FAI seek permission for training game at Croke Park

[paul_oshea]

The Fai's game has only in the last 20-30 years being available to those who also take part in gaa games.

Spot on dodge, not true one of the first games to be played in the west of ireland was soccer, by castlerea celtic,there is a picture dating back from before 1900's ( if i can find it ill post it ), this was played hand in hand with gaelic for the last 100 years......the local gaelic team were one of the best in the county for many years and still are....as are the soccer team in the RDL.

gaelic was played with football throughout, the problem being was that gaelic was played EARLIER than soccer and caused a lot of controversy, because the gaelic lads would somtimes not bother getting up for the gaelic match and then go playing soccer, so a "ban" was put in place, it wasnt a ban it was you are playing one or the other not both, my cousin had the problem and was told by the g.a.a at home eitehr play one or the other, a lot of people took this to mean "no foreign" games, this simply wasnt the case, I am not saying this didnt exist ( but not to the scale everyone says, more so in ballygobackward places in cork etc), but this is often mistaken as a ban my many ignoramoses out there/on here. Again there was better financial support for the gaa teams as they could compete on a bigger level at county etc so it got better support at grass roots.

Therefore, it would be expected that the gaa would be a stronger and more well run sport than the fai.

its the people in the organisation that make the organisation, thats the problem, it has nothing to do with the funding.....if a cowboy faction exists with no proper council in place like their gaa counterparts this is going to happen a la the FAI. The general members in the congress don't get paid, if you have an organisation full of people who get paid for sitting on their arses, they are hardly going to remove themselves are they? power should be gotten from ground level....Structure has nothing to do with funding.....

I like your last sentence though...good point.

[Billsthoughts]

Your first part of your post is factually inaccurate to say the least.
There was a ban in place and it wasnt anything to do with one or the other like some sort of dual players decision. succesive goverments wouldnt be seen near an irish international for years for fear of upsetting the hardline gaa heads yet there was haughey doing a lap of honour in Rome in 1990 like he had won it himself...

[paul_oshea]

bill i agree with what you are saying, i realise that ban was in place, but in terms of how it was enforced was different, that is how the ban was "interpreted" at roots level.....Again Im going with clubs under the connaucht council, I can't speak for anywhere else....

Growing up, I played both, we were a decent sized town ( lads that played one played the other ), in gaelic we were far more successful, we won titles at two underage categories, but football we weren't near the best, becuase other towns ( whose lads we would meet again in the gaelic ) had better football structures in place than us, in terms of training etc....i cant speak for what happened in 50's, 60',70's but my uncles used to play both, and when they reached 21, 22 focused more on the soccer....same thing in place

[elroy]

I've heard some pretty bad stories from my dads youth and he is a predominantly gaa man.

I'm only in my 20s and I well remember when I was playing underage gaelic and before training having a kick around and the reaction from our trainers was less than savoury to say the least. It was made pretty clear to us that they didnt want us playing football, the funny thing is they didnt have a problem with rugby.
I know of a young guy from our local club who is a gifted football and gaelic player, was called up to the cork u16 team, a great achievement from the small club he's from. However, when it was discovered that he was captain of the local soccer team, he was told he would be no longer selected for the cork team. And that is less than three years ago.
Now I know these days (well I hope) those sort of incidents are isolated but it merely goes to illustrate that the much more hardened attitudes that existed in the past did affect the development of football in Ireland.

[EalingGreen]

it wasnt a ban it was you are playing one or the other not both

Unusual interpretation of the language there, to say the least!

If some one was found playing football or rugby etc, they were liable to banned from playing GAA (indeed were banned).

To imply that the GAA was in some way giving people a choice, as per your "one or the other" comment is false, since it was not within their power to permit or arrange for people to play another game (i.e. like a parent telling a child he may have either an apple, or an orange, but not both).

Besides, no other game that I've ever heard imposed a reciprocal ban. When I was playing football as a lad, football teams were often glad to get GAA players (on the quiet, if need be), since they were usually pretty good and football was a Saturday game and GAA is played on Sundays.

And in the present day, if other sports took the same attitude to GAA over use of facilities etc, there'd be plenty of GAA clubs outside Ireland with nowhere to play, since they rely on football, rugby, cricket, baseball clubs etc to help them out.

[gspain]

The request was for a training session with the squad in Croke Park not for a photo op. This could easily have been accomodated as a "closed doors" session eg no press.

The Ban was rigidly enforced AKAIK. Liam Brady was expelled from school for captaining the Irish schoolboys. Con Martin won a Leinster final with Dublin but was banned from the all Ireland when he was caught playing football. It took over 30 years for him to get his Leinster medal.

Very very few people got away with it. Mick Mackey in Limerick insisted on going to Thomond Park. The GAA had "watchers" checking for people attending foreign games. After ignoring a final warning they bigots had to make him a watcher to report on other people. Mick O'Connell used to support Cork Hibs and The Examiner put a photo on their front page and tried to goad Kerry into banning him. They accused "Da Paper" of doctoring a photo.

The F.A.I. and IRFU had to allow players to play under false names but many got caught and banned by the GAA.

Thankfully the bigotry is now confined to a minority of hardliners but this is uniquely a GAA problem. I've never even heard of anyone in rugby for example arguing against letting out thomond Park or Lansdowne Road.