THE conundrum of GAA fixtures dominates the column inches. Most players sit around and complain. Stephen Barker is not just any player. When Brian Smith came calling, Barker decided to make a difference. Michael McMullan caught up with him to hear his plans for 2017 and beyond.

“PEOPLE want to know you care,” stresses Stephen Barker. It may be just after ten o’clock at Owenbeg but it’s just another busy Thursday for Derry’s new CCC chairman.
A day that began hours earlier at Belfast City Airport, checking a computer server’s performance and ensuring customer satisfaction. With a track record in fixing things, the technical account manager with Outdoor Solutions IT was a smart appointment three years ago by county chairman Brian Smith.
GAA administration isn’t for everyone. It puts you up on a pedestal to be knocked down, with pats on the back few and far between but the 35-year-old enjoys it.
“I have a passion for this for some reason – it’s a sad passion but I enjoy it,” outlines Barker.
Five years as club secretary, followed by another five in the chair, armed Barker with invaluable experience at the coal face of administration. As a player, holidays and time with his young family need careful planning.
Rather than waiting in the wings, Barker decided to grab the bull by the horns from a motivation to get involved: “From a playing point of view there were wee things I would like to have seen changed. How do you change something? You get involved, the only way to change anything is from the inside.“
In 2015 Smith brought him on board with the CCC in a ‘watching brief’. At the end of the season, with Breige O’Neill and Sean Bradley, they carried out a games review of all activity in the county.
“I always like to ask the club, the players and the people involved their opinion, “explained Barker. “It’s easy for them, they have to look after one club, and we have to look after 40. Their opinion matters to me but it is about tying that in with everything.”
Last year was about addressing the football fixtures and ‘as a whole’ people have approved. Now Barker has moved to his next phase of the project: “This year I want to do an awful lot more with hurling and hopefully give clubs the same buzz around hurling. Then next year I am going to do underage.”
OFF-SEASON
Last summer players had a defined holiday break but an equally important development was winding the leagues up before the championship. This season will follow the same path starting in early April and concluding on August 6. It eradicates the meaningless league games, post championship, played on heavy pitches.
“I know from being a player, once you’re beat in the championship, that’s it – you don’t want to go back and train for three or four league games,” stated Barker. “You want to be training in September and October because it is good, you are going for a county title or going for an Ulster (championship).
“You don’t want to be training for a relegation play-off, or for three or four games just to see out the season – that’s just the season fizzling out.”
Clubs are back in full swing, at all ages. Magherafelt’s U14 and U16 football teams have already scheduled pre-season games against Omagh and Mayobridge.
“This is Tuesday night and I guarantee 90% of the players in Derry are out on a field or in a gym getting ready for the season. This is the end of January and they’ll be going to at least August, that’s eight months,” added Barker.
The junior championship will follow last year’s back door format. Intermediate and senior clubs are undecided about the championship structure. At the weekend clubs were asked to vote for their preference - back door or straight knock out but it is understood clubs are favouring the straight knock out.
Derry’s senior and intermediate football winners play in the Ulster championship on October 15. Under a revamped hurling championship, one of the dual clubs could represent Derry on October 1.
This leaves September 24 as the final date for the football finals, with junior the exception as Derry’s champions are not in the preliminary round. The time scales are tight and replays involving dual clubs, out of necessity, will be on the following Wednesday night.
“Clubs are going to have to buy into it with us,” stressed Barker. “It’s to benefit clubs – not me.”
If club delegates vote in favour of the back door format, championships will be moved earlier than the allocated start date of August 11.
Clubs calling for the back door cited a short season as their reasoning. Supporters and club members see games starting in April, sometimes unaware that players have already spent three months in preparation.
“For players to get October, November and December in their house they are happy enough. Whether they are young boys going to university or auld married men like me – that’s fine,” said Barker.
“It’s easier to come out in January if you’ve had a couple of months in the house. Too many men are quitting football early, in their early thirties, even at club level – because there are too many demands. The fun has gone out of it, we need to bring back the fun.”
For this year’s junior league Barker has taken feedback from clubs and factored it into the plans. Games in the early part of the season are fixed for Sunday (2pm) – June and July will see fixtures switched to Saturday evenings.
“Suddenly there are free Sundays. I want every club secretary to walk into the changing room in the middle of February and hand the boys their matches for the year. They can look through it, things can be planned and the enjoyment is back again.”
NO CHANGE
Weddings and club events will crop up in the calendar but Barker stressed the CCC ‘won’t be changing’ fixtures: “Every club should get their requests into us now and we’ll try and factor anything in. We’ll then give out the fixtures and clubs don’t need to chop and change.
“We, as a CCC, won’t be changing fixtures. Clubs can stick them up in the changing room - nothing is going to change. There will be games with county players, games without county players – it’ll be a case of play away.”
Another development this season will be a standalone league game: “I want to play a full round of games on a Sunday and a standalone game on Saturday to let the whole county go and watch that game. A player, or a supporter who loves his football - they can go along and watch a game.”
In 2016, of the 15 senior league games, 11 were played with county players, but the championship is a different story as Barker explained. Clubs need access to their top players.
“If Derry were to get to an All-Ireland quarter or semi-final, we can’t just throw championship at clubs. That’s why the CPA have got involved - we need to do something about it. The people doing something about it need to be sitting down and looking at the fixtures. It’s important they plan the season and how the overlap works.”
Barker enlisted Kevin Kelly and Kevin Hinphey to survey the hurling scene. With the seven senior hurling teams also playing senior football, it presents a difficult scenario to resolve but there are critical changes required. Of the 36 adult hurling league games, only two thirds were played.
“That’s not even three per club, it’s not good enough, think of the guy who only plays hurling. How much hurling did he get? What about the reserve hurler? There was no reserve league,” outlined Barker.
This season 17 league games have been planned, including a separate competition to coincide with the Nicky Rackard Cup.
“The county team will be training in Owenbeg, all the rest will be hurling at a club venue. This will allow clubs to pick up players in early season. We want to give them games, give them enjoyment and give them identity to their club – that’s why they pick up the hurl.”
The hurling league will incorporate reserve games and will tie into the championship structure. The top two teams will receive a bye into the championship semi-finals, giving clubs the incentive to aim for one of the top spots, leaving them with just football to ‘concentrate’ on in August.
The remaining teams will play off for the semi-finals, and placings in the intermediate and junior championships. All three hurling finals are set to take place on the same day, September 16.
“It will guarantee all hurlers 17 league games and two championship games, it has also been very well received by the hurling clubs and the county management teams,” stated Barker.
RESERVE REFORMATION
Last season, Castledawson assistant manager Willie McAteer pointed to a lack of reserve football and how players drifted away from the scene. This is something the current CCC has moved to address for this season.
“At senior level clubs are happy but the intermediate needs a bit of work,” indicated Barker. Next year Glack and Limavady are expected to field reserve teams at intermediate level. They are to be joined by Slaughtneil and Magherafelt thirds teams.
“At the minute eight or nine of the clubs have reserve teams but if teams go weeks without a game they will lose interest,” explained Barker. “If we can give them a match every week, even if it is different opposition to their seniors, they just want a game, they want to enjoy it, they want to train.”
Quite often the problem lies when a club manager names three subs for the senior team, therefore leaving reserve teams not able to field.
“We can help so much, but the clubs need to help me too,” commented Barker. The previous solution of splitting senior and reserve games didn’t work – with too much travelling involved.
“Most clubs train on a Friday night now because boys are working away. It is the main preparation night so they can’t afford to split the squad,” added Barker. It’s like hurling, he wants to get the buzz back into the game.
Next season the CCC’s main focus on underage, the third item of their three year approach, but Barker aims to make a start this year – beginning with the Féile.
“We are trying to cut down the number of Féile games, there is no point in a young 13 year old standing out on a field in February freezing. Everyone doesn’t need to be playing everyone else in the group stages,” he indicated.
Rather than an early February start, games won’t commence until ‘definitely’ the end of February: “There will be two U14 grades in hurling this year. Ballerin, Coleraine, Castledawson and a few B teams will be in it, bringing more games at the right standard,” Barker pointed out.
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Another topic that crops up time and time again is the club versus county debate. Calls from various quarters appeal for the county season to be condensed. Barker disagrees – it’s a non-runner.
“It will punish the club, they will never see their county players playing for their clubs. – It won’t work,” stressed Barker. “In a successful county you (clubs) will not see your county players. Jack McCaffery for example, might never play for his club, his mates will want to see him playing at centre back beside them.”
The Moneymore man does have a solution he feels will work. The model is based around having dedicated inter-county weekends.
“Playing all the games in Ulster on the one weekend. A month break until the semi-final, again all on one weekend and a month break until the final – then every county is in the exact same boat,” explained Barker, with the same scenario in all the other provinces, so county managers are all operating on the same hymn sheet.
“It doesn’t matter how well Derry do, or don’t do – it’s a free weekend to go and watch county football. You will find that the club player will buy back into the county scene again. Now you can’t even watch The Sunday Game, because you are away playing a (club) match,” added Barker.
Over the coming weeks club secretaries will be furnished with the club fixtures. The details will filter down to players and managers alike.
“He is really trying to look after the players as he is a player himself. He knows it first hand,” commented Desertmartin manager Ronan Rocks.
Barker stressed that it is easy to come up with problems. Solutions are a different story. They aren’t found on a bar stool or sitting at home. They are fixed by getting involved - Barker’s initial motivation, but it takes planning.
“When you try and fit 15 rounds of matches into 13 weeks, when you have a start date and a definite end date. When you are trying to think of the county player who is training Tuesday and Thursday – if you give him a club match on a Wednesday night, he is no good to Damian Barton or his club- his week is wiped out.
“I don’t have and don’t claim to have all the answers but I am more than happy to listen to people,” conceded Barker. “But you have a better conversation with people when you have the dates in front of you.”
Tuesday and Thursday are Barker’s ‘GAA nights’; for now they are spent planning and plotting. It will be worth it. The output of the process will soon land in the lap to John O’Brien and Gerard Diamond, Moneymore’s management team.
The details will be dropped into the players chat group. The squad will plan overtime, family time and nights out…but Barker will know already.
If selected, for an 18th year he will aim to curb forward lines across division two – the same players who have handed him plaudits for showing he cares.
Refreshed after three months off, he is looking forward to it. “I don’t do anything unless I enjoy it,” Barker concluded. Saving shots, firefighting computer problems, liaising with clients or managing fixture congestion, if you want something done – ask a busy man.

If you have a story or want to send a photo or video to us please contact the Derry Now editorial team on 028 7129 6600 for Derry City stories Or 028 7774 3970 for County Derry stories. Or you can email gareth@derrynews.net at any time.