Mayo needs to keep its best young talent at home

Learning to control 'the controllables'

“Control the controllables,” a phrase born in sports psychology but now woven into everyday life.

It’s good advice too, especially in a week when the leaders of China and Russia are musing about organ transplants and living to 150.

Best not to dwell on what’s beyond us. Better to focus on what we can change.

In Mayo, however, we’ve let dereliction and vacancy spin completely out of control. The housing emergency remains the number one issue raised at political clinics.

With students now heading off to college, the shortage of accommodation comes into sharper focus once more. It happens every September, like clockwork.

But let’s not normalise it. The greatest danger in this crisis is the apathy.

So many of our young people see no light at the end of the tunnel, or, worse, feel like finding a life partner, having a family and settling somewhere comfortable and affordable is nigh-on impossible.

Even the most comfortable in society should be outraged, not just because you need them to pay your pension, but because housing is the barrier holding Ireland back across every aspect of life. People feel like their futures are slipping beyond their control.

And so, inevitably, the GAA world is pulled into politics again. Jim Gavin’s move towards a Fianna Fáil presidential candidacy echoes a pattern we know well here via Alan Dillon. He silenced doubters in 2020, and is now rising through the ranks as a junior minister.

Yet if the GAA can produce political operators of that calibre after retirement, why not use that same ingenuity to improve life for current players?

Andy Moran is a case in point.

Back in 2021, Mayo reached another All-Ireland final. As one supporter memorably told him: “The only time we met our families was at football or funerals.”

That summed up the decade.

Andy extended his career not through luck, but by taking control himself. He swapped the endless car journeys of a medical rep for life as a gym owner, with structure, exercise, and a clear plan for him and his family. We all reaped the benefit as supporters on great days in Croke Park.

Now as manager, Andy brings the same mantra - control the controllables. And he’ll need to.

He has full access to the best of Mayo footballing talent, but he also has to keep them close.

That 2021 side thrived under lockdown conditions, when remote workers and students were forced to stay local.

No more endless commutes to Dublin, no more mismatched training schedules. For once, the county board had full control of its players. But when normality returned, we squandered the chance. The result? A farcical situation where some of our best footballers lived in a warehouse outside the M50.

How out of control is that?

Thankfully, employment in Mayo is less of a stumbling block than it used to be. Wages in the private sector may not be on par, yet generally the cost of living is lower.

The real issue in modern Mayo is housing - getting players the keys to their own homes in the communities that nurtured them.

And in that, winning an All-Ireland might actually be easier. Can you really ask players to come home, work their 9-5 and pay half their wages in rent? Could they not do that in Dublin?

Kerry GAA has shown what’s possible. Last year, they linked their demographic officer with the county council and housing department.

By holding clinics, advertising via shared resources, they made progress. The Kingdom leads the way with over 900 applications for vacancy grants by October 2024.

In Mayo, we lag behind yet again, reaching only 800 by July 2025. That’s despite having 7,452 vacant homes alone, not even derelict yet and ones that could be brought back into use with relatively little work.

Andy has plenty to worry about on the pitch, but imagine the weight his positive voice and those of other GAA and LGFA stars could lend to a housing campaign.

Imagine their power highlighting what’s available to other young people here, footballers or not.

His former teammate Alan Dillon is right when he says “money alone will not solve the issue.”

Perhaps it’s time for the GAA to lean fully into politics for its wider societal benefits. The demographic crisis is unsettling the tradition of storied clubs the length and breadth of Mayo.

Due to its prowess, the GAA will always produce politicians, but the GAA is often too tepid in taking on issues that politicians would warmly welcome a helping hand by using its vast array of volunteers, embedded in each parish in the county, and finally once and for all tackling the blight of vacancy and dereliction.

Because if we can’t get our young people into homes in their communities, we’ll keep losing far more than All-Irelands.