Best things about the championship

[lfdown2]

there was a thread on one of the old boards, where everyone put down there best things about the championship, made for great reading, really got the excitement going, a pint in a beer garden in clones before dandering up the hill that sort of thing soo, go for it....

[ziggysego]

Sandwiches and tea from the boot of the car, before the game. Chatting to both set of supporters back at the car, after the game.

[haranguerer]

No matter how many players have fallen out with the manager, no matter how many injuries there are, no matter how many hammerings they got in the league, no matter that they're in the 'bad half' of the draw (every year) no matter that all history, commonsense, and a basic gaa knowledge points to an early exit  - come championship time hope springs; and you really do believe, 'This could be the year, boys!!!'






You do feel like an awful p***k after the game tho, especially if you've actually said latter statement to someone ... 

[5 Sams]

Is this what you're talking about??


Things we like about the GAA


-Driving through small towns in Munster, Leinster or Galway and seeing kids with hurls.
-Listening to the crowd singing Amhran na bhFiann in Croker and being there instead of watching it on the TV
-Talking about hurling in Cork or Football in Ulster
-Ja Fallon picking up the ball on the move
-Watching Joe Cooney play for Sarsfields
-The way Micheal Ó Muircheartaigh pronounces 'Colm O Rourke'
-Listening to oul fellas in pubs telling you what great players they were. It mightn't be true but it makes them happy.
-Guinness advertising.
-When you realise you definitely have a ticket.
-Flags outside houses near championship time.
- Fertilizer bags tied round telegraph poles
- Knowing and playing with and drinking with some of the players (how many man Utd supporters know David Beckham)
-The noise in Croke Park when the teams come out.
-The few pints in the Gresham/Quinn's/Cat & cage/Skylon/Meagher's before the game
-The anticipation in the days coming up to a big game
-The banter between supporters.
-The stories about players from a bygone age
-Driving to Croker/Semple in a convoy of cars with flags waving and horns beeping
-Watching the Sunday Game on All-Ireland night if your county wins
-No soccer on in the pub on match day
-The way a parish / town / village unites on county final day
- The roar of the crowd at the end of the national anthem ( not in the middle )
- The clash of the ash
- Micheal Ó Muircheartaigh commentating on any game. If you can't be at the game always turn down the TV, turn on the radio and listen to this man. While Ger is busy telling us trivia, or Marty is telling what happened, Michael tells you why it's happening.
- The feeling you get sometime after being at a great match, that, although it was only a game, for that hour and a bit it was the most important thing in the world.
- Memories of great moments of skill, or character, on behalf of teams or individuals, no matter what colour jersey they wore.
- The sheer claustrophobia of Hill 16
- The rising chant of "UIBH FHAILE" across the crowd, which fairly drives on the fans, as for the team, who knows?
(I'm sure each county has its' own equivalent)
- The knowledge that wherever you go in this country, every pub you walk into will have a few local followers happy to engage in the always entertaining "Why Offaly are on the way out never to return". Nobody ever learns.
- When you watch someone who has never seen hurling before look at it for the first time. Reminds you that the best game on earth is ours.
- 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. (Delete as appropriate)
- The blind loyalty and optimism in each and every county that just will not go away despite repeated spiritual crushings.
- On any one summer sunday more people would attend club and county fixtures across the country than would attend soccer and rugby combined all year long.
- 70 kids running round a field in the guise of  U-6, U-8, and U-10 football training. And loving it as much as I do.
-Catching the match report on the radio on the way home if your team has won.
-Looking forward with relish to the papers the next day.
- Getting one over on your neighbours.
- Those moments when you forget your allegiance and go, "frig me that was something else".
- Old blokes with transistor radios who are always more interested in the radio telling you about U-21 hurling down in Limerick than the game they're watching in Irvinestown.
-That wise old geezer from Wexford sitting beside you ticking wides and scores on the programme who knows it all.
- The unbelievable buzz of a crucial goal.
- Hearing your first roar from the minor game on the way down to Croker. Always puts an extra spring in the step.
- Hats, flags, and headbands, especially after the game when it's only your own county's colours which they're hawking.
- The smell of freshly cut grass in the evening, it's hurling/football season- Yippee !!.
- The stories and anecdotes told by and about your grandfather, uncles, father etc. The history and continuity of it all.
- Seeing old fella's at matches, especially the BIG matches.
- The swell of noise that comes out nowhere on a terrace, and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
-I have to say it, but the Sunday Game. I've always loved it no matter how bad it got.
-Or the Game on Monday (bring it back) when you come in from work and you couldn't be arsed doing anything else 'cos its monday and all.
-Ringing up people you haven't spoke to in 12 months telling them to keep you in mind for a ticket, then getting a complete shock when they come up with the goods.
- Then telling everyone that asks you for a ticket to 'feck off - do you not know how hard it is to get tickets'.
-Walking up O'Connell Street past the Gresham crowd, up to a crowded Gardner street, past Barry's, on up to Mountjoy square and the last bit down Jones' road. I hate that bloody walk around the back to the new Stand.
-Travelling down to Tipp or Cork with a bunch of lads to watch a Munster hurling match, and not getting back to Dublin 'til 3 or 4 in the morning.
-Earwigging in on people chatting in the stand before the game to try and get any last bit of team news they might have heard on Tipp FM or Kilkenny Radio, etc.
-Sitting in other people's seats 'cos yours are out in the rain and wondering at everyone coming into the ground wondering if its their seat your in.
-Of late, 'Breaking Ball'. I think its an excellent show.
- Butterflies in the stomach at a big championship game waiting for the throw-in.
- The craic in the pub after a big win and not caring that you're going to miss the bus, because you know someone will give you a lift.
- Watching the Sunday Game that evening after a win.
- Seeing the kids in Casement Park with their hurls at football games.
- The OOOOOOO of the crowd when there is a bone crunching shoulder.
- Those days when your playing out of your skin and you can do no wrong, you just know before the keeper kicks the ball out, your going to catch it clean.
- 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 game.
- Beaches in July when all the fathers are inside their cars listening to the news from Clones or Thurles.
- Interviews with the players and you hear the real accents of the places they come from.
- Bringing the cup around to schools in the months after the all-Ireland
- The sign "Failte go Toraigh Sam Maguire" that was on the old pier before they started building the new one.
- Pubs with Allstar posters on the walls.
- The crowd in Saturday evening mass on the day before the all-Ireland.
- Photos of the great U-14 team in the local
- Tournament games on summers evenings.
- Rounds of sambos and flasks of tea from the boot a mile from the field.
- "f**k it - I'll take tomorrow off".
- Ghost towns during big championship matches.
- "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 and cheering.
- The last bars of amhran na bhFiann lost in the mighty roar
- Cars parked in every gap in the hedge and every farmyard at local championship matches.
- Not caring about the splatters of cowshite caked on the ankle of your trousers because of the day thats in it.
- Young wans playing their own championship behind the goals at the county final
-"Anyone buyin or sellin a ticket ?"
-Haggling over the price of a 1 pound headband
-Abusing referees , linesmen and umpires. "Ya blind bollix ya"
-When the team comes out from its meal apres match , and mingles with supporters in the bar/hotel
-Getting your hands on SAM the night of an All-Ireland !! Magic
-O'Connell street on a All-Ireland final morning
-Playing in the same team as Maurice Fitzgerald .....okay it was 14 years ago !
-Being taught in school by the Bomber Liston
-personally knowing legends like Mick O'Dwyer, Mick O'Connell , Jack O'Shea , John Egan , Ger Lynch ,Fitzy etc
-knowing THE BIRD from Cork , the guy who wears the big Mexican hat and is shown on TV at all the Cork games
-Getting over the wire onto any GAA field when you have won
-"Put down the f*cking umbrella" and people who won't sit down
-Sitting next to someone from the rival county/club and abusing one of the players only to be told its their brother,son,boyfriend or husband !!
-saying on the way out of a game after losing , "Jaysus they were never so bad/we were robbed/fecking referee/there should have been more injury time/I am never supporting them again" and then 2 days later you are already looking forward to next year.
- Going for a pint with the fella's you went to school and college with, when they come to your place for a League match and vice versa.
-  Pre-Season training in the dark nights of winter makes it pass so much quicker.
- The anticipation of the first club challenge match of the year
- The disapointment when it's called off because the pitch is too wet
- The start of the League - you're definately going to get promoted this year
- Wee Mickey on the School team being the first player from the club to get a provincial medal - boys but he's going to be some footballer.
- The same wee Mickey getting caught by his da taking a pint after he scores 1-6 on his championship debut at 15 - bought to him by the club captain - who's da caught him in a similar situation 15 years earlier.
- Having a wee smile to yourself when your neighbours are beat in the championship by a point when in fairness they deserved to win.
- The travelling to Semple, and the different hums of silage along the way, coupled with the blaring horns of other travellers along the way
- The 'Ah Ref' or 'just give him a bit of aul' timber for jaysus sake' or 'get it out ta f**k would ya' or 'Christ, he couldn't hit snow of a rope dat'fella' or 'b'jaysus he must be playing great stuff in his back garden 'cause he shag all use here'
- The Crepe Hats - bring 'em back
- The digging out of the old Barrys Jersey (and the delight that it still fits) and with a bit of luck I might get more use out of it this 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.
- Dublin are playing any team in the country and they are "the biggest shower of knackers ever to set foot on a football field"....Until they are playing Meath. Then it's "C'mon ye Dubs"!
- When your team is one point up in the dying minutes and your shouting "Come on Ref! Blow it up!" When your team are one point down.................!
- When people shout things like "Ref! Third man tackle!" from the upper deck of the Cusack, and expect to be heard.
- Colm O'Rourke after last year's All-Ireland.
- "A Season of Sundays" from Sportsfile.
- Being lifted over the turnstiles by your Da when you were a kid.
- Taking a week off work after you win the county final to go drinking with the team you beat.
- Taking a week off work after you lose the county final to go drinking with the team that beat you.
- Be unfortunately appointed a linesman when your club are playing, and proceed to give all decisions in favour of your own club. Should anyone dare to question you, act indignant and shout aloud "would you like to volunteer"?
- Bringing your hurl into a school in Dublin for training or a match and having soccer heads look at it with their mouths open and then say. "Giz a go on your hurdle"
- Having something to talk to your Da about.
- The surge of sheer joy when your team scores a goal.
- The high you experience for ages after victory in a big game.
- Calling poor teams the 'so called weaker counties'.
- Pub crisps with my Da after the match while the grown ups debated the latest debacle.
- Watching Pat Spillane after he has got it hopelessly wrong.
- Starting up a converation with abolsute stranger about sundays match
- Gives you sense of identity, where you come from, something you will have til the day you die (unless you are James McCartan or Shane King)
- Journey home with sam, bonfires alight at every crossroad
- Sticking the flag out the window going to the match and holding on for dear life in case it blows away. when your a young lad of course
- When your young lad you and the neighbour outside your gaff waving the cars home with your flags
- The arrival in the stadium and the race up the steps into the stand beacause the massive roar from within has just indicated that the small drummer from the Artane boys band has fallen over a flag and ended on his arse.
- The banter at half time in the toilets in Croke Park within drunken oul lads waving their headbands and saying 'fur years I was fukin ashamed to wear this, now yis bastards yis can stick it up your arse'.
-The amount of it (senior, underage, club , county, colleges) there is always some sort of match on at the local pitch.
- The pure Heart and love for the game that makes a lad want to die going for the ball as opposed to the pros in soccer that show no emotion.
- The fact that no matter where in the world you go no sport can come near the GAA

- The oohs and aahs as the announcer reads out latest scores.
- The conveyor line of stout, so they just top one off when you order (yeah –GAA and booze seem to be inseparable).
- GAA people don't do hype, always understate, are always self-effacing - compare Trevor Giles and David Campese, Micheál Ó M and Sky Sport, Maurice Fitzgerald and Ponce Naseem Hamhead, the Irish vs. the Australian International Rules team, Joyce, Claffey, Fay, Linden, Canavan vs. Gascoigne, Ginola, Fowler, Jones, Boyer (OK you have Pat Spillane on the one hand and Niall Quinn on the other, but there are exceptions that prove every rule).
- Most GAA people love NH racing
- Mick O'Connell, Sean O'Neill, Brian Mullins.
- The combination of professionalism and naivete – Larry Tompkins, one of the best prepared and most professional footballers ever, missed a Munster final because he got sunburned on his feet! The most professional sports organisation in the country runs one of the few truly amateur sports left – and sends out Danny Lynch to deal with the world's media!
- The way Mick Lyons could set the Hogan Stand harrooing (not mine- I think that was Tom Humphries) and Ollie Murphy can turn the seething cauldron of the Hill into a flat, silent millpond in a single movement.
- Sean Boylan
- Unsegregated crowds
- Hurling
- Wearing your county jersey because you love it, not because it is a fashion item (none of them are!!!)
- Hearing people in the crowd going on about will so-and-so start? I heard he's on the beer, 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? etc.
- Club matches on a warm Sunday in summer.
- Playing unimportant winter league matches in the lashing rain and waterlogged pitch, I love these 'cause it slows the pace the game down, you can have a few pints the night before and the hangover isn't that obvious.
- The few cold pints on a sunny summers evening in the local with your team mates and supporters afterwards where the match is replayed - sometimes a few times too often!
- Seeing the young players coming through each year, bringing fresh talent, ideas and enthuasism to the team.
- Walking out from under the stand and into the stands at Croke Park - the view, the atmosphere, the shivers down your spine, everything........brillant! No matter how often I've been there or how big or small the crowd, it's always great.
- The first pint after the match - wets the whistle and keeps the spirits high, or puts them higher if you've won.
- The Sunday Game. Those boys have discovered a sense of humour in recent seasons, probably inspired by that great comedian Joe Brolly and his one liners (he must be there as a comedian 'cause he's definitely not there as an analyst). Michael Lyster is fast becoming the king of deadpan oneliners.
- The Monday session after the big matches. No work, getting the cure. Sweet.
- The smell of trampled grass and tobacco smoke on a sunny july afternoon
- Hawkers with melted ice cream
- Ripping the good trousers on them hooring fences in Croker - unfortunately, no longer the case
And of course the last word must come from a Kerry man
-Winning All-Irelands at any level but the Senior ones are extra special
- Beating Cork at any level
- The Piss up in Killarney every 2 years !!
- Beating Dublin every time since 1977
- FAI's Jealousy and begrudgery
- The Slaggin' and banter before and after games
- Oh and did I mention the drinking ?

[Louth Exile]

No matter how many players have fallen out with the manager, no matter how many injuries there are, no matter how many hammerings they got in the league, no matter that they're in the 'bad half' of the draw (every year) no matter that all history, commonsense, and a basic gaa knowledge points to an early exit  - come championship time hope springs; and you really do believe, 'This could be the year, boys!!!'

So true, it is the eternal optimism that wasn't there at the start of the NFL, but for no good reason as got itself into your head by the start of May, "Yes, this is the year that we beat the Dubs" 

[tintin25]

Enjoy the naming of the teams in the lead up to the match...always a few surprises and debutants...sometimes who are brought in at last minute having impressed in a couple of closed door friendlies prior.

[thejuice]

Ah 5 Sams,
The Championship cant come soon enough after reading that. No matter what happens, cant wait to be sauntering up Jones road. 12 days till Meath Vs Carlow!! 

[charlie stubbs]

the sun splitting the stones in clones with a load of class weemen rounding round!

[jodyb]

Fcuk me 5Sams!! If you just came up with that, you have way too much time on your hands

[Farrandeelin]

You do feel like an awful p***k after the game tho, especially if you've actually said latter statement to someone

And I always end up the p***k who says that statement!!

[5 Sams]

Fcuk me 5Sams!! If you just came up with that, you have way too much time on your hands

That is an accumulation of years of wisdom on this board Jody...I just happened to save it...

[Kerry Mike]

a few of the middle Kerry ones were from my auld keyboard, glad someone saved it.

[ONeill]

Eating prawn sandwiches from the throne in my Bugatti Veyron.

[Frank Casey]

5 Sams that brought a lump to my throat - or maybe that was a dry hang sandwich from the boot of the car.

Happy days.

[5 Sams]

My favourite

- Knowing and playing with and drinking with some of the players (how many man Utd supporters know David Beckham)