IIRC - there was a death in a prelim somewhere in the late 80’s that brought in the helmet rule. cracked skull from a hurly.
The helmet rule says you have to enter the pitch (playing field)with one on but it doesn’t have to stay on.
I personally have been shin whacked a few times, elbowed, and my feet trod on but as long as you stick close to your man, you’ll get hit with the arm and not the hurley.
I know I’m one of 2 long term american players in the Londain (london) county comp. and we tend to get a whack in the first game but after that you learn real fast or end up on a hospital trolley.
Tickets weren’t that hard to come by in the last one, everyone just thought they would be. We were in the Canal End and just outside the entrance there were at least half a dozen people who couldn’t give them away.
You’re right. I got tickets early in the week from a friend in Cork. They were freely available down there and once the Cork County Board returned its unsold allocation, the pressure for tickets was eased in Dublin. I was in Kellys in Fairview before the match and there were more sellers than buyers. I reckon there was a kind of panic induced by the GAA website crashing, Evening Herald reports of tickets changing hands for €150 etc. People took every ticket they were offered during the week and many were stuck with spares. The attendance was 77,000 so there were 3,000 odd empty seats. From my seat in the Hogan Stand, I could see almost an entire section at the junction of the Upper Hogan and Upper Canal that was free. It’s a pity because many people made other arrangements assuming that they wouldn’t be able to get tickets. Still, the atmosphere was fantastic.
With a 5.00 throw-in on a Saturday evening and only one match on the bill, the replay may not be a sell-out. The GAA have also kindly arranged the semi-final that may (not) involve Dublin for 1 September, neatly avoiding a clash with my daughter’s christening which was stupidly organised for the weekend before without consulting the fixtures list. My wife’s not too happy though because it clashes with the Cork/Kerry match.
The larger cities all have some kind of league. Boston and San Francisco would be up there with the two mentioned above as the strongest bases of GAA in the states.
The last GAA medal I won was actually a New York junior championship medal from 1995 with the NY Offaly club.
I would say the standard of the senior hurling in NY was somewhere around Junior A level in Offaly. (Except maybe for the finals, when all the ringers fly over) When we won that game in 1995, John Troy for Offaly and Brian Greene for Waterford were the main ringers.
For anyone in NY, who wishes to check out a game, Gaelic Park will have matches on most sundays at this time of the year.
flairgun, my brother in law won a NY Football Championship medal with the NY Kerry club a couple of years ago. They got to the final the year after and were beaten by Donegal. I think Kerry had Dessie Farrell (obviously it doesn’t have to be kept in the county) and Johnny Crowley over for the final. My brother in law kept his place though - it must be desperate for the unlucky players who have to make way.
I’ve seen highlights of Gaelic football on cable also, and it looks like an interesting game. From what I’ve read about the Princeton-Rutgers football game in 1869 which is considered both the first college (American) football game and the first college soccer game, Gaelic football is probably the closest modern approximation of what that game was like.
One thing that I don’t particularly like about the Gaelic version (from what I’ve seen anyway) is that the flow of the game is constantly killed because there’s so much scoring. Just when the action is starting to get interesting, somebody kicks the ball through the uprights from 50 yards and play stops.
My understanding of the scoring is that you get three points for kicking it into the net, and one for kicking it through the uprights. Problem is, it doesn’t seem worth it to try to put it in the net. It’s at least ten times more difficult, but you only get three times the points. Putting it through the uprights is comparatively child’s play.
Tom Eaton, in my eyes the high scoring is one of the better aspects of the game. Low scoring is the main reason, I think, soccer hasn’t really caught on in the US.
And it’s not too much delay, nothing as bad as American football. The clock doesn’t even stop. The goalie just puts the ball back into play.
