My favourite GAA day ...

I'm sure many of us have been to hundreds of games - club & county - played in many games - club (not county!! Me anyway! - and had many great days out thanks to our love of the GAA.

So what was your favourite GAA day?

Mine goes back a little while - 26 years to be exact! And the famous trip to Cork for the 1983 All Ireland semi final replay. An early start and thousands of mad Dubs getting out of the city for the day - many for the first time ever. A glorious day - we used to have them - and arriving in Cork in a convoy of buses, cars, trains and a Citroen Dyane painted in the Dublin colours. Travelling more in hope than anticipation following our great escape with a late goal in Croke Park.

The atmosphere was amazing - city end red (Cork used to have football supporters!) and Blackrock end blue. The performance sublime - 4 great goals - Mullins magic, Rock brilliant, Mc Nally, Drumm, Canavan - legends!

The long journey home punctuated by pubs! A few in Watergrasshill with gracious Cork fans, New Inn for the Sunday Game - or whatever it was then - with busloads of joyous Dub fans! I doubt the small village seen the likes before or since. And meeting the Citroen Dyane again on the way home with the scoreline now part of the paintwork - Dublin 4-15: Cork 2-10!

A truly memorable trip - a great performance - and craic that only the GAA can bring!

The suspense had been building all week. One match left and Mayo were in the All-Ireland Final. First, Dublin stood in our way.
All week Dublin players were in the papers talking about 'this is our year for Sam' and the writers seemed to fall for it as they refused to believe Mayo could win even with the likes of David Brady, McDonald, Kevin O'Neill, James Nallen, Alan Dillon and the fact that Conor Mortiumer was already the highest scoring player in the Championship.
As All-Ireland semi-final day was coming ever closer, I resigned to the fact that the ticket I had found myself for the match would have to be given away. It was either all of the Mayo gang going up or none.
On that Saturday morning plasterd all over the front and back pages of the Star was Alan Brogan saying it's not Mayo we're looking to it's the final. As I read further into the article he had written off Mayo altogether and that's when I got angry. We were gonna beat the living daylights out of them and this was gonna be one brilliant match.
Finally, it was the day we had been waiting for. The sun high up in the sky and a gentle breeze out. If it was anything like this up in Croke Park then it's set to be a great one, I said to myself. Off to Mass with me and I got in the prayers for Mayo. Two hours later it was match time!
I got that nervous feeling in my stomach as I saw all those Dub fans crowded into Hill 16. For the record, they don't own Hill 16 cos after that day, it belonged to Mayo The Mayo team descended towards Hill 16, facing the shocked faces of all the Dubs. As rising anger continued to grow on the hill, Mayo sent out a crystal clear message to Dublin: 'Bring it on!'. After the Dublin team arrived on the pitch, seeing their faces was almost funny. They headed towards the hill, revenge in their eyes, but our Mayo men didn't move. Staying calm and showing everybody that Mayo had captured the hill, they continued to kick ball after ball over the bar.
As the house filled with 'Come on Mayo', we watched in horror as that bull of a Pillar Caffrey stormed down to John Morrison, Mayo coach and shouldered him. Totally uncalled for, John remained stationed as he was much stronger than a Pillar. This was football, not rugby like.
The match started and Mayo got four points without reply. The Dubs had been rattled. As Dublin began to come to terms with Mayo's bravery, they too started to play after the 20th minute and soon both teams were level. It was very close coming into half-time and it looked like the second half was gonna be one to remember.
Oh, it was. Dublin soon gained a seven point lead over Mayo and I began to feel sick. Never lost hope though and I prayed for a miracle and boy, did I get one! Andy Moran was brought on and within the minute he had scored a goal It emerged after the match that he had told Mickey Moran before he came on to bring him on cos he was gonna score a goal. Well, a Mayo man never breaks a promise. As Mayo gained the upper hand of Dublin, scoring four more points to draw level - and they were brilliant points to - nothing petty, Ciaran McDonald who had been playing well all the second half, began to come to life. He scored the most AMAZING point I have ever seen in my life from the sideline and as it swayed over the crossbar, I knew my prayers had been answered. As Mayo played pass-the-ball and the clock wound down, the shouting grew even louder. FINAL WHISTLE!
We had thought the Dubs a lesson, they weren't easily going to forget.
That was the best memory of a match ever and will long stay in GAA history as the best match ever played. Mayo being the reason!

Yes painful memories - but there were no Dublin players saying they would win Sam before that game ...

Jayo Cluxton wrote:Yes painful memories - but there were no Dublin players saying they would win Sam before that game ...

To be honest now they were very cocky before the game and especially Alan Brogan. I heard that Mickey Moran showed the Mayo players the back page before the match that day and it worked. Brogan did say something like they believed it was their year for Sam the day before the match.

Anyway, it was the best match ever and one for Mayo people evrywhere to be proud of. The only thing that will top that will be winning the All-Ireland.