Going for Gold?

Someone rang in to a Dublin radio station suggesting that Gaelic Football be considered for inclusion in future Olympic Games. The caller was Irish, living in China and competing with a selection of expatriates and foreigners in the All-Asian games - in Gaelic sports. What chance, I wondered, would we Irish have of winning gold in the Olympic Games were Gaelic Football and Hurling to be included. Hurling, undoubtedly, would represent our best shot at taking gold - such are the skills required for the sport that only those living and breathing the game in stronghold counties ever possess any chance of medals in our own country - it would be an impossibility for any other country to take us on in this sport. Football, however, is a different ball game altogether. Football is, and always will be, a game for strong men. True, skill makes a difference, but not so substantial a difference that a team of well built foreigners couldn't take on our own. Football is so similar in fact to other sports - all the obvious ones - that I'd reckon that our lads would in no way be assured of podium positioning if a rich selection of foreign countries were to invest a few years in getting their lads up to scratch. Not so for our hurlers though.

The Australians, when their native sport was catching on, immediately set sights on international expansion. The early game spread from Victoria to other colonies on their continent, to South Australia (where, interestingly, the goal posts took a shape like the future [and current] Gaelic posts), New South Wales as well as New Zealand. At the time, however, even the trip across the Tasman couldn't be considered international, but their attempted invasion of the US most certainly could. The Australians attempted through correspondence to get their game to influence British sports, though as Britons in the south perhaps even that couldn't be considered international. Perhaps also their excursions to the States could be put on a par with our own ill-fated adventure of 1888.

However, in the modern era the Australians have sought to have their game taken on in Asia, Africa and elsewhere, with a recognition that foreign fields can provide rich ground for recruitment. The franchise structure of the Australian game represents a clear difference from our own, as does the environment in Australia where multiple cultures and national groups have long been part of their sport. Maybe this has given them an advantage in internationalising their game, or maybe they just want it more. Maybe we don't want it at all - remembering that for its 12 decades the GAA has been as much about asserting Irishness, culturally and politically, as it has been about sporting competition.

Consider this example: if Gaelic Football was being played at the Olympics, would it still be necessary for the Irish flag to fly and for Amhrán na bhFiann to play before the game. Rule 15 requires this of any game under the control of the GAA. Would we sacrifice this to see our sports played on foreign fields, or are we happy as it is - a game of our own, where we're champions of the world this year, next year and forever.

Head the Ball

A documentary on the History Channel yesterday - interestingly the opening day of the Olympic football competition - described how footballs origins can be traced to the BC era in China. According to a document found in 1973, the Yellow Emperor defeated an enemy Chiyou in war and as a means of venting whatever anger remained, ordered the beheading of his enemy, and then ordered his men to kick the head in a game of Cuju (pronounced Choo Jii). Apparently FIFA have recognised this as the oldest record of what's now called football, codified somewhat more recently by our friends across the Irish Sea as Association Football, or soccer.

Soccer's uniqueness arises from the allowance in only limited circumstances of the use of the hands. Cuju shared this rule with soccer, and indeed many of the ball control skills, according to historians. Due to the weight of the ball, it could be kicked neither high nor far, so much more focus was placed on control close to the body. According to the reconstructed footage in the documentary, the game appeared quite similar to soccer - spectacular dive included.

Given that between one and two millenia passed between the two versions of the game, it's reasonable to suppose that there is no direct ancestral relationship between the two games. Instead, it's probable that both games arose independently and happened upon the "no handling" rule due to their own spiritual, pragmatic or other reasons. Just because two sports appear similar does not require us to believe that they share any evolutionary link, much as we'd like to. Richard Dawkins, Oxford University's contemporary poster-boy for Darwin's natural selection theory, wrote in one of his tomes of the existence of - or indeed just our need to believe in - "evolutionary good tricks". Using the eyes as an example, as I recall, Dawkins explained that the existence of eyes in two species does not require an evolutionary link, the having of eyes provides a selective advantage making the species more able to survive. So it's not unlikely for two explorations of DNA space to have happened upon this useful organ. Not handling the ball may just be a useful adaptation, as are many of the other features of soccer - especially when space is at a premium. In China Cuju was played in army barracks and later palaces, where, I suppose windows could have been broken. Soccer's appeal to the urban audience was due to precisely the same reasons.

In this country we've often assumed that an ancestral relationship existed between our own football and Australia's native game, originating in the Victorian colony. The two games appear similar, much like Cuju and soccer, and the skills required are so similar that players can transfer relatively easily between the two. The first game of Australian Football was apparently played in 1858, with the first proper rules being documented by one Thomas Wills the following year. Michael Cusack's rules and organisation didn't exist until 1884, but prior to that football games were played, most famously the Caid game in the south. It is suggested, then, that Caid played parent to both Gaelic Football and Australin Football, but there is no evidence to support this. Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey, on behalf of the VFL/AFL investigated the link between our football and theirs, and found no sound evidence to suggest a substantial link. There were in the early days of Victorian football, for example, no Irish clubs in Victoria, few Irish names on record as club members, no teams using green, no discussion on record of any Irish relationship to the game. In fact, the documentation that exists, which is not much, treats in much detail the relationship between Australian football and games played in England's public schools. Other suggestions such as a relationship between Australian Football and Aboriginal Games such as Mangook appear as unlikely as they are unproven.

What seems likely to me is that there is little purity in the descent of sports. They borrow from each other in many conscious and unconscious ways. This was particularly the case in the mid 19th centure when different villages in Ireland, towns in Australia and schools in England had their local versions of football. As well as hundreds of other versions likely elsewhere. Where games are regulated locally, changes can be rapid leading to speciation, divergence and convergence. As I see it, this is what happened with Ireland and Australia. Both our games likely have some shared history, but not necessarily more of an overlap than we have with many other sports, both living and extinct.

By the way, the documentary on Cuju is available online at http://www.truveo.com/Ancient-Chinese-Sports-Soccer/id/797328393.

The Gambler

I only recently got around to reading Oisin McConville's biography, written during last year's championship and detailing, among many things, Oisin's personal battles with an addiction to gambling and Armagh's battles with Tyrone. Although the text runs to a reasonable 204 pages the headlines at the time of its release treated only the writer's smashing of football's fourth wall to tell of the sledging dished on the pitch by Tyrone players. Conor Gormley and Ryan McMenamin in particular but also this year's captain Brian Dooher. In reality this is but a small sub-plot to the book, and serves only to identify these players with many others who, legend tells us, said much worse through the years. Even the title, The Gambler, makes reference to a part of the book which occupies less inches than the gripping football stories. McConville suffered, suffered badly too, with an addiction to gambling which left him in substantial debt and relying on freinds and family to avoid serious problems. And avoid them he assuredly did. Throughout so much of the book you're given the impression that McConville's ambitions in football had no counterpart off the field. While football was his life, he showed no motivation to achieve any success outside of it, as he moved between jobs, built up gambling debts, and then felt let down when the football side of his life wouldn't come to the rescue - for example when he writes of his need to sell his car only to find that the county board wouldn't replace it for him.

For football fans though, the main motivation for reading the book is to peek inside the Armagh team of the past decade. McConville considers the Armagh team "one of the greatest of the modern era". While the statistics show only one Sam Maguire in the past decade, it shows that in the historically level playing fields of Ulster the Orchard men have taken seven from the past ten Anglo Celt trophies. Not even Kerry have matched this provincial record. What Kerry have done, however, is win four of the past ten All-Ireland Championships. Tyrone and Galway have collected two each. Meath's tally of one matches Armagh's. Yet there surely is a greatness in the achievements of Armagh. The greatness of their revolution. McConville tells of training methods borrowed from Rugby League, including hated tackle grids where hard hits were given, taken and brought into Croke Park for big games. Armagh's taming of Dublin in 2003, the writer tells us, was down to a fear on Dublin's part to beat their markers to the ball - such was the ferocity of their clashes. Maybe so. Undoubtedly Armagh brought a level of fitness, physicality and professionalism which led the way for others. But perhaps the key word for Armagh is "intensity" - the oft used term employed by Joe Brolly in his analysis. McConville writes of a time when Joe Kernan spoke to his Crossmaglen players before a match with Mullaghbawn, instructing them to stare their marker in the eye as they shook hands before throw in, and to look right through them. This deathly stare was matched on the field with the "inches" philosohpy of winning every little battle. Everything.

But all that takes it out of you, and after a decade of football Armagh must be disappointed to have failed to match their fiercest rivals in mid-Ulster on the roll of honour. Maybe their time will come again this year, with Wexford to face this weekend and bigger teams to follow. One way or another, they've left their mark on the game and the competitions. McConville and co. seem to recognise that the good times have ended, but who knows, maybe the thought of Brian Dooher in the Hogan Stand is just the focus they need. Here's hoping.

Leinster's Three

Quarter finals of the football championship, and the most represented province is Leinster. The province which hasn't had an All-Ireland finalist since 2001, and hasn't had a winner since the Royal County took ultimate honours in the last year of the last century, must take encouragement from their three counties fighting for places in the semi-finals. True, none but the Leinster Champions will enter their tie as favourites, and both Wexford and Kildare played this weekend in atrocious football matches, but teams have won medals in the past playing less than perfect football.

Traditionally Ulster counties support each other against a perceived common enemy when counties emerge from the northern province. Local rivalries are one thing, but this morphs to local affinity when supporters travel to Croke Park. This has never been the case for Leinster, but perhaps now is the time. Critics are speaking of the Leinster Championship in football in the same terms used for the hurling version. Dublin are seen as the hegemons that Kilkenny have long been in hurling. Such a dominance does nothing for the respect for the competition, even more so when it is considered that thirteen years have passed since Dublin supporters have sought tickets in late September.

Leinster needs to occupy a place at the top table of football. More teams from Leinster compete in the football championship than any of the other provinces, yet most of these are classed as weak counties and in turn the chamionship is a weak cometition. This year's qualifiers has already witnessed the gutting of Meath in the most savage way imaginable on a trip to one of Munster's second class citizens. Laois and Offaly now share both a Dáil constituency and a bad memory of a summer meeting with Mourne men. Of the other counties Westmeath represented creditable but ill disciplined opposition for Louth's conquerers in Omagh; Longford didn't play any teams from outside their province; Carlow and Wicklow weren't even eligible for qualification to the, eh, qualifiers. All this and the final of the Leinster Championship saw the biggest margin of victory in any football match this summer, missing out only to Galway's defeat of Antrim in hurling for the title of worst mauling of the Gaelic summer.

The best answer for the criticism this inevitably leads to, as it was when Ulster's nine way battle was considered a second tier championship, is for success to come outside the province. Thus supporters of all Leinster counties should welcome the current quarter-final representation, and all should hope for Leinster progression against Cork, Armagh and Tyrone. It's said that when Offaly played Down in the 1961 football final, their supporters were met with Red and Black bunting as they journeyed through Kildare on final day. The rivalries are old and the schadenfreude that welcomes defeat may be a part of the local traditions, but this does nothing for the respect for counties in the largest province or their annual competition.

Maybe all Leinster people could consider this when selecting teams to cheer for on the next two weekends.