Longford Hurlers

[Bord na Mona man]

Winning things shouldn't be the driver as to whether participation is worthwhile.

Kids who play basketball in Ireland are probably a million miles off the standard of kids of the same age who play basketball in Harlem or Detroit. Still, that would never be used as a reason to discourage young people from playing and enjoying basketball.

[Billys Boots]

I'm sure there are lots of kids in Longford who enjoy pucking a sliotar around a field who have no inclination to pull on the county jersey and get hammered - if I'm following your analogy correctly BnMM.  That doesn't solve the problem posed, however. 

[panc56]

It's sad that we can't field a team but the reality is there IS no interest in hurling by people from every club in the county. I could name about one in every club who is a native of a premier hurling county. We send back our All-Ireland  Hurling tickets every year! People just don't have that passion that you get in other counties.
I'd love to see someone take a radical approach and making it the first sport that coaching starts at. Nurture the game led by group of 50 people in a seperate board.

[LaurelEye]

Having said all that, there's not too many would have said Offaly would win 4 Senior Hurling All Irelands between 1981 and 1998, if you were to ask them that question in 1961 for example. Offaly is not a much bigger county than Longford.

About twice the size actually...

The point, though, is that there would always have been an area in south Offaly where hurling was the number one sport or at least was played at a serious level. There's no similar base in Longford; there's not even the equivalent of a Railyard in Kilkenny.

There's a core of people - many of them originally from hurling counties - who kept clubs in Longford town and Edgeworthstown going for the last thirty years but there's really little interest beyond that. I remember, a few years back, being at a disciplinary appeal in Pearse Park on an October Saturday afternoon and discovering that the senior hurling final was on. Attendance was about a dozen people and a labrador.

[panc56]

The labrador had some game that day!

[Fear Bun Na Sceilpe]

Clonguish and Slashers are probably amongst the best year in year out attenders at the Kilmacud 7s shield competition every year, played against both and alwyas thought they had some decent physical hurlers. I think Paul Barden played with Clonguish hurlers.