New York in the Championship

I asked a question on Twitter last night and it got a brilliant response and some great debate going, so i'll ask it here too and hope for a similar response.

Simple question, given the hammerings they have had in recent years, should New York continue in the Championship?

Here is the viewpoint from the New Yorkers themselves, taken from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] via the @Global_GAA twitter feed -


With the Connacht championship game over for another year, the witch hunt begins by many on whether it is feasible or not for New York to continue to participate, such was the drubbing that was dished out on Sunday.

As the crowd hung around Gaelic Park on Sunday, all sorts of opinions were heard from players that were on this year’s panel, last year’s panel and in years gone by. The general public and firm supporters also had strong opinions, both negative and positive.

In the last five years the margin of defeat has been just less than 15 points. Take away the 24 from this year and 16 from last and in the previous three years it was 11 points.

Looking across the GAA scenery, there have been many sides that took hammerings for years and never complained, but fought again the following year. Think of the times before the creative back door.

Counties such as Wicklow, Carlow, Sligo, yes Sligo, Antrim, even Donegal had periods when their championship time frame was one game and out for years and years. In fact, 13 of the 32 counties -- add in London and New York -- have always lost their last game of the year. ALWAYS. Only 19 teams have won Sam Maguire.

So what about New York? It is not the fifties and sixties any more when a New York side was good enough to win the All-Ireland, never mind compete. They did win the National League on three occasions.

There are a number of players in New York at the moment who could compete for a place on a county panel in Ireland. Many have recently started on the other side of the pond. Why weren’t they part of the panel and team on Sunday?

New York start training for the Connacht championship usually mid-January, late in comparison for a county side. Most county players are in the gym on their own schedules given to them from the manager and trainers in November.

Now most panels are already playing games in January, an FBD in Connacht as example. The New York player has nothing.

If a New York player is not making himself available for training come the first of March, then any manager should look further afield and say perhaps that player is out of contention. And rightfully so. If you can’t commit to eight weeks then why should you be eligible?

However, why is he saying he has no interest? Perhaps it is because he feels that the one and done is not worth the time of work away from family.

To get any side ready for a championship tilt, be it under-12 or senior, you must try out your players. You have to have challenges.

How do you get them here? This year Boston did not play New York. You would think that they would be delighted to give it a lash.

The Wolfe Tones side that was down for the Cavan sevens (including Joe Sheridan) with the help of another seven bodies would have been perfect, but it never happened.

If we could guarantee a New York player three games against quality competition, would that help? How about this -- speak to the GAA in Ireland and tell them that you want the All-Ireland club champions out here the week after St. Patrick’s Day for eight days. During the trip they will play New York twice


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I'm interested to read some of the viewpoints on here from you all on this.

A Gaelic Football and Hurling World Cup might be an idea somewhere down the line. My idea would be to market it as a kind of novelty event (maybe as part of a wider celebration such as 'GAA week'). Of course for the players/teams involved, it'd be taken seriously. It would be held in Ireland over a 3-7 day period and cities like London, Manchester, New York, Boston, Melbourne, Sydney would compete. Also going back to 'GAA week', the All-Ireland Finals will eventually get brought forward to the end of August and my suggestion would be to play them on consecutive Sundays or even on the same weekend. The Football World Cup and Hurling World Cup would ideally take place the week preceding the finals. Of course, the standard would need to rise considerably before such an event could ever take place. Many cities apart from London would only produce a team of junior quality at this moment. But a World Cup would be nice by say 2030.

We here in Dublin (home of Sam) have a mere 1.1 million people - a lot of whom have come up from the country and taken our jobs and Winning Streak places but not our women. I find it pathetic that New York, a city of 8.2 million people cannot beat Sligo who have a mere 58,000 (many of whom are women and pensioners). Similarly London has 7.8 million inhabitants and fare equally poorly. Not good enough - must try harder.

Parouisa wrote:We here in Dublin (home of Sam) have a mere 1.1 million people - a lot of whom have come up from the country and taken our jobs and Winning Streak places but not our women. I find it pathetic that New York, a city of 8.2 million people cannot beat Sligo who have a mere 58,000 (many of whom are women and pensioners). Similarly London has 7.8 million inhabitants and fare equally poorly. Not good enough - must try harder.

Thats a very basic way of looking at it Parousia.

Parouisa wrote:We here in Dublin (home of Sam) have a mere 1.1 million people - a lot of whom have come up from the country and taken our jobs and Winning Streak places but not our women. I find it pathetic that New York, a city of 8.2 million people cannot beat Sligo who have a mere 58,000 (many of whom are women and pensioners). Similarly London has 7.8 million inhabitants and fare equally poorly. Not good enough - must try harder.

I will love it when we beat you.......LOVE IT!!!

bald eagle wrote:

Parouisa wrote:We here in Dublin (home of Sam) have a mere 1.1 million people - a lot of whom have come up from the country and taken our jobs and Winning Streak places but not our women. I find it pathetic that New York, a city of 8.2 million people cannot beat Sligo who have a mere 58,000 (many of whom are women and pensioners). Similarly London has 7.8 million inhabitants and fare equally poorly. Not good enough - must try harder.

I will love it when we beat you.......LOVE IT!!!

Parouisa wrote:We here in Dublin (home of Sam) have a mere 1.1 million people - a lot of whom have come up from the country and taken our jobs and Winning Streak places but not our women. I find it pathetic that New York, a city of 8.2 million people cannot beat Sligo who have a mere 58,000 (many of whom are women and pensioners). Similarly London has 7.8 million inhabitants and fare equally poorly. Not good enough - must try harder.

This poster, playing the hipster/mullins/jayocluxton card, should be banned forthwith...