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THE KERRY McKEON BLOG ... ISSUE 54

THE  G.A.A. AND  GAMBLING ADDICTION

Oisin McConville was a brilliant free scoring forward on the Armagh team that won their only All Ireland senior football title in 2002. He won two All Star football awards.  He also won an unbelievable sixteen senior county championships with Crossmaglen Rangers, ten senior Ulster titles and six All Ireland senior club titles with his native club. It is one of the most impressive medal haul in the history of the G.A.A. Yet despite his incredible success on the playing field McConville’s personal life was plagued by horrendous problems – gambling addiction. He wrote an excellent book “The Gambler” in 2007 in which he fully outlines the dark and low days, the highs too, of his gambling  addiction years. He now works as an addiction counsellor.

Niall McNamee from Rhode in Co. Offaly was and indeed still is at the age of thirty a wonderful inter county footballer. In recent years Niall too has gone public about his gambling addiction. He started gambling at the age of twelve and spent many dark and lonely days while he struggled with compulsive gambling which eventually cost him close to €200,000. Fortunately for Niall he is now in recovery.

Johnny McGurk was an excellent half back on Derry’s senior All Ireland winning side of 1993 winning an All Star that year. An accountant by trade with a top construction firm in Northern Ireland Johnny sadly later developed a serious gambling addiction which eventually led him to steal from his employers company just to feed his gambling habit. Just a couple of months ago Johnny now aged 50, pleaded guilty to the theft of £572,206 from his employers and was duly sentenced at Antrim Crown Court to ten months in prison.

In 2006 Timmy Dalton, Brian Glasheen and Tadgh Lonergan were county minors in Tipperary, Dalton winning a prestigious All Ireland minor hurling medal that year while Glasheen and Lonergan were involved with the footballers. For the following eight or nine years all three of them hit the bottom in terms of despair due to gambling. They became hugely depressed and suicidal. In 2007 Glasheen’s club reached the intermediate county final and Brian Glasheen arrived half an hour late to the final light training session having been to the bookies all evening. He had €3000 of winnings stuffed inside his football sock scared to leave it in the dressing room. He might as well have left it on the dressing room floor however. It was all gone on losing bets the following day.

These are just a few examples of a curse that is now creeping into the G.A.A. Nobody knows the true extent of it because transactions are private and largely  confidential but it is almost certain that the problem is much greater than we think. The addict, now entrapped, will do whatever he has to do just for one more roll of the dice. It was never easier or more discreet to gamble. No need to be seen making constant visits to the bookmakers office.  Just one touch of your smart phone screen and its done. Many use credit card accounts also, to top up the bookies account. To see as many as ten different top bookmakers logo emblazoned on the shirts of top premiership and championship clubs in England should be enough to tell all of us who is doing well out of gambling. Could match fixing be on the way or is it there already ?  Is it now  time to restrict advertising on gambling like we have done with cigarettes and alcohol ? . Nothing wrong with a bet, we all like a bet , a day at the races and a bit of craic but we do not wish to see anybody get ensnared in it as they sink into debt and despair. The G.A.A. are addressing gambling addiction right now and have  provided counselling to 74 players last year. We all must be aware of it, alive to it and help in whatever way we can. We must not shun it, disregard it or treat it as a taboo subject. We can make an effort to assist  but ultimately as with all addictions the greater effort by far will have to come from the addicts themselves.

Lean  na  Clairsigh

Bye for now

P J McKeon  for  Kerry  McKeon  R.I.P.

 

Lean  na  Clairsigh
Bye for now
P J McKeon    for  Kerry McKeon  R.I.P.