I have read many considered pieces over the last couple of months on the subject of fixtures in the GAA. The words that kept cropping up most were 'amend', 'reform', 'improve', 'adjust' and, my favourite, 'recalibrate'. The general drift has been that this period of inactivity is an opportunity for a major overhaul of the fixtures calendar.
o whose job is this? Should it be driven from the top or the bottom? In most organisations, the generals give the orders and the troops march. This would be a great time for the full-time staff in Croke Park, who are free at the moment from the running of games, to come up with a plan for the future.
That is the role of executives in business and it should be the same in the GAA. This is not the time for a bottom-up approach.
In that context, it would have been nice if we had something to debate during this quiet time. Theodore Roosevelt once said that "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
As of now there are many areas where we are doing nothing, even if there are some justifications on the playing side as the GAA are bound by at least some of the health guidelines.
Yet what would be wrong with a master fixtures plan coming from Croke Park with a complete revision of the season and a rebalancing between county and club? Are there no opinions on any of these matters?
Many commentators feel that things will never be the same again with fixtures; that a new dawn will come where the 98 per cent who are exclusively club players will be put first. Don't hold your breath on that one. There is no revolution coming. It looks like this great chance will pass.
The famous French writer Simone De Beauvoir once said that "if you live long enough you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat."
She hardly followed football or hurling, but human behaviour does not change.
I had hoped this lockdown would give people time and a chance to think and to ponder the big question. What should the GAA be about? Is it going to be a commercial train which becomes even more elitist or could there be a rebalancing, a mass movement with an add on, not the other way round?
On Friday, the GAA said it will soon be publishing a document about how it plans on safely getting the show back on the road. I would love to see more than one document from the GAA about the future.
This all starts and ends with fixtures, fixtures, fixtures . . . It should mean that equity and certainty dominate and the GAA could make some fairly minor changes to deliver what people want from it. All we need are good leaders.
There is growing impatience with the present restrictions - John Greene highlights those elsewhere on this page - and we are better to get our youth back playing in a structured manner because there are a lot of disorganised games going on in this good weather.
There has to be a balancing of risks. Mental health in young people is something I have written about on many occasions. It is a problem that I feel is getting worse, and this crisis has put even more stress and anxiety into families, many cannot cope with it. Now we can all have ideas about why young people appear to have less resilience than previous generations, but the GAA are facing the Roosevelt choice - do the right thing, the wrong thing or nothing for those young players.
The price of nothing is an increase in mental illness. There are many young people who are very happy to have been locked away with a device all day and doing schoolwork was a great excuse. Then they could live in a make-believe world. There is a huge fall off in playing sport between the ages of 15 and 18 and there is a real danger that a very big number will not bother coming back to Gaelic games at all.
If you can get a young boy or girl to keep playing until the age of 20 then you probably have a player for another decade and maybe a club official after that. Lose them now and they are gone forever.
That might not be a major problem for town or city clubs. Good committed players might not grow on trees but there could be a long queue. In rural clubs, if you lose a few it could be the end of that team in underage competition. If a club can't field they are looking at amalgamation, or the rest of the players just drift away. It is easy to put on big headphones and live in an artificial world. So it is not just playing, winning, losing, training or complaining that is at stake. It is the survival of clubs.
None of this means that we are indifferent to suffering, or promoting some sort of reckless or cavalier approach.
For the record, I have said all along that the Minister for Education should not have made any decision on the Leaving Cert two months ago. It should be going ahead next week despite all the State Examinations Commission's misgivings. There is always an easy way to avoid doing anything and schools should have been left to carry out the exams with the help of GAA halls and other local facilities if necessary, including primary schools. If you never take a chance in life then you never win the race.
And while I'm at it, there can be no good reason why small shops are being kept closed while bigger shops and multinationals are trading away selling furniture, clothes and a variety of other goods.
I have changed my mind a little when it comes to which games should take place first - county or club? I had favoured club but maybe the other way around is better. If county football and hurling return with knock-out competitions (with the lower tier championships running in tandem) it could all finish within a couple of months. Clubs could be tipping away with league games and then move into championships later in the year. Most clubs play no games in October and November in any year, but they can be far better months than February and March when it comes to the weather.
So in football, why not go for a knock-out county championship with Division 1 teams drawn away to Division 3 teams and Division 2 against 4? Winners keep on going with the losers into the B championship and both finals together in Croke Park - with or without a crowd. Underage football should be restarted within a couple of weeks. Social distancing is finished with for most young people - just look in your local park or housing estate today. So we are back to Roosevelt and decisions.
When I go to the doctor and he advises something I certainly take that opinion on board and typically will decide to go with professional guidance. Yet there were occasions in the past when I was glad that I played games against medical advice. The GAA have big decisions to make and they need to start doing so quickly. Caution was fine, but we must get moving again quickly and safely. Friday's announcement that some clubs can open their walking tracks is a start. But pitches remain closed for now. The golf clubs have someone on the gate to monitor who is allowed in. GAA clubs could follow suit and they know better than any medics how to mind their members. We need to take the chains off the gates and get people back on the pitches.
