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1980'S GAA Ireland

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Replying To slayer: "Some great replies there, had a good laugh at them all. The push starts though, Jesus for anyone that didn't experience them you missed out on something hilarious. Often a great big beast of a car like a Ford Cortina, some lad in the driver's seat smoking like mad shouting 'Push' out of the corner of his mouth and then his car smoking even worse when it started. Five lads behind it like a scrum and the smell of petrol that wafted through the air once it started!" Mark IV or Mark V? LongfordgaaAbú (Longford) - Posts: 612 - 07/07/2023 10:29:06 2492816 Link
Replying To KnockaineyAbú: "Pairc Ui Chaoimh and the rivers of urine cascading down the terraces. Diddedly aye music blasted over poorly maintained loudspeakers. And in one Limerick county ground - a tradition which is maintained to the present day when a match is in progress - the PA man on the tannoy beseeching the owner of car registration number 0123456789 to move the vehicle as it was causing A Serious Obstruction (the obstruction never being specified!). Grass and all types of weeds on the terraces of Limerick Gaelic Grounds. I often wondered did the terraces have to be maintained with a lawnmower. And so on ......" Are you sure you're not mixing that up with Pairc Tailteann in 2023? People listening to the match commentary on a little transistor radio at the game. Nowadays a transistor is your brother (HT: John Colleary). People bringing binoculars to Croke Park. When the pre-match photo was just the starting 15 and the subs were an afterthought. If you were standing in the back row of the photo you had to have your arms folded. Greenfield (Meath) - Posts: 524 - 07/07/2023 10:31:03 2492819 Link
Replying To LongfordgaaAbú: "Mark IV or Mark V?" IV Big tank of a yoke and clouds of smoke going around like a new pope has been elected. slayer (Limerick) - Posts: 6480 - 07/07/2023 10:36:28 2492822 Link
some of my memories (the 1980 one is sketchy) Wexford fans lining the n11 on the way home from Croker having the tay and sandwiches Getting wet in Croke Park, Salthill, Loughrea, Ballinasloe, Thurles..any venue. It always rained ! St Patricks Day club finals in Croker. It could rain, sleet, snow, hail or blow a tempest. Sometimes in the one day Clann na nGael and the MacManuses The Tony Keady Affair. Another daycent Irishman done down by an informer Offaly Ground hurling The lackadaisical approach to health and safety and the near disaster at the '83 AI Football Final. We were lucky that day Sambo McNaughton Waking up on the 8th of September 1980 with a gigantic hangover and in the wrong house The start of GAA Cúl Camps and being to off-load bored young lads Maroonatic (Galway) - Posts: 1066 - 07/07/2023 11:09:49 2492837 Link
Replying To Maroonatic: "some of my memories (the 1980 one is sketchy) Wexford fans lining the n11 on the way home from Croker having the tay and sandwiches Getting wet in Croke Park, Salthill, Loughrea, Ballinasloe, Thurles..any venue. It always rained ! St Patricks Day club finals in Croker. It could rain, sleet, snow, hail or blow a tempest. Sometimes in the one day Clann na nGael and the MacManuses The Tony Keady Affair. Another daycent Irishman done down by an informer Offaly Ground hurling The lackadaisical approach to health and safety and the near disaster at the '83 AI Football Final. We were lucky that day Sambo McNaughton Waking up on the 8th of September 1980 with a gigantic hangover and in the wrong house The start of GAA Cúl Camps and being to off-load bored young lads" Bus to croke Park from the local pub I the pub 2 hours before it left no motorway into every little town on the way up on the return usually beaten stop in Harry's in kinnegad bus leaving at 10ish driver getting madder and madder going from pub to pub trying to round up the passengers great days especially 1980 took the whole night to get home bottles of harp and swithwicks minor77 (Galway) - Posts: 273 - 07/07/2023 11:28:58 2492852 Link
Replying To LongfordgaaAbú: "Mark IV or Mark V?" My dad always had mk3s broke his heart when the mkIV came out! Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 15731 - 07/07/2023 11:51:54 2492856 Link
Replying To Maroonatic: "some of my memories (the 1980 one is sketchy) Wexford fans lining the n11 on the way home from Croker having the tay and sandwiches Getting wet in Croke Park, Salthill, Loughrea, Ballinasloe, Thurles..any venue. It always rained ! St Patricks Day club finals in Croker. It could rain, sleet, snow, hail or blow a tempest. Sometimes in the one day Clann na nGael and the MacManuses The Tony Keady Affair. Another daycent Irishman done down by an informer Offaly Ground hurling The lackadaisical approach to health and safety and the near disaster at the '83 AI Football Final. We were lucky that day Sambo McNaughton Waking up on the 8th of September 1980 with a gigantic hangover and in the wrong house The start of GAA Cúl Camps and being to off-load bored young lads" 1983 was a near miss without a doubt. GAA might have had its own Ibrox or Hillsborough or Heysel. Was there myself and we must have been moved a good hundred yards from where we started without ever consciously deciding to put one foot in front of other. That was last AI final that you could pay in at Hill and Canal - think it was a fiver. To leave, everyone had to go to back and there was only one or two set of steps. A lot of people preferred hurtling down the grassy bank. I am convinced that had Dublin lost and people not been patient and good humoured that it would have been total disaster. Hard to believe that was almost exactly 40 years ago, Táimid ag dúl in aois, go tapaidh! BarneyGrant (Dublin) - Posts: 3524 - 07/07/2023 11:56:38 2492859 Link
Pitch openings all over the place by random Monsignors and TDs with short ties followed by a Galway-Mayo or Galway-Roscommon challenge match. Tubs of ice cream being sold by lads and ladies that would walk over you on the concrete seat. A fair few times lit and sunburned (no sun cream). Opel Kadetts, Ford Cortinas, Datsuns and VWs parked about 3 miles from the ground. Big long walks! Paper hats. County colours paper pins. Basic programmes but read cover to cover. Lads with transistor radios with commentary held to one ear at the match, mouth open, thousand yard stare. Dairy Milk boxes and plastic shopping bags used as rain hats. Smoking, everywhere. Pipes, cigarettes. Smell of pee in those bare concrete wall, no roof jacks. High fielding. First generation of kids in full O'Neill's kit coming to games - not many, just the very lucky few! Meeting the legendary Sean Purcell going into matches. Seeing McManus, Talty, McHugh, Daly and others in action for Galway footballers. Later in the 80s, Galway hurlers like Sylvie, Lynskey, Keady, Finnerty, McInerney, Cooney becoming part of folklore locally. Great times and very special memories. togoutlads (Galway) - Posts: 1048 - 07/07/2023 12:24:33 2492870 Link
Derry were fairly poor in the 1980s so I never heard many stories about it although my father went to the 1987 semi final. I think that was my father's first time in Croke park when he was 30. PattyONeill (Derry) - Posts: 263 - 07/07/2023 19:32:33 2493015 Link
Munster hurling final in Thurles in 84 along with All Ireland in Thurles, Seanie O Leary. They're my memories. Great occasions. roseyinthegarden (Wicklow) - Posts: 126 - 07/07/2023 22:17:47 2493028 Link
Great post! Shaymus Darby's goal, first and foremost. Cork's late goal to KO Kerry in '83. Jaysus, but for those two late kicks of the ball that great Kerry era could have seen 9-in-a-row. I spent a good while in Ireland in the late 80's, early 90's. The Galway-Tipp hurling rivalry was legendary then, and bitter. I still believe that CP did everything in its power to get Tipp over the line that year in 1989, so that they wouldn't lose their 'one every decade status': Keady affair; Sylvie sent off for nothing; Hopper sent of for nothing more than a shoulder; John Denton's eyesight and whistle, etc. Was at that game, hoping Galway would win! Times have certainly changed. And Clare beating Kerry in the Munster football final…Oh wait! That was 1992…We'll have to wait until someone posts 'memories of the 1990's'. I wasn't at that game, but better still, I was living in Tralee at the time. Did I have so craic, or wha'? foreveryoung (USA) - Posts: 2224 - 08/07/2023 00:28:28 2493037 Link
The strong smell of pipe smoke, the silence in the pub when the sunday game came on, the boyhood wonder of watching the great Joe Mc kenna of LImerick longtermfan (Limerick) - Posts: 120 - 08/07/2023 00:29:53 2493039 Link
Offaly with two serious teams & passionate support. Tipperary ending the famine in Killarney. Galway hurling team & a powerful victory speech. Meath footballers taking no prisoners. Cork footballers finally putting a halt to the Kingdom. Munster hurling final televised live in 1989. Mayo footballers back in a football final. Antrim hurlers defeating Offaly to reach AIHF. St.Mologga (Cork) - Posts: 121 - 08/07/2023 00:43:23 2493043 Link
Great Post and add ons . The fake match programmes I remember these . Still have one from leinster football final between laois and Dublin in 1985 Sidelinefoot (USA) - Posts: 10 - 08/07/2023 00:47:51 2493045 Link
80s gaa? going to quinns after matches, having 8/10 pints then driving back to the unyoke for the last few with a couple of pitstops on the way, total madness but we knew no better Stmunnsriver (Wexford) - Posts: 2973 - 08/07/2023 09:40:58 2493069 Link
Replying To galwayford: "what was Thomond park like?" not much better in fact! KnockaineyAbú (Limerick) - Posts: 96 - 08/07/2023 22:02:20 2493230 Link
Mick Dunne's whining commentaries .......!!!!!! KnockaineyAbú (Limerick) - Posts: 96 - 08/07/2023 22:06:14 2493233 Link
And Mick Dunne keening like a banshee when a goal was scored!!!!!! KnockaineyAbú (Limerick) - Posts: 96 - 08/07/2023 22:08:25 2493236 Link
Ulster final '85 Buying "sideline" tickets from a hole in the wall, A public address systems that was almost inaudible Vendors with trestle tables waving there arms across rows of Tayto in a bid to stop them being stolen. Same vendors imposing "in the moment" exchange rates to Derry & Monaghan fans alike Stewards trying to stop a post pitch invasion with brollies Getting a wave from the late great Michael O'Hehir in the commentary box. Knoxboya (Monaghan) - Posts: 369 - 09/07/2023 11:36:41 2493297 Link
The crepe headbands with your county colours & if it rained the resulting stained faces. Heightened sense of alertness in Clones. Black flags at half mast. greysoil (Monaghan) - Posts: 965 - 09/07/2023 18:44:11 2493391 Link