The onus is on the clubs to step up and drive softball forward in 2025, writes Paul Fitzpatrick.
A few years ago, at the height of the pandemic and with very strict restrictions in place, I was asked by my editor to write a short piece about what I missed most.
And this is what I wrote:
“Walking up to the 60x30 handball alley in Virginia and hitting the ball around on my own is what I will enjoy most when all of this is over. ‘Tipping about’ is how handball players describe it. It might seem boring to the sane of mind but there is something therapeutic about spending half an hour doing this.
“I’m not talking about working intensely on particular shots. That’s the preserve of the really good players. The best players were, at one time or other, slaves to the lonely hours behind that door, between those four walls, perfecting their craft until each shot becomes instinctive.
“At my level of play, that isn’t the case (that’s one of the reasons why I am at this level, obviously). An odd time, I would go to the alley to practise certain shots if there was a competition coming up but mostly, handball sharpness comes from playing good training games, trying as hard you can when you’re playing them.
“No, I mean a half an hour on your own, with a ball and four walls, hearing the thwock of rubber on concrete. Now, it has to be a good ball – every handballer hates a bad ball, one that’s dead. Over-hitting the ball is hard on the shoulders and no fun.
“When all of this is over, I’m going to get a good ball and warm it up and go to the alley. Strike a few with the left, a few with the right, a few kills here and there with no particular purpose in mind, just the enjoyment that comes from the solitude, getting lost in hitting the ball. I miss that.”
The pandemic prompted a near-existential crisis for the sport. Most players I spoke to at that time were very disillusioned and GAA Handball themselves issued a very strongly-worded statement expressing their frustration that the powers-that-be were so slow to lift the restrictions.
And while there was a rush back to the courts when they re-opened, in hindsight, that was a sort of fast-food fix, a sugar rush which lacked nutritional value.
Long-established juvenile programmes had been halted, people had gotten out of the habit of playing and volunteering. Post-Covid, handball was on its knees.
It’s amazing, then, to think of where we are now, a few short years on. Two weeks out from Christmas, with the never-ending handball season finally slowing down a little, we can take stock.
Interest levels are sky high, with clubs re-energised. Some clubs which were almost extinct have risen from the ashes; others, which were ticking along within their comfort zones, have pushed on to a new level.
At the elite end of things, are games are being very well packaged; the 4-Wall show court at the National Handball Centre provides a fitting arena for our best players, as we saw in the recent World Championships.
While wallball has its detractors, it is a very positive thing for the sport. It’s cheap, accessible and easy to learn (but difficult to master).
The World Wallball Championships in Limerick were a very ambitious undertaking and proved successful, with the American male players in particular adding hugely to the event – and showing the Irish just where the bar is at in this code.
Wallball is a street game over there and that’s fine; the best elements of that should be retained – the grittiness, the colour – as the product is tweaked.
Because, make no mistake, a product is what it is and that’s how the handball community has to be thinking. In terms of sporting options for young people, the competition has never been so intense, so handball must project the best possible version of itself to the outside world.
We, as handball players, now how great the game is but the onus is on us to continue to drive the game forward.
I mentioned the wallball detractors earlier – some of those are purists whose favourite game is softball and who feel threatened by wallball, feeling it is eating into their time of year and attracting kids, like a magnet, away from the imposing 180 square feet cathedral of a court and into the new and flashy and, let’s face it, easier (to begin with) wallball game.
As a person who favours softball above all other codes, I can see where this school of thought is emanating from but it doesn’t have to be like that. The reality is that change, to be sustainable, must come from the bottom up.
We can see with the equal promotion in 2024 of all our codes – even the hardball, which caters to only adult male players, was streamed live on the Spórt TG4 YouTube channel – that there is no bias or anything of the sort towards any particular codes.
The truth is that it is the softball clubs who must drive that great game on. Wexford is a terrific example – there is a county which really takes the game of softball seriously. There are well-organised county leagues and championships, in which players must wear their club colours. The finals attract good crowds and are well promoted. Softball is very much alive in the south-east.
I spoke to Tony Breen, the county secretary, ahead of the Irish Softball Nationals last summer, for a piece on GAAHandball.ie.
“We promote softball very strongly throughout the season. We have an enormous amount of competitions, leagues, we have them all sponsored. Softball is really important to everybody here,” Tony told me.
“The general public seem to know of it and because our 60x30 courts are spread throughout the county, there are really 60x30 courts in a lot of parts of the county so therefore softball is played around the county.
“We really don’t have any part of the county where there isn’t any softball so softball is huge here and it’s really important to us.”
There is a lesson in that. In Wexford – as in other places, but I am just using Wexford as an example – they take the big alley game very seriously and hold it in the highest regard.
Many handball people will say they love softball but the obvious rebuttal is this: if you love it, why do you treat it so poorly?
The last major innovation in the game of softball was in the 1970s, when the ball was dyed red so as to be easier to follow on RTE’s Top Ace television programme. The game boomed then; in the intervening years, it has slipped back to the point where, this year, shockingly, an All-Ireland Minor Singles final was not played.
If anything good comes of that, it should be that it was the point at which, in years to come, we will look back and say that softball bottomed out.
It’s easy to make excuses but they don’t stand up to scrutiny. GAA Handball have added a Softball Féile which has been poorly supported and a Softball Nationals event, tailoring the grades to ensure good participation.
A fabulous softball court has been constructed at the home of the GAA in Croke Park. Our big softball matches are streamed to a potentially vast audience. There are Regional Development Officers in place who don’t discriminate against any code. The support, categorically, is there from Croke Park.
Going back to my earlier point, it’s important to say too that wallball is far from the enemy – in fact, it might be the best friend softball could have. Players are players and, in handball, we want and need them all. If wallball gets them in the door, it might be softball which keeps them there. If not, who cares so long as they are playing handball anyway.
But the onus is on us, as softball players and supporters, to steady the ship and then get it back on the right course.
To ensure this magnificent game thrives and prospers as it did, the grassroots simply must step up – and that includes everyone, including, for the record, my own club.
That means better facilities, better local promotion, more coaching, more tournaments and – and this is very important – more tournaments. If all of that sounds like hard work, well, that’s because it is – but there is no other way.
There is energy in the wider sport of handball now and momentum. Let 2025 be the year when softball clubs decide they will promote the game better, introduce more children to it, run more events and encourage their members to attend on the big days.
If you are a softball player, you have been given, by someone, a great gift and you have a responsibility to pay it forward.
Let’s all get together and make 2025 the year that softball bounced back – because, as the saying goes, what’s worth having is worth fighting for!
Comments