Gaelic Football

On saturday some friends and I paid 25 euro to see Kildare play Derry and Cork play Down in the stage 4 championship match at Croke park. The weather was amazing and we really lucked out since it's an outdoor stadium with limited covering!

Gaelic football is a strage mix of sports and kind of hard to explain. They score just like hurling (3 points if you make it in the net, 1 point if you get it above the field goal type thing) but the rules are quite odd. The ball is like a soccer ball but a lot bouncier, I guess like a large volleyball. You are allowed to take 4 steps then either bounce the ball once like a basketball, take 4 more steps and kick the ball back up to yourself, take 4 more steps and pass the ball like you are hitting it loke a volleyball. You can bounce and kick the ball for as long as you want as long as you don't take more than 4 steps at a time.In order to score they mainly punt the ball in to the field goal for one point.

The interesting thing about Gaelic sports in Ireland is that none of the players get paid yet are considered to be famous and are very well known within their community. The teams are made up by counties and you are only allowed to play on the team from the county in which you are from.