Last week, I signed off by saying that if you wanted to know a little bit more about Gaelic Football (Ireland’s national sport) and how exactly I managed to find myself playing it in Korea, that you should check out this week’s post. Well, come on then, take the red pill and jump down the Soju to Kimchi rabbit hole….
Ok before I get started, it would probably be best for everyone reading to have a baseline knowledge of Gaelic Football and how it is played (I liken the sport to a hybrid of rugby and soccer) but instead of me trying to explain the rules, just watch this video instead.
Now you see, I just spared you all reading multiple paragraphs about a sport I can still barely play and I just saved myself about 30 minutes of over-analyzing/editing/re-writing the same aforementioned paragraphs, so hey, everybody wins, woohoo! Expect this blog now to devolve into a series of hyperlinks that at first will relate to whatever it is that i’m talking about but will gradually devolve into a bunch of random hullabaloo like this which does absolutely nothing to further the topic at hand.
Long story short, I got introduced to Gaelic Football through a friend of a friend’s husband (who is now also a friend) who is Irish and has been living in Seoul for the past five years. I went to my first practice about three weeks into moving to Korea, thinking I’d probably go a few times before dropping out altogether but that it would be a good way to make some friends. Well, I was wrong about the first part because I was spot on about the second. There’s a men’s and women’s team, each of which have about 35+ people; I’d say about 70% of both teams are Irish while the rest are made up of Koreans, Americans, Aussies, English and a few other nationalities, so it’s definitely been a great way to meet people. That and the sport is actually quite fun and there are enough similarities to soccer in terms of movement and possession which have made it not too difficult to pick up (I still suck).
But make no mistake though, while there is certainly a social aspect to the Seoul Gaels Club, these guys don’t mess around when it comes to training or getting ready for tournaments. There are around seven tournaments for the year, five of which are in Korea, another in Shanghai, China and the final Asian Games tournament takes place this year in Bangkok, Thailand. We practice on the Yongsan military base every weekend and are expected to do two fartleks per week in order to stay in shape for tournaments. Overall, I was quite surprised with how well run and organized the club is…it’s certainly a far cry from my days spent as a captaining co-ed soccer/kickball teams in DC i.e. sending incorrect game time information, texting people the day of seeing if they are attending etc. etc.
This past weekend, we had our second tournament of the season in Busan, the second largest city in Korea which is about a two and a half hour ride South of Seoul on the bullet train. The main differences between actual Gaelic Football and what we play are the amount of players on the field (9 as opposed to 15) duration of each game (15 minutes as opposed to an hour but that’s because we’re playing 4-5 games in one day for a tourney) and field size (I don’t know what the dimensions are normally I just know we play on smaller fields). Other than that, i’m pretty sure everything else is the same. The A team pretty much consists of all Irish guys who’ve been playing the sport since they were wee little lads, so naturally I played on the B team. Seoul Gaels B team went 2-2 on the day, beating both B teams of Busan and Daegu while losing to their A teams (although we were leading them both at half….bastards). Seoul Gaels A team playing against any other team in Korea is like the Varsity team playing at half speed against the JV team and still wiping the floor, or like the Golden State Warriors playing the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals (I just had to get an NBA reference/dig at LBJ somehow before the season ended) #got’em!
So without further ado, here are some photos from the tourney:
The rest of Saturday evening was spent recuperating before moving on to a bar called The Wolf Hound (fitting, considering the majority of both teams are Irish) for some celebratory drinks. Sunday was spent again recuperating from the day and night before over on the beach which was only a 5 minute walk from the hostel. NICE!
Alright fam, well that’s about all I’ve got for ya today. Shout out to Lorraine, Danicke and Nana, all of whom took the majority of these pictures I just posted (and here you thought I was putting all that effort in. Shiiiiiiit come on now). Stay safe you crazy kids and do something productive this weekend in addition to whatever fun you may be having. Me for example, will be memorizing either this or this. I’ll probably go with the latter considering the people that I live above, below and next to will despise me if I go through with the former.
Until next time…..