possible to get their own sports on show again during this blighted year. For the GAA, that means the possibility of playing the All-Ireland championship in empty stadiums or, more grimly, of not playing the games at all.
Deep down, there has been a deep reluctance to contemplate that possibility because the hurling and football championships aren’t merely sporting competitions or high-season diversions. They form the rhythm and sounds and, for many, the soul of the Irish summer season. To cancel them just seems wrong and ludicrous. But for the GAA there comes a burning question: is that the right thing to do?
As the world tried to guess its way through the ramifications of this pandemic, hundreds and thousands of Gaels immediately turned their thoughts to the likely consequences for the All-Ireland championships.
During the blackest forecasts there were dark mutterings in the world of the GAA that maybe they’d have to make adjustments and revert to a knockout championship for the year that was in it. The idea was even appealing: a kind of snappy, guerrilla competition in which they’d get the Connacht final over and done with while the coronavirus was still stuck in traffic somewhere beyond Manulla Junction.
But no championship at all?!
There are limits to endurance. Yes, the restaurants of the world can bolt their doors; the skies can empty of airplanes; the shopping avenues stay empty and eerie for weeks and months and the world’s economy can grind to a stunning halt. But did anyone in the GAA truly believe that Cavan v Monaghan would not take place in Clones, later if not sooner?
Did anyone really think that this – a pandemic – is what it would take to stop Dublin? There may have been an unspoken belief, too, that the Championship might be the very thing to kill off this vile little bug: that after 77 minutes of Derry v Tyrone in blanket mode, the bug might just lose the will to live; that if it encountered Davy Fitzgerald during one of his sideline rain dances, it might get spooked and that if it met the unflinching stare of Brian Cody in are-you-really-telling-me-that's-a-yellow-card mode, then it would, without question, just wither and die.
But all of that is wishful thinking. And now intercounty players are being asked to consider whether they would wish to compete in an All-Ireland championship played in empty stadiums. For any player, that idea must be a complete head-wrecker.
As everyone knows, GAA players are amateur athletes living and working as de facto professionals. There is no direct financial reward for what amounts to a total immersion into the team culture and training regime of their given county. The reasons for wanting to play for the county are almost illogical in that they are deeply ingrained in every player’s sense of place.
So the monster days – big hurling afternoons in Thurles or Cork, Ulster finals, MacHale Park, Croke Park: the promise of those days has always been the lure. And the crowd is essential to what those days are. The noise. The heat. The blithe indifference to sunburn. The thick waves of hope and desperation surging from the stands and terraces and onto the field of play.
During the best Championship matches, in periods when the games are flowing, crowd and teams seem to operate in perfect synchronicity: one indivisible from the other. So on the surface, the notion of Kilkenny v Wexford hurling in a ghostly Nowlan Park seems pointless and kind of wrong. To ask players all over Ireland to train and prepare for such a weird scenario is to ask a terrible lot of them.
Why would they?
Why should they?
One immediate answer: because the alternative of doing nothing runs contrary to the flame of defiance which has kept the All-Irelands hot for a century. It’s what the GAA thrives on: defying limitations, expectations, the other crowd, themselves. Gritting the teeth and keeping going. On one level the survival of the GAA in its old amateur glory is a massive two fingers to the world. It ploughed on through world wars and won’t be stopped because of some effin’ bat.
So to play the Championship without the people would be strange, for sure. But perhaps, just perhaps, it would also be unforgettable. Picture, now, an All-Ireland semi-final between Dublin and Galway say. In an empty Croke Park. People adjust. The last month has illustrated that. Players adjust. By then, they’d have forgotten about the silence. They’d be hot-wired into the occasion. And they’d possess this odd, background knowledge that beyond the walls of the big ghostly stadium, tens of thousands would be going berserk. Assuming, that is, that we, the crowd, the public, can reimagine the sight of a silent football game as a genuine All-Ireland semi-final. It would be a risk. It might be a unique, special celebration of the old games. Or it might fall disastrously flat. The question for the players – and it must be theirs to answer – is whether that risk is worth taking.
Because the alternative idea, of the world magically returning to normal over the coming months: the hope that a kind of sporting feast awaits us all next autumn, with golf Majors and NBA finals and Premier Leagues and All-Irelands all rolled out at once seems kind of fanciful.
Among the deluge of forecasts and political statements this week, far below the droning madness of president Trump's blaring certainty that sport would soon be up and running again, Dr William Hanage, a Harvard professor of evolution and epidemiology of infectious diseases (try putting that sign on your door) wrote a quiet, authoritative opinion piece published in the Guardian beneath the undeniable headline: 'No matter how you crunch the numbers, this pandemic is only getting started'. Then he crunched the numbers. And he demonstrated why all the talk of 'the peak' is just hope.
“Worse, there may be a mountain range,” he wrote.
“In other words what is happening right now could be just one peak – not the peak. And the reason for this is that despite all those positive signs from antibody testing, the huge majority of the population is not immune.”
That’s the backdrop against which the GAA must try to grapple over whether or not their summer procession goes ahead. The association has reacted responsibly and sharply to the crisis. If the games are to proceed at all, then it must firstly be because of the desire of the players to take part, albeit with the beautiful sounds muted. And even if they do want to play, the GAA may well decide, after everything, that nothing is worth the risk.
