Gaelic football: Difference between revisions

Gaelic football (Irish: peil ghaelach) is a form of football played mainly in Ireland where it is the most popular sport. Teams of 15 players kick or punch a round ball towards goals at either end of a grass pitch. There is no offside rule.

General description

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 towards 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. As well as the high speed and frequent scoring, it is the unpredictable nature of the game, in that there are so many different ways to deliver the ball, that appeals to fans.

Rules

Playing Field

The pitch is of grass and rectangular, stretching 150 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 13m, 20m and 45m from each end-line.

Teams

Teams consist of fifteen players (a goalkeeper, six backs, two midfielders and six forwards) 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. It may be kicked or punched. A punch out of the hand is called a "handpass".

The following are considered technical fouls ("fouling the ball"):

• Throwing the ball
• Going five steps without releasing, bouncing or soloing the ball
• Bouncing the ball twice in a row
• Picking/handling the ball off the ground (the goalkeeper may do this in the small square)
• 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)

Scoring

If the ball goes over the crossbar, a point is scored. If the ball goes below the crossbar, a goal, worth three points, is scored. 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 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

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 in line 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.
• 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.

History

The first reference to any code of football in Ireland occurs in the Statute of Galway of 1527, which allowed the playing of football and archery but banned "hokie' — 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 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 were allowed to grab or push each other. However the two games were soon developed and diverging, largely in isolation from each other.

Whatever the truth, 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 these are now played annually each October. However, the precise connections between the two games are unclear.

Gaelic football has become increasingly popular with women since the 1970s.

Leagues and Team structure

All Gaelic sports are amateur.

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
• Junior: weaker adult clubs, from small communities
• Under-21
• Minor: under-18
• Underage: all ages from under-16 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. 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 2005, Armagh won the Division 1 title for the first time in their history, while in a major upset, Monaghan won the Division 2 title.

The All Ireland Final

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. The Senior final was one of the most keenly contested in the history of the sport, with the game played at a frenetic pace and some sublime points were scored, most notably from the feet of Kerry's Colm "Gooch" Cooper and Dara Ó Cinneide and Tyrone's Brian McGuigan and Peter Canavan.

• List of Gaelic football clubs
• List of footballers (Gaelic football)
• Ladies' Gaelic football

References

Jack Mahon, 2001, A History of Gaelic Football Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. (ISBN 071713279X)

External links

• Official GAA website
• Unofficial GAA Messageboard
• Unnofficial GAA site with discussion forum etc.
• Hoganstand Unofficial GAA news site