Cormac Keogh is manager of the main team at ‘the little GAA club that could’.“If you’re involved with a team, times are sometimes bad; you don’t always get the results,” says Cormac Keogh, team manager of Curraha Gaelic Football Club in Meath. “But things can suddenly change and your guys start winning games. When you see that, and when you see young lads playing well for their club, you get great enjoyment out of it.”
Keogh started playing for Curraha, which is located near Ashbourne, as a child. He recalls: “I’ve been playing football since I was a kid and I was only ever with this club. I had a brother that was interested and I got involved through him. It was kind of bred into me.”
The modest club celebrated its centenary in 2003, but throughout its history, its small size meant that its successes were hard won. It got off to a good start, winning a junior football championship in 1914 – with two of the winning side going on to represent Meath, progressing as far as a Leinster Championship final in the process.
The war years proved a lean patch for the club, with numbers dwindling to the point where they struggled to field numbers for anything beyond seven-a-side tournaments. By 1947 the club ceased to be, but three years later it was resurrected. The momentum generated by its reformation carried the club’s main team into intermediate level, but a lack of success meant a return to junior in 1962. Ten years later, the Curraha boys revived the success of the club’s early years, winning both the Junior Football Championship as well as the Junior League.
The club drifted in the doldrums for the next 25 years, but players, coaches and volunteers kept working away until eventually, in 1997, they won the Junior B Championship. This was topped four years later when they captured the Junior A Championship, becoming an intermediate team in the process. They held their ground until 2004, when they slid back to junior level, where they remain today.
The club now consists of about 70 adult members, but a strong juvenile set-up means its future looks secure. In fact, Keogh feels that the dedication players show to smaller clubs in more isolated areas means that its modest size can act as an advantage.
“We’re sandwiched between Ashbourne and Ratoath, so we’re very small,” explains Keogh, the manager of the Curraha Junior A, the club’s main team. “In some of the more built-up areas there can be a lot going on between soccer, rugby, pubs and the like. In the more rural areas you find that the guys would be more into their club. If you go to a rural area where there’s nothing but the GAA, club players would tend to be more dedicated to it.”
The Meath man, who regularly popped down to Croke Park for his county’s games as a youngster, feels that while the GAA is a huge force for good in Ireland, it has slipped behind rugby and soccer in one respect.
“I think the standard of refereeing is very bad,” he says. “Everybody has a tendency to blame the referee, but I think the GAA are genuinely well behind soccer or rugby. You don’t see the kind of rows in other sports that crop up in GAA games. If there is a row at a football or hurling match everyone gets involved. GAA refs seem to struggle to keep a lid on it.”
Keogh adds: “The fact that they’re badly paid doesn’t help, but they can often arrive at games saying they want two umpires from each side and a linesman. Sometimes you wouldn’t have that many spectators at a game. I’ve often ended up trying to do linesman and manage a team at the same time.”
The club has been operating out of a playing field, a training pitch and a set of dressing rooms, but they’re set for an overhaul. Keogh notes: “We run a weekly lotto and we’ve secured some sponsors for our first team and for the club. We also ran a night at the dogs about two years ago that raised 20 grand [in funds]. Our facilities are basic enough – three or four dressing rooms and showers – but we’ve planning permission to upgrade them.”
This season, like many, has got off to a mixed start. They’ve lost all three of their championship matches so far, but last Friday they showed themselves to be well capable of beating anyone on their day, defeating a top-rated, unbeaten championship side in a league match. “That was a great win,” says Keogh.
Curraha has attempted to diversify the profile of those who get involved in the club, but it has run into problems. “There was an attempt to set up a ladies team last year but it didn’t materialise because of numbers,” Keogh explains. “There are a couple of girls that are good footballers playing at underage but when they get to about 14 or 15 they tend to move on to play with all-girls’ teams and we haven’t got that for them.”
The club has had slightly more success with ethnic minorities, which Keogh points out are not exactly thick on the ground in Curraha’s catchment area: “We actually had a few at underage. I’m not involved much with the youth end but I know one chap. He’s from Russia.”
Keogh’s may be a small club, but tenaciousness is written all over its record. Little clubs can and do drift away, but that looks unlikely in the case of Curraha.
