CONNACHT SFC NEW YORK v MAYO: Keith Dugganlooks at how the GAA in New York and other cities may be about to witness a major influx of young footballers

GIVEN the general turmoil that has befallen the country, it seems appropriate this year's All-Ireland football championship should officially begin in the Bronx tomorrow afternoon. Few expect the opening match between New York and Mayo to end in anything other than a win for the visitors. But the exiles' participation in the All-Ireland championship has never been about the result; the football match is the focal point of a weekend that celebrates the emigrant experience and harmonises the sometimes complex relationship between Croke Park and the GAA in New York.

Over the past 10 years, repatriation from the American cities has greatly weakened the standard of Gaelic football in New York and other cities, but the dizzying fall from economic grace suffered by Ireland has seen a sudden reversal in journeys and the pattern of emigration, that was just a few years ago declared to be a 20th century phenomenon, has started again.

And already, the domestic football teams are noticing the effects. Ballina Stephenites, the aristocrats of the game in Mayo, have lost at least six players in the upheaval of the past six months. Aghamore, newly promoted after winning the intermediate championship last autumn, have had to reconfigure their defence when four of their back line decided to leave the country for one reason or another.

"It is hard to predict whether we have lost them permanently or not but they are definitely gone this year," said Tommy Lyons, the former Mayo player who trains the Aghamore underage teams.

"And it is extremely hard to replace these players because it is not just a question of talent but their experience, the commitment as well. So far, we have won two and lost two in the league so our record is not so bad but you can see the changes in the profile of our team - on our last outing, we played 10 players under 20."

Mayo manager John O'Mahony flew out with the majority of the panel on Thursday morning. He said he has heard plenty of anecdotal evidence of players vanishing from the club scene but that the situation has not yet had direct implications for any of the Mayo senior players. But the emerging pattern is easily recognisable to him. During his first period in charge of Mayo, from 1987 to 1991, the issue of high-calibre football players forced to emigrate for work purposes was a constant threat and headache.

As he has alluded to before, trying to persuade business people to find work for players was an unofficial part of any manager's brief. Famously, he went to great lengths to persuade Noel Durkin to train with the Mayo panel during the 1989 season from his base in London, often making the journey to the airport to collect the man himself.

The current recession has afflicted American cities that have traditionally been ports of escape for young Irish people and there has been nothing like the mass cycles of emigration that hit west of Ireland counties like Mayo in the 1980s. But young football players are leaving.

It has been noted four Mayo men are involved in the New York panel for tomorrow's game. O'Mahony knows each of them from the club scene and has clear memories of Robert Moran, the Moy Davitt's man who will captain New York tomorrow, from Mayo's 1999 All-Ireland final side and from playing against a Galway team O'Mahony managed in the under-21 Connacht final a couple of summers later.

"It is worrying," he concedes, "to hear that players are beginning to leave like that. But in GAA terms, nothing is ever definite or final and there could be cases of players returning if their club is doing well in the local championship."

LIAM McHALEis not optimistic about seeing the return of his Ballina players for this year's competition, however. The former midfielder is in the midst of a managerial crisis just weeks before the Mayo championship begins, with five regular players on the injured list further depleting his squad. All-Ireland semi-finalists just two years ago, Ballina are now a vulnerable force; they were beaten by 10 points in a league game against Ballinrobe, a margin that would have been unthinkable not so long ago.

"Things are so bad that I might have to start playing myself," McHale joked. McHale is disappointed to lose so many players but empathises with their reasons for leaving. These were, as he emphasises, guaranteed starters - established Ballina players like Stephen Hughes, Martin Wynne, Kieran Sweeney, Neil O'Dowd, Adrian Kenny. "And Shane Mason, pound for pound our best player, is set to leave shortly," he adds.

The Ballina players originally set out for Australia but have since headed for the American cities, where an ability to kick a football is still a strong calling card. It is a scene that McHale is familiar with; he grew up in Ballina when leaving Ireland seemed inevitable and his ability as a football player and a basketball player led to several offers to go to the States. But he limited his experiences there to summer football.

"I was in Chicago in the 1980s when clubs probably didn't have two beans to rub together but the Gaelic teams will find work for guys if they can play. They will find something for them to do. I remember being in Chicago one summer and we were just driving around supervising buildings, having the craic and playing football.

"It has its attractions for lads. There is no major Mayo player gone yet and that is a good thing. But in general, the situation is worrying. There are a lot of young players still in college doing exams and I am not sure there are going to be as many summer jobs to pick up as has been the case for years here now. So we may well see more players leaving over the coming months."

Pat Gavin, the Westport man who has been a long-time member of the Mayo Association in New York, has been living on the far side of Atlantic long enough to become expert in emigration trends.

Already, he has seen families who decided to return to Ireland during the promise of prosperity beginning to drift back to the Irish enclaves of New York, their experimentation with repatriation having failed. He has yet to hear of big-name footballers moving into the city but predicts it is only a matter of time. "Particularly with the announcement that the economy here may be on the rise. I have already seen people moving back and nothing is surer than more will come."

When Gavin first went to the city, in 1962, the state of New York football was peculiarly high, with enough quality players knocking around the boroughs to field two decent intercounty sides.

"This was a time when New York won two leagues. Off the top of my head, they had guys like the Nolans from Offaly, Paddy Cummins from Kildare, the Finns from Louth . . . I could go on and on. Now, I don't believe the game here will ever reach that standard again. They were bad, bad times in Ireland. People didn't come out here for a holiday, they went because they had to go.

"Right now, these championship games are a symbolic thing. And they are hugely important, in particular, for older people living here who don't get the chance to go home and see Mayo in McHale Park or Galway or Roscommon. But it has to be recognised that it is hugely costly for the teams coming out here. Our money comes from the gate so we don't have to do much for that. Look, we love to see the teams coming and meeting them and seeing them run out in Gaelic Park. It is a marvellous thing. But I am not sure that it is sustainable in the long term."

The estimated cost of flying the Mayo party is €80,000; the New York board ships slightly over half the cost. Because this fixture comes in the heart of the third-level examination cycle, it has proven particularly troublesome for several members of the Mayo panel. A few fly out this morning, others will leave directly for JFK directly after the match. The May 10th date meant John O'Mahony had to follow a different training pattern and, between departure on Thursday and returning on Tuesday morning, will probably lose the bones of a fortnight in terms of a training pattern.

THIS IS HISfirst experience bringing a team into Gaelic Park for a championship match but he has come to know and understand the New York GAA experience from visits with Leitrim and Galway.

"These are important occasions and that is why I am supportive of the Connacht Council bringing teams out here. There is a real sense of the entire weekend revolving around the Mayo connections in the city. I mean, I am good friends with Eugene Rooney; we won league medals together in 1970 and he is hosting a function on the Friday night. But from the point of view of the game, it is a defining moment.

"It is often forgotten that Gaelic Park is an astro-turf surface, which will be strange for us. And my experience of games in Gaelic Park is that the atmosphere can be very surreal. Therein lies the danger. Now, I'm fully aware that people expect us to canter in but at the same time, you have to make sure the heads are right."

The New York board can expect Gaelic Park to be full on Sunday afternoon after a weekend of reunion and reminiscence. The match and the conflicting emotions it evokes will, as ever, capture the ambivalence of the emigrant experience in the matter of where home truly is. For Mayo people, getting to see the county team in the flesh - the team they will follow intensely for the rest of the summer - is a treat. But they will shout for the local team. As Pat Gavin points out, some of the best players in New York might watch the game in the bleachers. "Some guys just don't want to play on a team that might get beaten by 20 points."

And overall, the weekend will yet again enforce the tradition of the New York Board for hospitality. Playing football in New York or any of the Irish-American strongholds has always been an official perk for players from home; resident fans and players love to see them coming, even for a weekend but perhaps feel a tinge of envy or homesickness or just plain used when they vanish back to Ireland again. The time when New York teams were capable of challenging for honours is over. It isn't just a matter of having the players. As McHale points out, their situation is impossible.

"Unless a team is playing against other intercounty teams on a regular basis, they can't hope to compete. New York would need to be playing in the league in order to achieve the level of conditioning needed. You could take the Kerry team and put them in New York and unless they were getting good hard games all the time, they wouldn't be able to compete.

"When we took the Mayo team over in 2004, it felt like a championship game for 10 minutes but no more. And that is no reflection on the guys over there. It is just impossible. But it is a great weekend and it is important in terms of maintaining the link with home."

And at a time when Ireland's old vulnerabilities have resurfaced, this championship match is the latest example of the hospitality the New York and other American branches have extended to home. Over the last decade, it has all gone quiet on McLean Avenue but this year, there have been signs the bars and social clubs and GAA organisations are about to experience an upsurge in business. And right now, the clubs in Mayo are beginning to feel the sting.

"It is something we are familiar with," says Lyons. "I remember in 1988, we had a team good enough to win a league title but the following year, a significant number of players left and we found ourselves relegated. And we didn't really make it back up until last year."

It could be that once again, Irish players will find themselves relying on the famous helping hand of New York GAA for reasons that would have been unimaginable a year ago.