Members of the national panel of inter-county referees pictured presenting a charitable donation of €7,350 for Cancer Care West to outgoing Referee Development Committee Chairperson, Sean Martin.
By John Harrington
The GAA’s national panel of inter-county referees showed the esteem in which they hold outgoing Referee Development Committee Chairperson, Sean Martin, on Wednesday evening when they made a charitable donation of €7,350 to Cancer Care West.
Sean recently underwent treatment at Cancer Care West and so the football and hurling referees were inspired to come together to organise the fundraiser and in the process show their appreciation for Sean himself.
Cancer Care West provides people from all over Ireland with practical and emotional support to help them through their experience of cancer.
“We just felt that we wanted to support Sean by doing something that involved going back to Cancer Care West and say thank-you and give something back to them for everything that Sean has gotten from them over the last six months or so,” says inter-county football referee, Martin McNally.
“So we obtained the promise of either two All-Ireland football tickets, hurling tickets, or two tickets for any of the concerts that are announced for Croke Park.
“We organised our own little internal raffle where lads could contribute a minimum of 10 euro into it and we did the draw a few weeks ago. It was just something very simple and we also got a commitment from the four provinces that whatever we collected that they would top it up as well and we got great support too from Croke Park.
“Sean doesn’t like a fuss but we wanted him to know we've all been behind him and we'll continue to be behind him to support him and also thank him for everything that he's done.
“He's done a lot for referees when he's been in the room and I know that he's certainly left things in a better place. Every Chairperson wants to put their stamp on the room and Sean certainly did that.
“Sean is one 100 per cent a referee man. If you could cut Sean in half he bleeds black and green, the referee's colours. That's just the way he is.”
Back in 2020 the inter-county referees raised over €26,000 for Pieta House, and such was the camaraderie this latest fund-raiser sparked that the plan now is to do something similar on an annual basis.
“There's always people within the group that could do with support and that's either on the panel of referees or maybe within the volunteer administrative group,” says McNally.
“We're talking about different ideas for next year, maybe a charity football match or something like that.
“We want to be able to join the two groups together more often. This fundraiser created great camaraderie between the two groups with everybody pulling together in a joint effort.”