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I have a question
why do you think that you are the one person on the board that should be called itgeek- quantify your geekiness for us so that the board can decide

Mc Keevers, a little bit of Ballyhegan in Portadown

it must be true- even Tony is posting in the GAA section now, and not an anti Tyrone/ Down reference in sight.

9 times out of 10 you'd be right Tony- however as we have had to go so far as to advertise a number of one off exemptions have been granted.

The surnames Marley, Hughes, McAtarsney and Morgan have been declared acceptable in their own right.
Families that have been in the parish for more than 200 years may have one applicant per family  (multiple applications rule out the entire family plus in laws)
residents of the Mullavilly side of the parish may not apply
4th Generation families may apply if condition a) or b) is met
a) married inside the parish consistently
b) married outside the parish to a noted footballing family for the betterment of the Davitts

The committee has not allowed any concession on point 2 or 3. an additional criteria has been added. The successful applicant must be able to name and date at least one instance when Ballyhegan finished a game with more than 13 players during the period 1970 to 1978. Manager must have attended the "old school" or remember it when it was a school. We also stipulate that the manager must hold a grudge against the county board as to why the 1961 junior final was played despite a death in the parish ruling out 4 of our starting 15. Also Noel Marley was the most skillful player in the '77 squad- no question.

Additionally Flower exporters, hauliers, publicans, hauliers, mushroom growers and hauliers may apply.

Finally the committee would like to state that "Blow ins are not welcome" this has no relevance to the managers position- its just a general statement

Is anyone else relieved that football has started in earnest so that we can drop into the GAA discussion site first?
For a while there we had more sane discussion on the dark side and all of the numpties were over here

I feel as if all is well with the world again- mostly

anybody got any details on McKeever getting the straight red?

The poly for me
www.uujgaelic.com

I would hardly say Fowler is finished- he still looks like the only one of our strikers that can consistently put the ball in the back of the net. I'd love to see what he could do playing off Bellamy/ Kuyt when Momo is back controlling the middle and Stevie G can keep hitting his Hollywood balls into the strikers.
Consistently Liverpool flap with Dudek at the back- the keepers job isn't just to save the shots, he has to keep the back line organised, Dudek is failing miserably in that role. Interesting to see whether the kid will get a couple of games at the expense of the 2 more senior keepers. (did anyone else think Sander Westerweld got a rough deal) The first choice back 4 I would have with Finnan, Carra, Hypia and Riise are generally composed, and a presence behind them willl provide stability. Momo in the middle will allow Alonso to contribute more and see if Kewell can actually play.
Ah, but what would I know

At least Fowler knows where the net is- and that is without a run in the side...

4-1 down not even half time...

depends what you're looking for www.tyronegaa.ie and www.uujgaelic.com both use the gaelsport system as does our club ballyhegan ( www.ballyhegan.com)
Its important not to look at it as a website, but rather a communication tool. The manager or PRO should be able to email/text players at all levels about training, matches etc. The committee should be able to use it to manage meetings and minutes etc. Secretary should be able to do club membership etc.
Thats the approach that Gaelsport use and if you have a sponsor you can usually turn it into something that will end up binging in money instead of costing you. The content management system allows log in from any webpage and a range of formatting tools- if you can use hotmail/ gmail then you are pretty much set.

Also I think its a disgrace that there is a New Zealand company running the GAA's official sites. So much for the "Buy Irish" ethic- selectively used as always.

The most important thing for a website is that it is useful for the people that want to use it and that means keeping it up to date and relevant.

just on that note ziggy- I had a look at the various county websites that are up there- Jaysus but some of them are terrible. Tyrone's though does look impressive- Armagh's looks very well too (if it were 1994)

Sam Mc Clatchey and wee Brian Nixon- my 2 favourite refs- spent the entire game between the 50's unless they had to send someone off (that had to be one hell of a flagrant foul) or to move the ball forward - usually at the expense of some fella in white boots and shin pads yappin
Bring back those days.

which back and forwards are you keeping?
ok so one of those is obvious- but anyway?

sorry bout spoinling your friday- doesn't make for great reading - but it was a great run while it lasted :-)

Its interesting to hear the comments about Ballyhegan dropping down a grade, I thought I'd give you a brief of the last 15 years to let you know where we came from
In 91 we were beaten by Corinshigo, and then finished 92 second from bottom in the entire league system in Armagh. over the next couple of years a number of younger players started breaking through the ranks and Paul Mc Grane and Barry Hughes (who had been on the Armagh '92 minor team that made the AI Final only to have it stolen by meath) provided the backbone on which the team was based and as Paddy McKeever came through we ended up with a very strong team. Ballyhegan won the junior in 95 and the intermediate in 97 with roughly the same bunch of players.  As well as this there were a few players (maybe 3-4) who would have made pretty much most clubs in the county. As the team was doing well we could have ended up with maybe 30 lads at training although realistically only 18/19 had any real shot at starting a game. After we won the intermediate we moved into Senior and first game was against Cross in the championship- we did take the lead and hold if to the first 15 minutes, but it was the last 5 before we scored again after that. This coincided with the progress being made by Armagh and there were more and more demands being made on the county players. In 98 we lost 6 lads to the USA and a couple more followed a few years later. The step up in grade was badly hurting results and also the attendances at training and although we managed to hold our place in division 2 it was a struggle based heavily on the last few games of the season with county players available. In fact there were occasions when players were flown back in from abroad (legitimately I might add) to help preserve that status.
It was a tough decision to move back down but a run to the intermediate final rekindled interest in the club and attendances were up. The new facilities at the club were a big improvement and things were looking well.
Lately however reality has kicked in, although Kilmore is a relatively large parish, the area is very predominantly unionist ( and in many cases very loyalist) The club works well with Portadown rugby club and Loughgall FC to do a lot of cross community work and if truth be told we didn't exactly play to the letter of the law when it came to rule 21, more the spirit...
We would not be in the siutation we are financially and facility wise if it hadn't been for the participation and generosity of the entire local community and for that we are thankful. However if it comes down to it we are a club which on the numbers would be expected to be a junior club, and until we get a good crop of players coming together at the same time I have a feeling thats where we will be for a few years.