Seoul Gaels

It’s been four months since our GAA season began here in Seoul, Korea and we have reached the midway point in our season.

On the back of a successful North Asia Gaelic Games our coach has given us a two week break to recuperate and reset our minds for the task ahead as we start to look forward to the biggest challenge of all this year; The Asian Gaelic Games in October.

Now, you may think it’s a chance to hit the beach and party, go to some Friday night raves or binge on “DoubleDown” chicken burgers at KFC for the next two weeks. Coincidentally, our break does coincide with a popular mud festival here where people get down and dirty on the beach and drink beer for the day. Though, as appealing as that sounds, we are also aware that a fitness test awaits us when training returns, so, we will soon find out who has been sipping on ‘Coronoritas’ and who has been outside putting down the hard miles.

In any case, for those of us, who wake up in a sweat at the thought of a GAA free weekend in Korea there was only one solution. Hurling. A good turnout of nine or ten lads trained on Saturday eager to get their weekly fix, though, I must admit, I was not one of them, deciding instead to take a much needed weekend off.

Our season has been a hectic one up to now. Since our skills session for new members back in April we have surpassed some goals, fallen short in others, made new friends and memories and even had the occasional cock-up along the way.

On the football field we have travelled to the other end of the country to play Laochra Busan and Daegu na Fianna in round one and two of the Korean league. We made the short dash to Shanghai, in May, for the all-China games where we were narrowly beaten by the hosts in the men’s final and we regained some redemption, on home turf, when both our men’s and ladies teams were victorious in the recent North Asia Games. For the most part, we have trained on good turf pitches, namely that at the American Army Base, limiting the amount of time spent getting our knees cut up on treacherous dirt pitches.

Of course nothing ever goes perfectly smooth as I found out one particular Saturday when a late text informed me that training had been switched to the Han River because of unexpected traffic. I was already on the bus at the time without any immediate escape. Three hours later I finally arrived at the original location, well outside Seoul, where I subsequently trained with the Ladies’ team.

Nor did things go very smoothly for our Treasurer Brian Keane on our trip to Ulsan for the second round of the Korean league. While we were getting ready to board our train at Seoul Station, Keano had only just woken up at his home. This was despite having a group ticket for about 40 people. Fortunately we got on and a very apologetic Keano took a train down later that morning.

However, some precarious moments aside, the first half of the season hasn’t gone too badly at all.

At underage level, interest has grown after a slow start to the year and numbers at training have been high. The kid’s team now have their first official playing kit, sponsored by Etihad Airways, while links between the kids and Adult players in the club have strengthened as was evident in touch rugby tournaments we played together and also at training sessions where senior players have helped with coaching.

The two kid’s exhibition games provided one of the highlights of the year at the North Asia Gaelic Games, as did hurling, which has also seen a recent surge of interest.

Indeed, reviving the North Asia Games has been one of our biggest achievements and we hope the tournament will grow further next year.

Away from the field we’ve had many socials and fundraisers. In May, our charity date auction raised almost two million Korean won for victims of the Sewol ferry disaster. Fairly recently, survivors of the tragedy returned to the school while society here continues to struggle with the realization of what has happened.

A lot has happened this year and we’re only half way through. It’s probably not a bad thing to sit back and take a breath before we get going again.