| Gaelic Football is like most original games of football were in the early 19th century. In fact most football played in England was similar until the Cambridge university football team that preferred minimal hand contact turned up on mass to a Football Association of England meeting and voted to change the rules to the modern form of Football played by FIFA. The Irish were never going to follow the English. Gaelic Football (Gaelic is the original language of Ireland) is actually a better game than the football that is played all over the world. You can catch the ball and run up to 5 steps with it but then must tap or punch it to a team mate with your hand or kick it to a team mate. If you kick a goal into the net it is worth 3 points, if you kick it over a rugby or american football like cross bar above the goal it is worth 1 point. The only off-side area is the goal keeper's small box. It is a faster more exciting form of football and you don't have to head the ball - which is a bit of a weird thing if you think about it. In fact from a pure anatomic point of view using hands as well as feet makes sense for the human species and Gaelic football is a lot less weird than so called "normal" football/soccer. The game is now played more and more outside Ireland. If you are in Asia contact www.asiangaelicgames.com In Australia or NZ www.gaelicfootball.com.au There is also a similar but rougher game played between Ireland and Australia that is a mix of Irish Gaelic Football and Australian Rules Football (see www.afl.com.au for Australian Rules Football). This Sunday a crowd of 83,000 will pack Dublin's Croke Park Stadium to watch Australia play Ireland in this form of Gaelic/Aussie Football called "International Rules Football" - wikipedia search that for more details. |
2006 Asian Gaelic Games in Shanghai