Podcast Corner: Three new GAA shows for the new season
There's plenty podcast listening for GAA fans as the inter-county hurling and football seasons kick off.
From the Examiner Sport team, this 10-part series examines the evolution of Gaelic football at a time when it seems to be at a crossroads. Kerry legend Ogie Moran laments the demands facing players nowadays, while John Keenan from Galway’s legendary team of the mid-1960s, says: “What I think - and I’m right - coaches have taken the talent out of the kids.”
But as host and historian Paul Rouse points out in the opening episode, commentators were lamenting the death of football over a century ago. He’s joined by reporter Maurice Brosnan, whose grasp of statistics in the game is fascinating to listen to, and former Mayo manager James Moran as they track the changes over the decades, with each episode focusing on a particular game, all of which are available to watch on YouTube.
It’s an interesting battle of memory vs reality - was the Dublin v Kerry 1977 All-Ireland semi-final the greatest game ever played, Rouse puts to Brosnan, who parries back: “What does great mean to you, Paul?” Brosnan says it’s a fascinating game, but points out there are parts of the match that remind him of ‘I kick to touch, you kick to touch’ in rugby.
Perhaps the best thing you can say about the Madness of Football (an Irish Examiner subscriber-only podcast) is that it leaves you excited to watch some actual matches now.
Only available on Spotify, The Summer of 98 is hosted by journalist Michael Foley, who has previous with historical GAA podcasts - The Bloodied Field Podcast was released to coincide with the centenary of Bloody Sunday. The Summer of 98 is about the special football and hurling championships of that year.
Foley calls it a summer “so full of plot twists and stories that feel now like genuine sliding-doors moments for the GAA”, adding that it continues to resonate. Along the way we get stories from the special teams and personalities that defined that era, like Clare hurling boss Ger Loughnane and the party animals of Offaly and their epic trilogy with the Banner. It was also the summer of the Omagh bombing.
Available on the Amazing Sport Stories podcast feed, Mayo people might hold their head in their hands that ‘the curse’ - they haven’t won the All-Ireland SFC since 1951 - has gone international. The rest of us might chuckle at American sports reporter Dave McKenna trying to explain the rules of the game for his audience. But once you get past all that, this is an fun three-parter, with the likes of Western People sports editor Anthony Hennigan trying to explain where the curse comes from - if it even existed in the first place. And we have to ask, with the release of this show, Mayo for Sam?
