PROGRAMME PLUS – VOLUME 1, NUMBER 3, MARCH 25 th , 2016 It seems the time has flown by since the last edition of Programme Plus, and you are all very welcome to the third issue. In particular I want to say a special hello to eight-year-old Jerry O’Connor who plays with the Clooney-Quin club in Clare and who loves his G.A.A. facts and stats according to his mother, Niamh. Jerry has brought the average age of subscribers tumbling down, and it’s great to see one of the younger brigade showing such an interest. Make sure to keep all of your match programmes safe Jerry, and I hope you will enjoy a lifetime of collecting! The constant highlighting of this bulletin in Allianz League programmes is paying off, with new addresses being added to the list of subscribers week after week. At this stage the number of recipients has more than doubled since the first issue, and that’s a fantastic boost. It’s important to note that there’s no right or wrong way to be a collector; all of us have our quirks, and it’s rare to find two collectors with the exact same approach. Some like to operate under the radar, while others are more vocal and ‘out there’. Whatever your modus operandi, never forget that it’s a hobby first and foremost, to be enjoyed in whatever way you see fit; and whether you’re a long-established collector or a newcomer, this information bulletin is for everyone and all are welcome. I’m delighted to say that I have received three guest contributions this month, so I will proceed without delay. First up is Liam Rabbitte from Galway whom I thank for this interesting piece: WHY DO I COLLECT? A FEW THOUGHTS BY LIAM RABBITTE ‘Following on from James’s article last month, I decided to put a few thoughts together on why I collect G.A.A. memorabilia. Like James I was always collecting something. It started with books, beermats, coins, stamps, callcards (that didn’t last too long with the arrival of mobile phones); history books, for which I still have a passion. Unfortunately, 1916 is putting serious dent in the discretionary spending budget. Finally I settled on G.A.A., becoming a more serious collector in the last ten years. ‘Why do people collect? Maybe it’s partial OCD but I don’t think this is the answer in my case. As Sheldon in the ‘Big Bang Theory’ said: ‘My momma had me tested’. Or maybe it is a follow on from an average playing career in the G.A.A. to replacing it with something you could be middling good at? My career in hurling lasted until I was 14, something I regret giving up on. I dabbled in hurling in college and Junior football in Leitrim to some degree but it was never the same. My golden years were past. ‘I think one of the core reasons why I collect is the urge to complete a task. Something drives me to keep collecting until, for example, a set of programmes is complete. Last week a fellow collector sent me the first Galway hurling game in Leinster, versus Laois in 2009. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to that game due to family commitments. This programme completes the 20-plus programmes from Galway’s adventures in Leinster. It came out of the blue but I was blown away by Tom’s efforts in tracking down this programme. Of greater significance was the front cover which featured my neighbour Michael Joe Badger (a great Turloughmore Gael) who played for Galway in the 1949 semi- final against Laois. Sadly he is now deceased and it only came to my attention recently that he played for the county. Interestingly, his grandson, Ronan Badger, played Minor for Galway a few years ago and made his way onto the cover of the Hogan Stand annual for the hurling final. ‘One passion I currently have is attempting to collect Galway’s games in Munster between 1959 and 1969. Eleven years and amazingly only one win against Clare in 1961.So that makes twelve programmes to collect. I picked up the first programme from Peter Geoffroy a few years ago. I currently have seven from that set of twelve. Thanks to a fellow collector I received three programmes recently. You might wonder of the significance of this collection to me. My father’s first cousin, Seamus Murphy, played in some games in the latter stages of the failed Munster experiment. Furthermore my local club, Turloughmore, were county champions for six years from 1961 to 1966 in Galway, which is still a record that they hold to this day. Some of the names on the Galway team of that era are familiar to me. ‘As G.A.A. memorabilia is so broad, one has to have boundaries and limits as space and family dictate how much collecting one can carry out. Currently space is limited. However, I look forward to the day when my man cave is set up with appropriate shelving ready to neatly arrange all the collected books and programmes that I have so carefully collected. I keep the majority of programmes and G.A.A. reference books close to hand as they lend themselves to my other passion - that of quizzes. ‘I regularly set table quizzes for people and in particular for Scór. Scór possibly unbeknownst to a lot of collectors is the cultural wing of the G.A.A. There are eight events and one of these is the quiz. It might resonate with some collectors as the event where you stood out on the stage in a small country hall with 200 people staring up at you, awaiting the dreaded question. Knees knocking, you prayed not to make a fool of yourself in answering the given question. Before the format changed to the current table quiz, I was lucky enough to get to six Senior All-Irelands and win two, in 2010 and 2012. Although they were for a club in Co. Leitrim, this club is still close to my heart and I regularly go back there at weekends. Under the new format of table quiz, I had the honour of being Máistir na gCeist for the Senior quiz in 2014. Following on from that I have a small collection of Scór programmes in my collection of G.A.A. memorabilia. ‘First and foremost I am a Galway man, so it’s Galway programmes and books that are my main passion. One little side project is collecting club histories from Co. Galway. The editor recently praised Tipperary for their club histories. I would throw Galway into the mix there. Like the hurling last Sunday week between the Galway and Tipperary teams, there is nothing between the two counties. I have approximately 40 club histories from Co. Galway. Maybe they aren’t as sought out and voluminous as the Tipperary ones but, picking three off the top of my head such as Ardrahan (co- authored by collector Tom Greene), Meelick-Eyrecourt (sold out to my knowledge) and Portumna’s (author - local historian John Joe Colwell), they would rival any club histories published. At some stage I will have all the covers scanned and will be able to send them to any other collector if needs be. There will be some gaps such as Killimor and Athenry’s two efforts. This leads me on nicely to talk of recent publications in Galway/Roscommon: • Barna , an A4 book of 116 pages costing €10. Barna is a club just out the west side of Galway city. It was published around December, 2015, as part of 50-year celebrations. Despite being a young club they have a good under-age set-up and could be a team to be reckoned with in the future of Galway football. • Glinsk , a small club on the Roscommon border, this A5 book of 169 pages costing €10 was authored by Lawrence Cunningham. It is the second club history produced after ‘The Monks Field’. The author has also written a few other books. • Creggs, cheating a bit here - a Roscommon club on the Galway border, an A4 book of 168 pages costing €15. It appears to have been put together by the committee. Interestingly enough they won the county cup in 1960 as United Stars and had Mattie McDonagh playing with them in the late 1970s. • Galway Juvenile Hurling Board published a book in 2015 entitled ‘Caoga Bliain ag Imirt 1965 -2015. Costing €15 and 292 pages, it has everything - statistics, colour photos, information on officers and musings from most clubs. It is an update on the 2005 publication entitled ‘Coiste Iomána na nÓg ag Fás’ which came in at 263 pages. • Pádraig Pearses , formed in 1966 in the Gurteen/Ballymacward area, plan to launch this book later in the year as part of the celebrations for 50 years on the go. The club has a full schedule of events for the year tying in with 1916 and 1966, the year of their founding. I will revert with further details in later newsletters when I have more details. ‘The editor (Alan) mentioned Bonniconlon in a previous issue. I know they published a book approximately two years ago. It would be similar to the Glinsk book, A5 and priced at €10. I do know that two clubs in Mayo have recently published books: Tourmakeady and Lacken Sarsfields. If time permits I hope to provide details about them for the next magazine.