COMMENT: The future in hand, it is time the GAA began to nurture its past

Nothing says progress quite like the cutting of a ribbon and, this Monday, the future will be looking very rosy indeed for the GAA.

The Association's new 30-acre national development centre in Abbotstown opens for business next week and there is no doubt some stars of tomorrow will be nurtured on the four sand-based, floodlit pitches. Wonderful as the development of a central training base of professional standards is, it is no less than what should be expected from any sporting governing body with annual revenues in excess of €50million. There are other services and facilities one might expect a sporting organisation of the GAA's size to have as standard, such as a readily available results archive. Or playing statistics, like appearances and scoring records. Or league tables. Or match attendances. Or team line-ups. Good luck with that. Above is a picture Brian Roper of Donegal and Michael Monaghan of Cork battling for possession in an Allianz Football League fixture from 18 years ago. What was the score? Where was the game played? How many substitutes did Larry Tompkins use? Wikipedia tells us Donegal won 2-14 to 1-9 but, without delving into newspapers archives, that is as much information as we can get readily to hand. The GAA's website underwent something of a facelift recently too, but those hoping GAA.ie 2.0 would feature the archives it was so desperately lacking were left disappointed. Above is one of the GAA's most recognisable faces, Joe Brolly, breaking away from Monaghan's Noel Marron in a 1998 Allianz Football League semi-final. An All-Ireland champion in 1993, a four-time League winner and double Ulster SFC winner but how many times did Gaelic football's most voluble pundit play for his county? Does anyone know? Does Brolly himself have any idea? Brolly's wonderful career and legacy are not, of course, harmed by the lack of an online resource. But it doesn't enhance it either. Those who saw him play will remember the unerring frees, the timely goals and the blown kisses, but try to assess whether Brolly or one of his contemporaries - say, for fun, fellow Sunday Game pundit Colm O'Rourke - had a bigger impact on the game and it quickly descends into a bar stool argument. Lots of fun but not terribly informative. Compare this to rugby or football where, with the click of a button, you can find out who played outside centre for Ireland in the 12-3 win over Scotland during the 1939 Four Nations (Harry McKibbin) or how many goals Gary Doherty scored for Luton in 1998/99 season (six). This is not just a journalist's moan (even if it is written by a moaning journalist), this is about enriching and deepening everyone's knowledge our national games. Wouldn't it be interesting to be able to find out how many players Rory Kavanagh has used in his time in charge of Donegal, compared to the first 18 months of Jim McGuinness's reign? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to find out who was a more accurate free-taker, Henry Shefflin or Eoin Kelly? This information is available for the last 21 seasons in RTÉ commentator Brian Carthy's Championship annuals, while many local GAA historians do sterling work compiling more than a century's worth of information for individual counties, but is it not in the Association's own interest to compile this information in one central, freely available resource? One hero was fighting the good fight with a wonderful website GAAinfo.ie, but that disappeared last year and the void is only compounded by the growing emphasis on statistical analysis in the modern game. Stephen Rochford can tell you how many kilometres Keith Higgins ran/aquaplaned in Dr Hyde Park last Sunday but don't ask how many times Willie Joe Padden lined out for Mayo in League and Championship. The likes of Scrum.com and Soccerbase are commercial concerns run and funded by ESPN and the Racing Post respectively, but the Irish market is too small to make football and hurling statistics a profitable endeavour. The GAA are the only organisation with the means, the infrastructure and the vested interest to create a comprehensive archive. For a fraction of what it costs to run the Croke Park Museum they could house and curate 130 years of priceless information - information that could help inspire the future stars being put through their paces in Abbotstown.