FORMER TIPPERARY SENIOR hurler Stephen Lillis has helped to create a little bit of history in the Chinese capital of Beijing.
Tomorrow, Lillis and his Beijing GAA colleagues will take great pride in sending a team comprised entirely of Chinese nationals from the Beijing-Dublin International College (BDIC) to the All-China games in Hong Kong.
And Lillis revealed that the after party theme for the games is the famous Father Ted episode, when our hero found himself in a spot of bother with the Chinese nationals living on the island.
“Each student has their own costume after being shown an episode,” Lillis smiled.
“Needless to say, they didn’t really get the humour but I’m sure after a weekend of being entertained by the Irish community, they will feel right at home wearing their costumes!”
Lillis came on as a sub for Tipperary in their 2011 Munster championship victory over Clare and while he played in the 2010 Munster club final for Thurles Sarsfields against De La Salle, the wing-back missed the breakthrough provincial win two years later after emigrating.
“I’m living in Beijing for the last number of years and my hurling has been put on the back burner, to say the least.
“For the last two semesters, we have been coaching Chinese students the game of Gaelic Football at BDIC, which is connected with University College, Dublin.
“My club Beijing GAA took it on ourselves to provide the coaching and guidance.
“Our aim was to get them to participate in the All-China Games and create history by being the first all-Chinese team to take part.
“It came together very quickly and we are sending a team to Hong Kong on 20 June.
“It will be a great experience for them and great for promoting the GAA abroad.”
The initiative came about last year when BDIC offered Gaelic Football to students as a module during semester one but coaches were required and Lillis, a former minor and U21 hurler with Tipp, stepped in along with his friend Colm Walsh.
“Ailish O’Halloran (Vice Principal at BDIC) is the driving force behind initiative and has done so much to make this a success story, contacted Beijing GAA to see if we would have any interest in taking the role to coach these students every Saturday for eight weeks,” Lillis explained.
“So, myself and Colm agreed to do so not knowing how it would fare out. It was a big time commitment but something we believed to be an incredible idea.
“On the first day, we had 31 students turn up for Gaelic Football.
“We gave them a brief introduction to the GAA and informed them how to play the game of football.
“They were slightly naive when they took to the field but as the weeks went by they had grasped the skills.
“After a few weeks of seeing them play, we set the goal of entering an all-Chinese team into the China Games in the future.
“Little did we think it that it would happen so quickly.
“Every week we had an average of 26 players train from 10am to 12pm.
“They had the skills of basketball and soccer so we only had to teach them a couple of extra skills. Their improvement from week one to week eight truly amazed us.”
BDIC officials were suitably impressed and asked Stephen and Colm to continue the programme.
“We decided to involve more coaches, be more hands on and introduce more technical skills,” Stephen said.
“We brought them to Beijing GAA training and invited them to our GAA Fun Day, where they got to meet the Irish community and see for themselves what the GAA is all about.
“Semester two’s group had fallen to 21 players each week due to study commitments but we recruited new players who loved the game immediately.
“We were amazed by the level of skill and their commitment, and our goal seemed ever more possible.
“With semester two completed, we set in motion the idea of entering our Chinese students at the Games.
“Through hard work and negotiating by Ailish, we were able to get enough funding to support the students and enter the first all-Chinese team to play in these games and create some history.
“12 male students will take part in the men’s competition while one female student will join Beijing GAA’s ladies team.
“Irrespective of how they get on, this is the start of something which can and will become very popular in China over the coming years.
“Beijing GAA had hopes of bringing two teams to the games but we will now have five teams competing at the weekend games in Hong Kong.”
