New Mayo GAA book will ‘provoke debate’
John P Kean pictured at his book launch with two-time All-Star David Clarke, who was goalkeeper on Kean's Mayo minor teams in 2000 and 2001.
A newly-published book by former Mayo footballer and underage manager John P Kean ‘will provoke an awful lot of debate among supporters and people who have a real interest in taking Mayo to the next level’.
That’s according to former Mayo star Kevin O’Neill, who launched John P Kean’s book, on Saturday night in Castlebar.
A huge crowd turned out upstairs in Johnny McHale’s Bar for the launch.
O’Neill was effusive in his praise for the Claremorris man’s memoir.
Describing it as ‘a great read’, he quipped there is ‘definitely a Netflix series in it!’
“This genuinely is not just a great sporting book but there are so many lessons to be learned from it. We can be incredibly proud as a football county for all your dedication and lifetime of work JP,” said O’Neill.
“It is getting up to Christmas. We’re all looking forward. There’s a new bit of optimism. We’ve a new manager, we’re just advertising for a new CEO, we’re investing in facilities but the two things that really stand out from JP’s book is the under-investment in coaching. We all try, we’re an amateur organisation but there is a huge amount of money spent on the senior team and less so on some of the underage teams. It is something that we need to rebalance over the next couple of years if we want to get over the line.
“The facilities, the CEO and all that is great too, but the other thing JP talks about is we have to produce more natural forwards, and it has to be a huge focus for us over the next couple of years, and you only do that by having coaches across the clubs and across the schools and that requires a huge amount of investment. We already have a lot of great volunteers working in the game here in Mayo and we just need to enhance those existing people but also bring more people into the fold,” he added.
The book deals with Kean’s underage and senior playing career with club, county and UCD; his experience as a Mayo minor and U16 manager and based on those experiences, a critique of the administration of Mayo GAA.
Kean said he it was ‘humbling’ to see how many people turned up at the launch.
He said that over the last two decades, he tried to encourage change in Mayo GAA but that figures in the association have responded by trying to ‘silence and exclude’ him. He said he would put his record of service to Mayo GAA ‘against most of my elite establishment critics any day’.
He welcomed the news from two nights previously that Mayo GAA are seeking a full-time CEO.
“Mayo GAA may just have taken steps into the 21st century with plans to appoint a full-time CEO. Here’s hoping the successful candidate will, over time, change the entire culture of Mayo GAA and give due acknowledgement to the grassroot support to whom it belongs,” he said.
is on sale now in all good bookshops and online at mayobooks.ie.
