McCarthy admits he does not have backing of Cork hurlers

[timmykelleher]

How do people know that Frank Murphy is the only one causing all this trouble?

Any of the controversial votes undertaken recently have gotten a large majority.

It's the club delegates doing the voting.

Some may say that the delegates are fearful of not getting their matches scheduled, their clubs not getting to host big championship matches, not getting their cut of county draw etc.
But how likely is this?

Last year when RTE were looking for soundbites outside Pairc Ui Chaoimh ahead of a county board meeting there seemed to be plenty of delegates willing to denounce the actions of the players.

To me Frank Murphy has the willing backing of a majority of delegates. Whether the delegates are representing the majority view of their clubs is another thing. But would it be possible to replace all the delegates? hardly. And who would want to replace them?

[heffo]

How do people know that Frank Murphy is the only one causing all this trouble?

Any of the controversial votes undertaken recently have gotten a large majority.

It's the club delegates doing the voting.

Some may say that the delegates are fearful of not getting their matches scheduled, their clubs not getting to host big championship matches, not getting their cut of county draw etc.
But how likely is this?

Last year when RTE were looking for soundbites outside Pairc Ui Chaoimh ahead of a county board meeting there seemed to be plenty of delegates willing to denounce the actions of the players.

To me Frank Murphy has the willing backing of a majority of delegates. Whether the delegates are representing the majority view of their clubs is another thing. But would it be possible to replace all the delegates? hardly. And who would want to replace them?

if delegates are not voting as mandated by the elected officers of their club, then those officers need to discipline and if necessary, replace the delegate - if club officers aren't strong enough to do that in Cork then you may throw your hat at it

[The GAA]

if delegates are not voting as mandated by the elected officers of their club, then those officers need to discipline and if necessary, replace the delegate - if club officers aren't strong enough to do that in Cork then you may throw your hat at it

This is a very large issue and is exactly what the "cloyne motion" was aimed at addressing.

[Tatler Jack]

Not sure where this "Frank can't be got rid of" has come from.  Another of the great myths in Cork. If the clubs in Cork wanted Frank out hewould be gone long ago.  Neither do the players want Frank gone- he is a useful fall guy when they need to whip up emotion and divert attention from the real issue of the strike.  If the players managed to get rid of Gerald tomorrow, get somebody in who would let them have their own way and guarantee the careers (and commercial activities) of some of the longer serving players then you hear very little from the players about the sickness of the CB or Frank "being the real problem" . 
Now Frank has done himself no favours down the years in winning the PR battle and I believe it would be better if he stepped down if only to remove a red herring from this debate.  But any replacement would have the same problem with this group of players who are well skilled in PR and have placed more emphasis on winning this PR battle than on trying to solve the problem. If they put a fraction of the energy into meeting the CB and Gerald that they put into a press conference and a march this would have been sorted long ago.  As for the march on Saturday well if half those who take part give up as much time every Saturday to underage coaching then the future of Cork GAA is bright. I suspect however that many of them would have a problem in finding their local club's ground!!

[Reillers]

Not sure where this "Frank can't be got rid of" has come from.  Another of the great myths in Cork. If the clubs in Cork wanted Frank out hewould be gone long ago.  Neither do the players want Frank gone- he is a useful fall guy when they need to whip up emotion and divert attention from the real issue of the strike.  If the players managed to get rid of Gerald tomorrow, get somebody in who would let them have their own way and guarantee the careers (and commercial activities) of some of the longer serving players then you hear very little from the players about the sickness of the CB or Frank "being the real problem" . 
Now Frank has done himself no favours down the years in winning the PR battle and I believe it would be better if he stepped down if only to remove a red herring from this debate.  But any replacement would have the same problem with this group of players who are well skilled in PR and have placed more emphasis on winning this PR battle than on trying to solve the problem. If they put a fraction of the energy into meeting the CB and Gerald that they put into a press conference and a march this would have been sorted long ago.  As for the march on Saturday well if half those who take part give up as much time every Saturday to underage coaching then the future of Cork GAA is bright. I suspect however that many of them would have a problem in finding their local club's ground!!

not sure where it has come from, it's been there for years, always, the ever present FM and the problems that come with his "leadership."
Frank has the power and influence over a hell lot of clubs and I know that many are being held over a barrel of a gun.
What you're saying make you seem like you nothing about GAA or this topic, and hoped on this page and starting ranting because the players would do anything if it meant getting rid of FM and a hell lot of Cork people would do the same. They've faught him for years and you don't think they want to get rid of him, you think they are enjoying all of this, I promise you they are not. FM is singlehandedly destroying Cork GAA and the day the sun shines again in Cork is the day he leaves. Don't make assumptions on things you know little about, because it makes you look like an idiot and it's been debated to death on here.
Neither do you seem to know that a hell lot of people at the match were headstrong club men you'd never see near the city and a hell lot of people wore their club colors. So please don't insult us and don't undermine the thousands of GAA men and women (yes OM they are allowed have an opinion as well, you'll actually find that a lot love the game and hell the Cork camogie and football team could probably run rings around any mens team in the championship, what you have been saying would almost border on sexism if I felt like pressing the matter, but I don't.) There we are a hell lot of GAA men there Saturday who are hugely involved at club scenes, and you don't know otherwise so stop trying to fight a loosing battle by in all accounts making things up.

And where were the so called fans who would "find their local club ground", because they weren't at the game yesterday.

[Reillers]

Cork public show it's all about the players

TOM HUMPHRIES - LOCKERROOM

The Cork public voted with their feet with a massive turnout for their beloved hurlers.

TUCKEY STREET is a tight little artery leading off Grand Parade in Cork and it carries in a short few yards so much of modern Ireland and so much of old Ireland. From outside Hillybilly's Fried Chicken Express you can look down Tuckey Street and see a Christian bookshop, a Masonic lodge house, a family planning clinic, a solicitor's office, a pub and a Polish restaurant all huddled together on a row. On Saturday, with a crowd of 10,000 or more still singing The Banks as an anthem of hope and solidarity, some of the footballers and hurlers of Cork stood down from the makeshift stage from where the speeches had been given, leaving behind the frontline of a dispute which is both as modern and as ancient as Tuckey Street itself. Away from the communion with a Cork public who had turned out in numbers which had surprised even the players, they remained in demand.

Seán Óg Ó hAilpín stayed for 90 minutes posing for pictures and signing autographs and taking the well-wishes of strangers. Behind the stage, Jerry O'Connor, John Gardiner and others did shorter stints but it was instructive to watch these demonised players from whom Gerald McCarthy and Frank Murphy and company are protecting the GAA. If there is one thing the GAA always says, whether it means it or not, it was reinforced in Tuckey Street. It is about the players. First, second and last. Everything that makes the GAA unique stems from the relationship of players with the people and places they come from.

A queue of Corkonians came to speak conspiratorially in Gardiner's ear. "Keep it going Gah boy." "Don't let them bastards beat ye." "Ye know what ye mean to us all." Gardiner had spoken a few minutes earlier from the platform about previous triumphs and triumphant homecomings which the team and fans alike had shared. His words struck a chord and reminded us pointedly that those of us who write for papers, or those who shuffle papers in offices and even those who train teams will never be as central to the essence of things as players are. They make the memories. They write the songs.

Saturday was a day when the smoke of ongoing battles thickened. The players who we have come to think of and love as The Cork Team, trained in the morning in Na Piarsaigh. Donal Óg, Seán Óg and John Gardiner were sitting in a room together afterwards wondering where it would all end when texts started arriving and somebody stuck their head in the door with the same message as the texts were bearing. Gerald McCarthy was on the Marian Finucane Show .

The boys had taken their fill of Gerald's version of events that morning when they went through a long interview the manager gave to the Irish Examiner and and pretty soon Donal Óg had heard enough. He got up and called RTÉ. Seán Óg and his friend, workmate and clubmate John Gardiner sat straining to listen as Cusack lit a few Molotov cocktails and chucked them toward Montrose. They wondered at the sheer madness of the entire situation they find themselves in.

There are a million war stories to be told when the dust settles but, at the centre, things are as simple as they ever were. Gerald McCarthy is doing probably what most of us would do if we were put in his situation by the abuse of process which the Cork County Board have pulled. He is hanging tough and trying to make the terrible position he is in sound like a crusade for old values and amateurism.

Hurt and embarrassed he doesn't, one imagines, spend too long wondering why the Cork County Board came to him in the first place when John Allen left. In head-hunting him the board overcame a long-standing hang-up they had about players who went doing missionary work in other counties. Gerald's stint in Waterford was forgiven. He was inserted into the Cork management job.

Whether he saw himself as the county board's man or not is beside the point. They players viewed him that way. They saw the gradual erosion of rights they had fought for and the wholesale abandonment of a successful training system they had evolved.

And they got on with things. In 2008 they needed the help of a facilitator to get through the season with their manager. If that and the number of defeats they endured in 2007/2008 didn't spell the end of Gerald's tenure than perhaps the leaking early in this dispute of the confidential material gathered by the facilitator should have. But here we all are.

Frank Murphy, a man who can turn an audience to stone with his four-hour orations on the intent of the amendments to obscure GAA rules, says not a word. Gerald, out there as a pawn on the board, cuts a poignant figure tilting his sword at windmills, his cadre of young players dragged along as fall guys in this grotesque misadventure must wonder among themselves what is going on when they hear of Gerald writing to all of last year's squad over Christmas.

What must they think when they listen to Gerald insisting over and over again that the younger stars of the Cork team are being held virtually at knife-point by the senior panel members and yet see them all march of their own accord into press conferences and voluntary training sessions.

They must wonder at players like Kieran Murphy of county champions Sarsfields, who has surrendered the captaincy of Cork and watches five of his team-mates line out for Gerald's team yesterday. Or Paudie O'Sullivan living at home under the same roof as Gerry O'Sullivan, chair of the county board. They must look at those two and know the pressure they have to be under in club or home and wonder what keeps Kieran or Paudie or other young players in the group. It has to be more than the persuasiveness of older players.

And perhaps, cut loose on the high seas and facing into a championship which will surely drown them forever, they must wonder what they are doing following Captain Bligh; they must talk among themselves about the failings which led an entire crew to mutiny; they must wonder if this is how they want to be recalled, if this is the senior county career they want to explain to their grandchildren.

On Tuckey Street, the Cork players disperse slowly, reassured and heartened by the affection of their people. It has been a unique occasion, a sea of people taking to the streets on a cold, cold Saturday afternoon to cheers for the devils of the modern game. Nobody saw any horns or tails or cloven feet. Just a public and its team. They way it should be. It was heartening and hopeful but certain faces were turned away. From the Politburo down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh no word came. Gerald was still left out there, a dangling man. The players dispersed and the crowd just melted into the backdrop of the city. The lorry which provided the trailer which formed the stage was gone by 5 o'clock and it was as if nothing had ever happened. Just the way the Cork County Board would have wished it.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times

[The GAA]

Not sure where this "Frank can't be got rid of" has come from.  Another of the great myths in Cork. If the clubs in Cork wanted Frank out hewould be gone long ago.  Neither do the players want Frank gone- he is a useful fall guy when they need to whip up emotion and divert attention from the real issue of the strike.  If the players managed to get rid of Gerald tomorrow, get somebody in who would let them have their own way and guarantee the careers (and commercial activities) of some of the longer serving players then you hear very little from the players about the sickness of the CB or Frank "being the real problem" . 
Now Frank has done himself no favours down the years in winning the PR battle and I believe it would be better if he stepped down if only to remove a red herring from this debate.  But any replacement would have the same problem with this group of players who are well skilled in PR and have placed more emphasis on winning this PR battle than on trying to solve the problem. If they put a fraction of the energy into meeting the CB and Gerald that they put into a press conference and a march this would have been sorted long ago.  As for the march on Saturday well if half those who take part give up as much time every Saturday to underage coaching then the future of Cork GAA is bright. I suspect however that many of them would have a problem in finding their local club's ground!!

Its very easy to denegrate the people who went to the march on saturday, but all sense would indicate that they are genuine gaels. what else would have brought 12,000 of them to cork city?

[INDIANA]

Thats exactly the view I get from a lot of Cork people Tatler which indicates to me Frank isn't as unpopular as the media state.

[Tatler Jack]

What you're saying make you seem like you nothing about GAA or this topic, and hoped on this page and starting ranting because the players would do anything if it meant getting rid of FM and a hell lot of Cork people would do the same. They've faught him for years and you don't think they want to get rid of him, you think they are enjoying all of this, I promise you they are not. FM is singlehandedly destroying Cork GAA and the day the sun shines again in Cork is the day he leaves. Don't make assumptions on things you know little about, because it makes you look like an idiot and it's been debated to death on here.

Reillers you are reverting to form i.e when unable to deal with an argument you accuse people of not knowing anything. I am nearly 40 years involved in the GAA - played the games, and had involvement in administration at club and county level. And I have lived in Cork for a long time and still do a bit for the local club. I would be fairly confident I know a lot more about the GAA than you do - the good and the bad. You sound to me like a typical fellow who has never lived outside his county and never had to engage in serious debate on any issue. I am no idiot Reillers - I think if you are looking for idiots look a bit closer home!!

As regards FM I have heard for years the myth that "he cant be got rid of". But I am a logical person and I look for evidence and nobody has ever provided me with any. The rest of your stuff about Frank is the usual guff I have heardlong before I came to Cork - again plenty of generalisations. And if peoploe feel so strongly why don't they put in a motion to the annual conventionvia their clubs to at least debate the role of the County Secretary and maybe limiit his powers. If I felt as strongly as you do Reillers thats what I would do. I asked you before on a couple of occassions if you tried to submit a motion to the recent comvention on any issiue addressing the  shortcomings in the CB - surprisingly I got no response. Have you attended any meeting recently of your club to discuss this whole fiasco - I have. Marching through Cork city on a tide of emotion and Rebels Abu jingoism is easy stuff - getting stuck in at club level is where you change things.

[passedit]

Reillers you are reverting to form i.e when unable to deal with an argument you accuse people of not knowing anything. I am nearly 40 years involved in the GAA - played the games, and had involvement in administration at club and county level.

More shame on you then when you come out with shit like this:

If the players managed to get rid of Gerald tomorrow, get somebody in who would let them have their own way and guarantee the careers (and commercial activities) of some of the longer serving players

[Tatler Jack]

More shame on you then when you come out with shit like this

Can you elaborate Passedit. Your occassional contributions to this debate are very much of the one line variety. If you have an argument with some evidence that contradicts my point I am willing to listen. But from what I have seen of your posts they are very much supportive of the "CB are dysfunctional" view but without any supporting argument. Maybe you have some knowledge of the Cork CB that I do not have  - I have given my views here based on what I know of the GAA in Cork and some of the people who have been involved in the CB. I know some of these peope feel deeply hurt by the slurs cast on them - I know them as decent hardworking men who do their best in a voluntary capacity.

However Passedit if you have other information or evidence I have an open mind. 

[passedit]

I know some of these peope feel deeply hurt by the slurs cast on them

Yet you portray the players as motivated by greed?

[realrebel]

tatler jack
we are assuming that reillers is indeed involved with a club

[Reillers]

What you're saying make you seem like you nothing about GAA or this topic, and hoped on this page and starting ranting because the players would do anything if it meant getting rid of FM and a hell lot of Cork people would do the same. They've faught him for years and you don't think they want to get rid of him, you think they are enjoying all of this, I promise you they are not. FM is singlehandedly destroying Cork GAA and the day the sun shines again in Cork is the day he leaves. Don't make assumptions on things you know little about, because it makes you look like an idiot and it's been debated to death on here.

Reillers you are reverting to form i.e when unable to deal with an argument you accuse people of not knowing anything. I am nearly 40 years involved in the GAA - played the games, and had involvement in administration at club and county level. And I have lived in Cork for a long time and still do a bit for the local club. I would be fairly confident I know a lot more about the GAA than you do - the good and the bad. You sound to me like a typical fellow who has never lived outside his county and never had to engage in serious debate on any issue. I am no idiot Reillers - I think if you are looking for idiots look a bit closer home!!

As regards FM I have heard for years the myth that "he cant be got rid of". But I am a logical person and I look for evidence and nobody has ever provided me with any. The rest of your stuff about Frank is the usual guff I have heardlong before I came to Cork - again plenty of generalisations. And if peoploe feel so strongly why don't they put in a motion to the annual conventionvia their clubs to at least debate the role of the County Secretary and maybe limiit his powers. If I felt as strongly as you do Reillers thats what I would do. I asked you before on a couple of occassions if you tried to submit a motion to the recent comvention on any issiue addressing the  shortcomings in the CB - surprisingly I got no response. Have you attended any meeting recently of your club to discuss this whole fiasco - I have. Marching through Cork city on a tide of emotion and Rebels Abu jingoism is easy stuff - getting stuck in at club level is where you change things.

No, you asked things that have been covered by this topic 100 times over.
FM runs things in Cork, and people in Cork GAA, most of them anyway, want more then anything him gone, like I said it is something you'd know if you were up with this topic.
Maybe it's not "guff" do you ever think for a second that it's real and genuine, of course not.
And why don't they put forward a motion, again you're making points that people who know about what's going on wouldn't make and yet again it's been debated to death here.
Again making assumptions with no proof, you've no idea how much grafting that's going on here at this club and how much we're debating down here, but it's easy for ou to make assumptions when you've no idea.

[Tatler Jack]

FM runs things in Cork, and people in Cork GAA, most of them anyway, want more then anything him gone, like I said it is something you'd know if you were up with this topic

How do you know that most of the people in Cork GAA want Frank gone?

And why don't they put forward a motion, again you're making points that people who know about what's going on wouldn't make and yet again it's been debated to death here.

It has not been debated to death here - you and a couplle of others have come up with some ridicolous views as to why a motion could not go forward. I am pretty well up on GAA matters in Cork Reillers.

Again making assumptions with no proof, you've no idea how much grafting that's going on here at this club and how much we're debating down here, but it's easy for ou to make assumptions when you've no idea.

I made no assumptions Reillers about your club involvement. I asked a question that you have evaded i.e did you try to get a motion to the convention or did you raise any issue about Cork CB at your own clubs AGM?

I