Guestbook

Things you love ‘bout the GAA

The anticipation filled days coming up to a big game.

Banter between supporters.

Every player, no matter how good, always has a younger brother that would have been better but for the booze/women/emigration/job/incarceration etc.

The craic in the pub after a big win.

The OOOOOOOO of the crowd when there is a bone crunching shoulder.

Championship football on a warm summers evening, the hard sod, quick ball and the roar of the crowd.

Pints in the town after winning a club championship match.

Johno’s car or van filled to the roof with under 12’s on the way to a match. Then, on the way home he stops at a shop and buys them all ice-cream, all from his own pocket.

The one line comment from some wit in the crowd that gets both sets of supporters laughing the cheering.

The last bars of Amhran Na bhFiann lost in the mighty roar.

Cars parked in every gap in the hedge and every farm yard at local championship matches.

Not caring about the splatters of cowsh*te caked on the ankle of your trousers because of the day that’s in it.

The anticipation of the first club challenge match of the year.

You shake hands with the guy you’re marking before the match, then proceed to kick seven sorts of s**t out of him and abuse his mother for 60 minutes, and shake hands with him again after.

Gives you a sense of identity, where you come from, something you will have till the day you die.

The local newspaper supplements in the week of a big match.

The consolation that no matter how bad things go . . . there’s always next year.

Hearing people in the crowd going on about will so-and-so start? I heard he’s on the beer, I heard he crashed the car during the week, I heard he’s too busy chasing skirt to be bothered his arse training etc. Giving out about him for the whole game and then he ends up being the hero by scoring the last minute winner and they turn around and say I knew he’d do it, what did I tell ye?
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Two pidgeon racing clubs on the north side of Cork City always competing against one another and one of them got very good and were winning all the races. the other club decided to send a spy into the other camp to see how they were training their pidgeons and after a couple of weeks he reported back to a meeting of his own club and told them that the other club were letting out their pidgeons at 5-30 every morning where they would fly down to Fitzgerald Park and stay flying around it for 2 hours and then return to their lofts. A voice from the back of the meeting room shouts out,  " Thats an effen lie anyway, because I know for a fact that Fitzgerald Park does not open until HALF PAST EIGHT.