There will presumably be extensive commemorations next year when the National Leagues celebrate their centenary. Peculiarly, there has been little comment on the centenary within the last few days of the first match in the competition, which took place in Strokestown on June 7th, 1925 – 100 years ago last Saturday.
That may be a sweeping assertion in that the first football league competition (its hurling equivalent began later in the year) in 1925-26 had an unwieldy structure and it’s not clear that the players of Leitrim and Roscommon would have necessarily been aware they were playing in a match of such significance.
To reduce running costs, the league was organised on a provincial basis. Leinster was broken into three divisions, Ulster had two – despite which, just one team advanced – whereas Connacht and Munster had one each, making up six qualifiers.
GAA Congress in 1925 gave the go-ahead for the league, but its organisation wasn’t signed off until the following August’s Central Council meeting
The Roscommon-Leitrim match was flagged at the time as a GAA Railway Cup, sponsored by the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR). The better-known Railway Cup for a provincial series didn’t begin for another year. The MGWR version was for a specifically Connacht intercounty competition.
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GAA Congress in 1925 gave the go-ahead for the league, but its organisation wasn’t signed off until the following August’s Central Council meeting, which set up the groups within the provinces.
In Jack Mahon’s History of Gaelic Football, he gives October 11th as the opening fixture in the league, but the association appears to have accepted the MGWR tournament as the supplier of Connacht’s participants, despite it not including Galway.
By coincidence, the year 1925 featured a disastrous championship that involved All-Ireland semi-finalists objecting and counterobjecting to each other. Kerry defeated Cavan and Mayo beat Wexford.
It left Mayo as the last team standing and de facto champions. In The Irish Times at the end of September, Pat’O (PD Mehigan) mentioned in passing: “With Kerry and Cavan ruled out, the title passed to Mayo automatically.”
The problem for Mayo was that, because of an overrunning provincial championship – Roscommon and Sligo took six matches to sort out their quarter-final – they had been nominated rather than actual provincial winners.
Small wonder that Galway broadcaster and historian Jim Carney believes that his county should give that All-Ireland back to Mayo
This created sufficient ambiguity for Galway a month later to be “declared” champions for 1925 – the first Connacht county registered on the roll of honour.
Room for this committee-room coup had been created by the delayed provincial final, played on October 18th. Galway beat Mayo with a late goal. Jack Mahon, in his history, acknowledged “that even Connacht Council officials of the time felt that only the Connacht title was at stake”.
Small wonder that Galway broadcaster and historian Jim Carney believes that his county should give that All-Ireland back to Mayo.
A week afterwards, the MGWR final was played – more than four months after its opening fixture – and Sligo beat Roscommon (again!) to progress in the league.
The hurling equivalent opened in the autumn of that year but was a more compact round-robin with a seven-team Division One. The top two teams were Cork and Dublin and they met in the May 1926 final, played in the old Athletic Grounds, with Cork winning 3-7 to 1-5.
At that stage, the football was still going on. The final wasn’t played until September, in between the draw and replay of that year’s All-Ireland final between Kildare and Kerry.
The purpose of the leagues was originally to raise the standards of football and hurling by providing more matches for counties in the gap between championships
The league’s strange disproportion – three Leinster teams and one from each of the others – meant that Dublin, Laois and Longford reached the first playoffs, together with Antrim, Kerry and Sligo.
Laois beat Kerry and then Sligo to reach the final, whereas Dublin defeated Longford and Antrim. Laois won the final, played in New Ross, on the odd scoreline of 2-1 to 1-0.
Laois were captained by Dick Miller, an uncle of Bobby Miller, the great Laois footballer of the 1970s, who managed Carlow’s Éire Óg to All-Ireland club finals and the county itself to an All-Ireland B title in the 1990s.
Bobby died suddenly when only 55, in 2006. His anniversary was on Tuesday of this week.
The purpose of the leagues was originally to raise the standards of football and hurling by providing more matches for counties in the gap between championships.
The 1920s were an era of rapid expansion of competitions. The leagues were followed by the Railway Cup and the minor (under-18) intercounty championships.
For a long time, the league was an unwieldy structure, stretching from post-All-Ireland autumn until the threshold of the championship summer. Hurling broke first, embracing the calendar year in 1997, although the initial attempts to play it out during the summer months with a final in October were unsuccessful.
Football followed suit in 2002 and the season was transformed into a coherent time frame, which in conjunction with championship reforms, meant that the emphasis would be on sustained performance rather than infrequent, gladiatorial contests.
Munster hurling has been particularly successful in harnessing this, although there is an obvious requirement that more than the three teams who qualify must be in contention
The concept of a league has always been more essential for professional sports, as it brings in guaranteed revenue. In amateur games, knock-out competitions or cups were traditionally more prized, as teams and players weren’t committing to week-in, week-out activities.
That distinction has been largely lost in the GAA’s embrace of round-robin championship formats that bring together teams for more intense competition. Munster hurling has been particularly successful in harnessing this, although there is an obvious requirement that more than the three teams who qualify must be in contention.
Arguably, the Leinster hurling and All-Ireland football round-robins have been a harder sell, but a growing number of people are warming to the format just as it gets abolished for next year, the centenary of the GAA’s first foray into league competition.
