RTÉ legend confirmed for Sports Stars Awards
RTÉ commentator Ger Canning is the special guest at Friday's Western People Mayo Sports Stars Awards, a limited number of tickets for which are still available.
Some of the elite figures in Mayo sport will assemble in Breaffy House Hotel this Friday night as the gets ready to host the 52nd Mayo Sports Stars Awards.
A staple of the social calendar since 1970, the Mayo Sports Stars Awards celebrate and acknowledge the tremendous successes of sportspeople from a county that continuously punches above its weight. The achievements of so many Mayo athletes throughout 2023, across a rich and diverse range of sports and on national and international stages, should serve as an inspiration to us all.
In the following pages you will read about some incredible deeds and performances by this year's 20 award recipients, some of which, dare I say, are even beyond comprehension. Like could you personally imagine running over 143 kilometres in half a day, as Adrian McNamara did on New Year’s Eve? Or running a marathon while undergoing chemotherapy, like Rita Casey did last October? Or being labelled the best player on the then No.1 ranked rugby team in the world, like Caelan Doris? It got even better when the Lacken native captained his country for the first time in last Sunday’s Six Nations whitewash victory against Italy.
But all of that is to merely scratch the surface with regard to what was another glorious twelve months for Mayo sport.
I would also like to say how much of a pleasure it is to confirm that the renowned RTÉ Sport commentator Ger Canning will be the special guest at this year’s Mayo Sports Stars Awards. Not only is his voice one of the most recognisable in Irish broadcasting, it’s one of the most respected.
From Olympic Games to FIFA World Cups to greyhound racing and even hockey, it’s still for his brilliance as a GAA commentator that Ger is perhaps best known. And to say he had big boots to fill is something of an understatement; when becoming the main Gaelic games commentator on RTÉ television in 1985, his predecessor was none other than the legendary Micheál O’Hehir.
Just think of the responsibility Ger Canning has shouldered when providing live commentary on nearly 75 All-Ireland senior football and hurling finals. Oft times his muse behind the mic has been this year’s Hall of Fame recipient, Martin Carney. The pair, Carney as co-commentator, became as familiar a presence in our living room on championship Sundays as the waft of mother’s roast beef.
Both men were born in 1951, both were secondary school teachers, both were at the 1989 All-Ireland SFC Final in Croke Park – Carney on the bench for Mayo, Canning in the Hogan Stand commentating on a victory for his native Cork. Neither could never have envisaged the tale of woe – eleven consecutive All-Ireland SFC Final defeats – that was to follow for Mayo.
“Two own goals. When have you seen that?” gasped Ger, during his commentary of the 2016 draw between Mayo and Dublin. “That’s absolutely extraordinary. Is that a record? I’ve never heard of that before,” sighed Martin, audibly crestfallen beside Ger yet remaining impartial and professional to the last.
You see, the name of Martin Carney has been stitched into the Mayo psyche for decades and his family’s connection to all three of Mayo’s All-Ireland SFC triumphs in 1936, 1950 and ’51 is the stuff of legend. And so too is Martin’s own service to the Green and Red.
There’s many a supporter would probably dream as their epitaph, ‘Once played over 100 matches for the Mayo senior football team’. Martin Carney did that having already played almost as many for Donegal, in what was an incredible inter-county career that stretched from 1970 to 1990 at senior level alone.
His achievement of winning two Ulster SFC and four Connacht SFC titles is quite unique – but there are a couple of other things you might not know about Martin. A little over 10 years before Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Packie Bonner wrote his name into the annals of Irish lore by saving a penalty from Romania’s Daniel Timofte at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, he and Carney had lined out together at midfield for Donegal in the National Football League.
That - and many more tales - are sure to be heard on a night that promises to be another glorious celebration of Mayo sport.
