Gaelic football
Gaelic football (
Irish:
peil ghaelach), commonly referred to as "
football", "
Gaelic" or "
gah", is a form of
football played mainly in
Ireland. Teams of 15 players kick or punch a round ball toward goals at either end of a grass pitch. Gaelic football is one of four Gaelic sports run by the
Gaelic Athletic Association also called the 'GAA'.
While not widely known, those who do know it recognise this sport as a strong, skillful, fast paced game. As one commentator put it, "It's like ballet, but more poetic".
At first glance Gaelic Football resembles a combination of
soccer and
rugby and/or
Australian rules football. Players advance the ball up the field with a combination of carrying, kicking, and hand-passing to their team-mates. Some plays include a ducking and weaving movement where the player in possession will run toward an opponent and, at the last minute, change direction after wrong-footing the defender. Passing takes place to players on the run, so rather than passing directly to a team-mate, players will pass the ball into mid-air just ahead of the receiving player so that he can run into it. The scoring system adds another dimension to the game. If a team has a two-point deficit in the dying minutes of a match, they will start to try to get in closer to the goal and create a goal-scoring opportunity. Fans enjoy the high speed and frequent scoring, the many different ways to deliver the ball, and the unpredictable nature of the game.
Playing field
The pitch is of grass and rectangular, stretching 130–145 metres long and 80–90 metres wide. There are H-shaped goalposts at each end with a net on the bottom section. The same pitch is used for
hurling; the GAA, which organises both sports, decided this to facilitate dual usage. Lines are marked at distances of 13m, 20m, 45m (football) and 65m (hurling) from each end-line. Shorter pitches and smaller goals are used by under-13s and younger.
Teams
Teams consist of fifteen players (a goalkeeper, two corner backs, a full back, three half backs, two midfielders, three half forwards, two corner forwards and a full forward) plus up to fifteen substitutes, of which five may be used. Each player is numbered 1–15, starting with the
goalkeeper, who must wear a different coloured jersey.
The ball
The game is played with a round leather ball, similar to a
soccer ball, but heavier, and with horizontal stitching rather than the
hexagon and
pentagon panels often used on soccer balls, and similar in appearance to a standard
volleyball. It may be kicked or
handpassed. A handpass is not a punch but rather a strike of the ball with the side of the closed fist, using the knuckle of the thumb.
The following are considered technical fouls ("fouling the ball"):
* Picking the ball directly off the ground
* Throwing the ball
* Going four steps without releasing, bouncing or soloing the ball. (Soloing involves kicking the ball into one's own hands)
* Bouncing the ball twice in a row
* Handpassing the ball over an opponent's head, then running around him to catch it
* Handpassing a goal (the ball may be punched into the goal from up in the air, though)
* Square ball, an often controversial rule: If, at the moment the ball enters the small rectangle, there is already an attacking player inside the small rectangle, then a free out is awarded.
Scoring
If the ball goes over the crossbar, a
point is scored and a white flag is raised by an umpire. If the ball goes below the crossbar, a
goal, worth three points, is scored, and a green flag is raised by an umpire. The goal is guarded by a goalkeeper. Scores are recorded in the format {goal total}-{point total}. For example, the
1991 All-Ireland semi-final finished:
Meath 0-15
Roscommon 1-11. Thus Meath won "fifteen points to one-eleven" (1-11 being worth 14 points).
Tackling
The level of tackling allowed is more robust than in soccer, but less than rugby. The tackling rule has been criticised for being too vague.
Shoulder-charging and wresting or slapping the ball out of an opponent's hand is permitted, but the following are all fouls:
* using both hands to tackle
* pushing an opponent
* deliberately striking an opponent
* pulling an opponent's jersey
* blocking a shot with the foot
* sliding tackles
* touching the goalkeeper when he is inside the small rectangle
Restarting play
* The match begins with the referee throwing the ball up between the four midfielders.
* After an attacker has put the ball wide of the goals, the goalkeeper may take a
kickout from the ground at the edge of the small square. All players must be beyond the 20m line.
* After an attacker has scored, the goalkeeper may take a
kickout from the ground from the 20m line. All players must be beyond the 20m line and outside the semicircle.
* After a defender has put the ball wide of the goals, an attacker may take a "
45" from the ground on the 45m line level with where the ball went wide.
* After a player has put the ball over the sideline, the other team may take a
sideline kick at the point where the ball left the pitch. It may be kicked from the ground or the hands.
* After a player has committed a foul, the other team may take a
free kick at the point where the foul was committed. It may be kicked from the ground or the hands.
* After a defender has committed a foul inside the large rectangle, the other team may take a
penalty kick from the ground from the centre of the 13m line. Only the goalkeeper may guard the goals.
* If many players are struggling for the ball and it is not clear who was fouled first, the referee may choose to throw the ball up between two opposing players.
Officials
A Gaelic football match is watched over by eight officials:
* The referee
* Two linesmen
* Sideline official/Standby linesman (inter-county games only)
* Four umpires (two at each end)
The referee is responsible for starting and stopping play, recording the score, awarding frees and booking and sending off players.
Linesmen are responsible for indicating the direction of line balls to the referee.
The fourth official is responsible for overseeing substitutions, and also indicating the amount of stoppage time (signalled to him by the referee) and the players substituted using an electronic board.
The umpires are responsible for judging the scoring. They indicate to the referee whether a shot was: wide (spread both arms), a 45m kick (raise one arm), a point (wave white flag), square ball (cross arms) or a goal (wave green flag).
All officials are also required to indicate to the referee, foul play or other misdemeanours he may have missed, but unfortunately this is a rare occurrence. The referee can over-rule any decision by a linesman or umpire.
Dissatisfaction with officials is common in Gaelic football. Referees are often criticised for leniency and inconsistency (particularly with regard to the "square ball" rule, sending players off, and dissent), not seeing fouls, and playing an inordinate amount of stoppage time at the end of games (said to be hoping the losing team gets a draw). A common (but untrue)
urban legend refers to a referee who was locked in the boot of a car after a
Wicklow club game by unimpressed players. A macho attitude, which is similar to that which prevails in Australian rules football, does nothing to enhance the image of the game which strives to attract young people in preference to soccer and rugby where discipline is more rigidly applied.
The first mention of football in
Ireland is found in
1308, where John McCrocan, a spectator at a football game at
Newcastle,
County Dublin was charged with accidentally stabbing a player named William Bernard.
The
Statute of Galway of
1527 allowed the playing of "foot balle" and
archery but banned "hookie' — the
hurling of a little ball with sticks or staves" as well as other sports. However even "foot-ball" was banned by the severe
Sunday Observance Act of
1695, which imposed a fine of one
shilling (a substantial amount at the time) for those caught playing sports. It proved difficult, if not impossible for the authorities to enforce the Act and the earliest recorded inter-county match in Ireland was one between
Louth and
Meath, at
Slane, in
1712.
By the early
19th century, various football games, referred to collectively as
caid, were popular in
Kerry , especially the
Dingle Peninsula. Father W. Ferris described two forms of
caid: the "field game" in which the object was to put the ball through arch-like goals, formed from the boughs of two trees, and; the epic "cross-country game" which lasted the whole of a Sunday (after
mass) and was won by taking the ball across a
parish boundary. "Wrestling", "holding" opposing players, and carrying the ball were all allowed.
During the 1860s and 1870s,
Rugby and
Association football started to become popular in Ireland.
Trinity College, Dublin was an early stronghold of Rugby, and the rules of the
English Football Association were codified in 1863 and distributed widely. By this time, according to Jack Mahon, even in the Irish countryside,
caid had begun to give way to a "rough-and-tumble game" which even allowed tripping.
Irish forms of football were not formally arranged into an organised playing code by the
Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) until
1887. The GAA sought to promote traditional Irish sports, such as
hurling and to reject "foreign" (particularly English) imports. The first Gaelic football rules, showing the influence of hurling and a desire to differentiate from
association football — for example in their lack of an
offside rule — were drawn up by
Maurice Davan and published in the
United Ireland magazine on
February 7,
1887.
While it is clear even to casual observers that Gaelic football is similar to
Australian rules football, the exact relationship is unclear, or even controversial. Australian rules was devised in
Melbourne, in the
Colony of Victoria, from
1858. Because of the
Australian goldrushes, there were many Irishmen in Victoria at the time. The Australian historian B. W. O'Dwyer points out that both games have always been differentiated from
rugby football by having no limitation on ball or player movement (in the absence of an offside rule); the need to bounce or toe-kick the ball, known as a
solo in Gaelic football, while running; punching the ball (hand-passing) rather than throwing it, and other traditions. As O'Dwyer says:
These are all elements of [older] Irish football [games]. There were several variations of Irish football in existence, normally without the benefit of rulebooks, but the central tradition in Ireland was in the direction of the relatively new game [i.e. rugby]...adapted and shaped within the perimeters of the ancient Irish game of hurling... [These rules] later became embedded in Gaelic football. Their presence in Victorian [i.e. Australian] football may be accounted for in terms of a formative influence being exerted by men familiar with and no doubt playing the Irish game. It is not that they were introduced into the game from that motive [i.e. emulating Irish games]; it was rather a case of particular needs being met... [B. W. O'Dwyer, March 1989, "The Shaping of Victorian Rules Football",
Victorian Historical Journal, v.60, no.1.]
Other accounts suggest that the relationship may have originated from the opposite direction: Archbishop
Thomas Croke, one of the founders of the GAA, lived in
New Zealand in the early 1880s and had the opportunity to witness "
Australasian rules" (as it was once known) being played there. Like Australian rules, the Irish football games of the 1880s allowed players to grab or push each other. However the two games were soon developing and diverging, largely in isolation from each other, and the precise connections between the two games are unclear.
Since 1967, there have been many matches between Australian football and Gaelic football teams, under various sets of hybrid, compromise rules. In 1984, the first official representative matches of
International Rules football were played, and the
Ireland international rules football team now plays the
Australian team annually each October.
Gaelic football has become increasingly popular with women since the
1970s.
Football Team of the Millennium
This was a team chosen in 1999 by a panel of GAA past presidents and journalists. The goal was to single out the best ever 15 players who had played the game in their respective positions, since the foundation of the GAA in 1884 up to the
Millennium year, 2000. Naturally many of the selections were hotly debated by fans around the country.
All Gaelic sports are
amateur; easing the strictness with which this is interpreted is advocated by the
Gaelic Players Association.
The basic unit of each game is organised at the club level, which is usually arranged on a
parish basis, with various local clubs playing to win the
County Championship at various levels:
*
Senior: the better adult clubs
*
Intermediate: junior champions compete in this the following season
*
Junior: weaker adult clubs, from small communities
*
Under-21*
Minor: under-18
*
Underage: all ages from under-17 down to under-9
On a national level, the team is organised on the old Irish county system , producing 34 teams representing the original 32 counties that cover the island of Ireland, plus teams representing the Irish diaspora in
London and
New York. Splitting
Dublin into North and South due to its enormous population has been considered, but is unlikely to happen any time soon. There are also clubs in other parts of the USA, Britain, Asia, Australia, continental Europe and Canada (see ClubGAA link at bottom).
Though Ireland was partitioned into two states in 1920, Gaelic sports (like most cultural organisations and all religions) continue to be organised on an all-island basis.
A team of
15 players plus substitutes is formed from the best players playing at club level.
Nearly all counties play against each other in a knockout tournament known as the
All Ireland Championship.
These modified knockout games are organised on the four Irish provinces of Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht.
In the past, the best team from each would play one of the others, at a stage known as the All-Ireland semi-finals, with the winning team from each game playing each other in the
All-Ireland Final.
A recent re-organisation now provides a 'back door' method of qualifying, with knocked out teams getting another chance to win back into the competition.
County teams also compete in the
National Football League, held every spring. The League is nowhere near as prestigious as the All-Ireland, but in recent years attendances have grown and interest, from the public and from players, has grown. This is due in part to the organisation of the league into the above format, the provision of the Division 2 final stages and the relatively new change of starting the league in February rather than November. Live matches are shown on the Irish-language TV station TG4, with highlights shown on RTE2. In 2006, Kerry won the Division 1 title for the 18th time defeating Galway in the final. Louth defeated Donegal to win the Division 2 title.
The final game of the inter-county series is the
All Ireland Final which takes place on the fourth Sunday of September in
Croke Park. Before 1999, the final was held on the third Sunday of the month, but this custom was changed due to an overloaded schedule of matches.
Over the four Sundays of September, All Ireland Finals in men's football, women's football, hurling and camogie take place in
Croke Park, the national stadium of the GAA, with the men's deciders regularly attracting crowds of over 80,000. Guests who attend include
Uachtarán na hÉireann, An
Taoiseach and leading dignitaries.
Two levels of the game are played at each
All Ireland, the
senior team and the
minor team (consisting of younger players, under the age of 18, who have played their own
Minor All-Ireland competition.)
The winning senior county football team receives the
Sam Maguire cup. The most successful county in the history of Gaelic football is
Kerry, with 33 All-Ireland wins, followed by
Dublin, with 22 wins.
In 2005,
Tyrone took the Men's Senior Football Championship, defeating
Kerry in the final, with
Down winning the Minor equivalent.
*
Ladies' Gaelic football*
List of footballers (Gaelic football)*
List of Gaelic football clubsJack Mahon, 2001,
A History of Gaelic Football Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. (ISBN 071713279X)
*
Official GAA website*
Unofficial GAA Messageboard*
Unnofficial GAA site with discussion forum etc.*
Hoganstand Unofficial GAA news site*
Gaelic HQ - Online messageboard
*
Extensive photo spread showing action photos of Philadelphia football and hurling
