SLOWLY BUT SURELY, word is spreading worldwide about GAA.
Hurling and football are now available to British viewers on Sky Sports, many of whom have been evidently perplexed and amused by the sport.
Moreover, GAA clubs are being established across the globe, and making a name for themselves to boot — photos of Lazio GAA’s recent encounter with the Pope ended up going viral.
One of the more unlikely places where the sport has enjoyed considerable growth in recent years is Texas, USA.
The first club set up over there, Austin Celtic Cowboys, was established in 2004. Dallas Fionn MacCumhaill’s and Houston Gaels followed in 2009 and 2011 respectively.
Philip Larkin is chairman of the Houston Gaels, the club he set up four years ago in a pub, along with a Polish-American GAA aficionado Johnny Ziomek (Vice Chairperson) — who has also been involved with GAA clubs in Los Angeles and South Korea — and an Irish emigrant, Mike Murphy (Secretary).
By this point, Larkin had been living in the States for just over a year, having moved there for his job with Kentz – Engineers & Constructors, who also sponsor the side.
The club’s growth has been gradual, with Larkin acknowledging that it hasn’t always been easy to attract numbers.
“Houston is not a typical port of call for Irish people when they’re moving to the US,” he tells The42. “Especially when it comes to young GAA players and students going over for the summer. We’re not a typical landing spot. We have a good mix of locals, Irish expats and other expats — English, Scottish, American, we’ve had a couple of Kiwis as well.
“We’ve had a few more Irish come into the city over the last year and a half, so we’re probably about 60 or 70% Irish. We just started a pub league as well, and part of that was doing a big recruitment drive locally through soccer clubs and rugby clubs, so we’ve got a really good push of more local guys just in the last two or three months.”
As well as being chairman, Larkin takes a very hands-on role in other affairs. He plays for the team, as well as being a “trainer, general manager, kit handler, you name it…”
“But the crux of the position is organising, negotiating, and taking the club forward,” he adds. “My aim is always to improve. We’ve got to take the club forward. We’ve got to get better every year. We’ve got to be bigger and stronger. That’s what the plan is and that’s what we’ve been doing so far.”
(The LA Galaxy players pictured warming up)
One of the biggest challenges for the players, he explains, is withstanding the intense heat of the Texas climate.
“You could be there for 20 years, or you could be there for 20 minutes, and that level of heat, you never get used to it. It does help you when you’re trying to build fitness. The Texas clubs would probably have a fitness advantage over clubs in other parts of the country.
“It’s excruciating to train in. We train at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning and half six on Wednesday evenings. So even though we try to train early and train late and take the big heat out of the day, it’s still 35 or 36 degrees by the time we take to the field. It’s pretty punishing for everybody involved — not just us Paddies, but the locals as well.”
Despite attempts to integrate hurling, however, the Houston Gaels remain primarily a football club.
“We haven’t been successful in getting a hurling club organised. It’d be nice as I’m from Tipperary, which is more a hurling county than a football one, but the way it’s structured in the US, from what I can see, is that most clubs would have one or the other.
“The challenges of getting Gaelic Football up and running, and maintaining numbers, has been difficult enough without splitting the focus across the hurling too. It would be virtually impossible to have a hurling team in Houston, with the current crop of people that are there.”
Nonetheless, while the process may have been painstaking at times, Larkin has been impressed with the standard of some of the newer recruits.
“Recently, we got a batch of new guys for this pub league that we’re doing internally. Some of the guys have just picked it up immediately — natural footballers, natural sportsmen, naturally talented. You can see already that they’re going to be superstars. Some of the other guys, it’s going to take them a little bit longer. That’s why we’ve got a few teams — our senior team, our junior team and our development team as well.
“We’re all about growing the sport locally. This is the way we do it. We don’t care how long it takes or if a guy never gets it. We have some guys that show up and practice every single week, and it’s fairly clear they’re never going to be footballers, but we love having those guys there, because they’re passionate about the game, they’re passionate about the club, they just enjoy it.
“When describing GAA to Americans, we say it’s a mix between rugby, soccer and basketball. The basketball guys, once we teach them that you can’t double bounce, they definitely have a natural talent for dribbling with the ball. The solo becomes a bit of a challenge then. The speed and getting around people is all there for the guys who play basketball.
“The main American sports that we would recruit from are basketball and American Football, so obviously there’s a catching technique for American Football that would be useful for Gaelic as well.”
Furthermore, Houston Gaels regularly play in national tournaments against other sides in North America, as well as local ones, and Larkin estimates that roughly 240 teams compete in total in North America.
“We have a fully functioning Texas league with sponsors and everything, and we get referees to come in from outside the state. It’s actually turned into a pretty good-sized, well-managed tournament now.”
(The Gaels and others pictured in action)
One of the most recent highlights for the Gaels was an exhibition game they took part in — along with Austin Celtic Cowboys and Dallas Fionn MacCumhaill’s — when LA Galaxy came to town to face Houston Dynamo in the MLS.
“We played an internal mixed, club exhibition game after that. We had two 20-minute halves. We had about 1,000 people stay on afterwards to watch us.
“It’s the second year we’ve done it now… They treat us like a professional club ourselves. This particular game — LA Galaxy — was the biggest game that’s ever come to Houston. It was sold out. You had Robbie Keane and Steven Gerrard, in only his second game.
“They had 350 tickets to sell ourselves and help our club out. They could have sold the tickets themselves at a premium, but they chose to give them to us, so we’re very grateful for the link we have with what is a professional sports organisation.
“There are plans in place for making it an even bigger thing next year, where we have a day-time tournament in a different part of Houston. Whoever wins the final of that tournament is in the final for whatever MLS game we choose to play next year in the stadium after that.”
Unfortunately however, their plans to meet star striker Robbie Keane never materialised.
“We wanted to have Robbie out, even just observing, but unfortunately, it fell through. We had been in discussions with their PR guy and it looked like something was going to happen at one point, and we were going to present him with a Houston Gaels jersey.
“Unfortunately, the Galaxy lost 3-0 and I don’t think Robbie was in the best of moods to come out on a very humid day to watch a bunch of pasty Paddies running around the place. But hopefully, we’ll catch him the next time he comes to town and present him with that jersey.”
Nevertheless, as memorable as that game was, it doesn’t compare with what Larkin describes as “the highlight of the club’s existence” so far.
“It was the national championships two years ago in Cleveland,” he recalls. “We went as a pretty rag tag group of guys. In our first tournament, we won two games in one day, and got into the semi-finals.
“But even better than that, we won our second game by two points after being four points down with about a minute and a half to play. We scored two goals and a point in the last couple of minutes to win the game and stun Charlotte… It’s something that the group will never forget — we’ll always have that bond.”
For more info on the Houston Gaels, you can visit their website here, or find them on Facebook here.
