Missing Posters

[Lar Naparka]

Joined this forum in it's original setting back in early 2000's. Was a vibrant time in the GAA.

Leinster had a hugely competitive province. Kildare were post their 90's revival and holding their own. Meath had won an AI in '99 and still a decent side. Laois and Westmeath had reached the promised land of Leinster titles. Wexford made it's way to an AI semi-final. Longford got a name for itself taking down big names in the back door. Even Louth nearly grabbed a Leinster except for a bit of misfortune.

Connacht had Galway winning AI's, Mayo losing Ai's, Roscommon upsetting the hierarchy and Sligo holding their own in the latter end of the then Back door.

Ulster seen everyone do well, Tyrone AI's, Armagh AI, Monaghan, Donegal, Derry, Down, Fermanagh, Cavan all well competitive. Even Antrim reached an Ulster final.

Munster was Munster. Kerry and Cork dominated. The rest concentrated on Hurling.

God, can you remember the excitement when the championship was stating up.

Nearly all of the old wise heads have departed. This forum was one of the reasons I stopped reading Newspaper reports. Lads on here gave better, more honest assessments of games than our so called Pundits. They were better because they were at the games, knew the players and the colloquial contexts.

Most lads on here comment in the Non GAA Discussion part of the Forum.

Does anybody know how many active members are on this Board?

Ah, I remember them well.
Those were truly the good ol' days if we only knew it at the time. I'd saay2005 was the high water mark of the GAA.IN the 15 years prior to that, a total of nine counties had won Sam Maguire.
It seemed a bright future lay ahead and small counties and their long-suffering followers had reason to hope.
There had been both a raising of standards and a levelling out at the same time.
Then along came Bertie and the rest is history.
That hoor seemed incapable of error when he was in his prime but, in hindsight, everything he stuck his big spawgs in was truly messed up and the GAA was to be no exception.
His deal with his goad pal, John Bailey, led to the Sports Council providing financial help to the Dublin County Board and the result was not foreseen by anyone concerned.
Talk about giving some kid a cute little puppy for Christmas and then finding out, too late, that the puppy was a St. Bernard.

Mayo had a vibrant community of posters back in the early days but one by one the numbers have dwindled. Barney, R&G Sniper, Cuchonnact, Mayo4Sam and God knows how many more.
Right now, out of the total number of posts per page, thirteen and General Discussion and the remaining two are Local.
The GAA section has zero posts right now and that's a fair indication of the way discussion is going on this board.
Bertie has a lot to answer for. In the fifteen years since that deal made in hell, there have been a total of 5 AI winning counties but the bare figures don't reveal the full story. 
Eight of the last ten have been won by one county --guess which one?
I mean no ill-will to the Dubs --- they are only doing what every other county would do if they could.
But if the GAA was a ship, it would be renamed Titanic Two.

[armaghniac]

Probably 2000-2005 was something of golden age. From a personal perspective Armagh could have won any of these All Irelands, but there was always 3 or 4 teams in contention.
I would nuance Lar's comments. The specific issue is that money was put in Dublin GAA which would allow them increase participation without anyone really planning for what that might do to national county and club competitions. I fully think that money should be spent at the grass roots, the only injustice is that the same money is not spent in Cork city, Derry city, Belfast, Dundalk or Drogheda. However, in the case of Dublin you cannot have widespread participation with few clubs and one county the size of a province. The while thing needs a thorough examination, but all we'll get is Dubliners engaging in whataboutery trying to derail discussion.

[weareros]

Whatever happened to Barney? I did enjoy the email he wrote to John Maughan , the then Mayo manager taking some issues with the team selection, and then he posted Maughan's reply (which Maughan later denied was from him). All good fun.

[illdecide]

Yea the Board was great late 90's thru to 2007-8. It has declined every year since then. Suppose when i look back at some of my posts back then i'd cringe a bit but sure suppose i've matured a wee bit. There was ,mighty craic coming back from a game and writing your mini report and the pages and pages of comments that followed were great. Even in the off season we had the "Mucksavage thread" to get us through the boring day in work even though some of the stuff might have been made up t'was still funny. There was a lot of winding up but most people just either laughed or just got on with it but today it's always a full scale argument.
The local GAA section/page has about 4 posts in the last 5 years

[general_lee]

All the juicy stuff is on twitter these days

[illdecide]

All the juicy stuff is on twitter these days

Social media has ruined the world...I know the Board is kinda social media too but back in the day it was more like a conversation down in the pub

[Tony Baloney]

There are more distractions now - a lot of the match/social commentary from >5years ago has moved to Twitter. I'm sure a lot of the lads have children, hobbies and careers to keep on top of, so 20 hrs a week on the gaaboard is frowned upon! People are growing up! Also, the board hasn't been actively managed for years; no moderation, no housekeeping of threads, no dunging out of troublemakers and shitehawks, no updating of the forum look and feel etc. Withered on the vine.

[Hound]

To be fair, people have been whinging about the "quality" of this board for well over 10 years. The tit for tat battles have always been a feature too. As mentioned, there was a time when you would have got a lot more info and insightful discussion about GAA matters than anywhere else but technology and social media have moved on so much that it isn't the resource it once was. There are other much bigger platforms. A lot of the same topics reappear in a different guise too, to the point that you lose the appetite to debate Old IRA v PIRA for the 12th time in 5 years. At this stage, I'm probably starting to have my fill. Not that it particularly annoys me, I still enjoy reading the discussions. They are often good craic.
As well as that, I'm not sure I'm as fanatical about GAA as I was maybe 10 years ago. I still watch every match I can but its importance is somewhat less, probably for a number of reasons.

Anyway, Minder went missing for a brave while there then appeared back ffs.

HS, you're style of posting is what everyone should aspire to (including me) in my opinion. You can disagree with someone without getting disparaging and nasty. Which should be normal, which should be easy. And is normal and easy, but most of the rest of us forget to respect the person we're debating.

I see an old thread with Bud Wiser. He was always one of our older and treasured posters. Anyone know of him these days?

[Milltown Row2]

Budweiser was/is absolute gent, arranged premier tickets for me and 3 others at Croke, few drinks in pub before heading in..

Hope he's well, I know he'd done medical issues long time ago, Laois man living in Dublin?

[seafoid]

The board is internet 1.0 . Young bucks go elsewhere.

What I always liked about the site is that it is driven by fans rather than experts. You can follow journalists on twitter but they won't tend to rock the boat.

Pre the Dub machine it was interesting to follow discussions about certain counties. They might have a good league and be well placed for the championship. The 2012 all Ireland was really interesting. So was the night Antrim beat Galway.

Now football is a mess.

[ONeill]

It was a great place to be in the early days. You made friends with people you'd never have elsewhere, people got employment through this, charity, gifts, help and more importantly a good laugh.

Now we're old and grey/bald and go to the toilet too often during the night.

[Gold]

The board is internet 1.0 . Young bucks go elsewhere.

What I always liked about the site is that it is driven by fans rather than experts. You can follow journalists on twitter but they won't tend to rock the boat.

Pre the Dub machine it was interesting to follow discussions about certain counties. They might have a good league and be well placed for the championship. The 2012 all Ireland was really interesting. So was the night Antrim beat Galway.

Now football is a mess.

You're dead right there 😁🇻🇦👐

Personally I'm on from 06 I reckon. Always enjoyed the Antrim threads and the threads around big championship games and the finals.

Probably read the non GAA discussion far more these days. Rarely post but read the board daily.

As stated though twitter has moved the discussion elsewhere and is my (and I'm sure everyone here's) main form of news

[BennyCake]

Twitter is a cesspit. I use it to follow match scores, then unfollow as soon as matches are over. I can't be arsed looking at dozens of posts that fill up your timeline, people ranting about a match one minute, then photos of their new pyjamas the next. Fcuk that.

At least on here, you can avoid threads you're not interested in.

[Milltown Row2]

When did it change to this format?

Think I've seen two different before this

[ONeill]

Twitter is a cesspit. I use it to follow match scores, then unfollow as soon as matches are over. I can't be arsed looking at dozens of posts that fill up your timeline, people ranting about a match one minute, then photos of their new pyjamas the next. Fcuk that.

At least on here, you can avoid threads you're not interested in.

Surely you only follow the people you want to follow?