In GAA land, January is truly the cruellest month. Nothing ever happens. Absolutely nothing. Inter-county players and managers go into hibernation armed only with an oversized calendar that has their championship outing circled in bright red marker. Supporters rarely venture from the fireside and instead engross themselves in the various world darts championships as they dream of steamy days at Clones fuelled by warm bottles of beer and dodgy burgers.
Even the Gaelic Players Association, the new kids on the GAA block when it comes to extracting maximum publicity from scant raw material, have disappeared from view. As one GAA year grinds to a close and another cranks lazily into gear, the GPA has adopted an uncharacteristic vow of silence. Perhaps its administrators and members are plotting another spring tilt on Congress as they once again assert their right to doze through hour after hour of tedious debate with all the other accredited delegates.
GAA correspondents, confronted with a total and complete dearth of anything remotely interesting, try to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. Some turn their hand to writing about fly-fishing or bowls so they can maintain the pretence of gainful employment.
Failing that, there is always an opening for the dextrous scribe who can knock out a few hundred words about the noble art of fencing. But it is an established journalistic rule that those plum winter jobs are usually snapped up in double-quick time by those streetwise golf writers.
Eventually the GAA writers crack. There is no more delicate way to put this. After days and weeks of unbearable tedium, brightened only by a press release about the start of the Connacht league or a mysterious phone call from a husky-voiced stranger with details of a rearranged under-21 camogie final in Armagh, the hack decides that enough is enough. He can no longer listen to the mournful bleatings of his discontented editor and so makes up his mind to do something about it. He is going to go out there and get himself a GAA story. Any GAA story.
That is why in the past few weeks we have had inconsequential spats about the length of the Croke Park pitch, the efficacy or otherwise of the roof when it rains and, that hoary chestnut, payment for players. Recent days have seen a bit of a stirring with the emerging news of the proposed reforms to the hurling championship. In the context of most of the other non-stories that were swirling around, this was manna from heaven for the put-upon correspondents. But there is a limit to the amount of thought-provoking and engaging copy that can be extracted from the fairly dry findings of a GAA committee. So, after the initial minor waves of excitement had receded, it was back to the drawing board.
Judging by some of last weekend's efforts, redemption has come in the form of that GAA winter reliable, the retirement story. The hunger for retirement tit-bits has got so bad in the last few years that any tuned-in county player over 30 now refuses to answer his phone until the championship has got under way just in case there is an over-eager journalist on the other end waiting expectantly for the exclusive news that he has decided to pack it all in.
Down's Mickey Linden, in fact, now spends his winters living the life of a hermit in a cave deep in the Mourne mountains as an extreme way of avoiding any speculation that he has sprinted his last in the county colours. Ger Houlahan of Armagh has not been seen in public between September and April since 1990 as a precaution in case he has to field the inevitable awkward questions about retirement.
This current vogue for fantastical tales of retirement, winter breaks and extended sabbaticals has not passed the ever-vigilant watch tower at Out Of The North unnoticed. It is now abundantly clear there is an insatiable appetite out there for this kind of story, and nobody can stand up and deny the good GAA people out in the counties exactly what they want.
But this column says loud and proud that it doesn't always have to be this way. There is an alternative to this bland winter GAA diet that is so lacking in either stimulation or interest. The kickback against it starts here. Instead of the endless round of players of various and dubious abilities announcing their departures with a valedictory wave, this will now be a forum for those people who want to announce to the world that they are in fact willing and available for selection in any position and in any capacity that their county might so desire.
I intend to be at the vanguard of this new movement and use this platform to issue a good, old-fashioned unsubtle appeal to any county management team in Ulster that might be interested. Tyrone would be the obvious first choice, but given the embarrassment of under-age riches there at present it may be that counties which are going through a bit of a rough patch, such as Derry and Armagh, might be more in need of my services. On paper (or, in fact, anywhere, else) my credentials may not be that impressive, but what is missing in natural ability, innate talent, effortless skill and perfect balance will be more than compensated by an unquenchable, boyish enthusiasm.
The obvious intention is that this will start a trend of sorts. In every county there must be young men in, or just past, the prime of their footballing lives reading yet another retirement tale and wondering what might have been if they had been give the opportunity. Now they have that chance. This is the time for them to stand up, be counted and help fill some GAA column inches along the way. Ask not what your counties can do for you. This is a war against retirement. You have nothing to lose but your self-respect.
