Would you like to discover Gaelic football?
Do you like rugby? Do you enjoy football? Are you a fan of handball, basketball or volleyball? Then you’re bound to love Gaelic football! Discover this Irish sport and the local club in Angers with Kayleigh O'Sullivan, English teacher at the Faculty of Health and co-founder of the Anjou Gaels Club.
The Game and the Club
Gaelic football, commonly known as simply Gaelic or GAA, is a really fun team sport from the Republic of Ireland. We call it a type of football, but we use our hands a lot and in fact, it’s more like a mix of handball, basketball, soccer, volleyball and rugby all together! There are no tackles like in rugby or football and the game is quite fast-paced. In the original game, two teams of 15 a-side play against each other on a grass pitch with a round ball and score via two possibilities in a H-shaped goal:
- either over the cross-bar between the upper poles (like rugby) = 1 point,
- or under the cross-bar, into the net (like soccer) = 3 points.
After having played with other teams in France such as Rennes and Niort and after deciding to settle in Angers for the foreseeable future, I created the club in Angers with another Irish friend in 2015. Our official name is Anjou Gaels GAA. Today we have men and women’s teams and we are always looking for new players to join!
Our teams also play in the national championship across France as there is a Gaelic football team in nearly every big French city, i.e. more than 30+ teams across France!
There are also many teams located in Brittany thanks to their strong Celtic connections.
If you have never played a team sport but you’ve always wanted to try, then Gaelic football is definitely for you! We have many beginners who have never played before. You can develop new skills very quickly and some of our beginner players have even represented the French national team after only one year of playing the sport! Our club is one of the youngest in France and we are always looking for new players for both masculine and feminine teams and you don’t need any special equipment to come and try!
Speaking English and Making Friends
Also, if you’d like to mix sport and speaking English we have Irish, English and other international members and we have some training sessions which are delivered completely in English. The French championship is a great opportunity to travel and meet other Irish players living in France.
The game itself is divided into two halves of 35 minutes each (although our matches are often shorter in France). Our club has a great atmosphere among all members and we often like to take advantage of the social “third half“ where our boys and girls teams join together for post-training catch-ups and other social events.
For UA students, membership is free thanks to the club’s longstanding partnership with the SUAPS. It is also offered as on optional unit for Polytech students.
Our training sessions are at 19:30 every Tuesday, at the « Baumette sports complex » (rugby pitches) located close to the train station in Angers.
New players are welcome at any time of the year.
More information is available on our Facebook page: @gaf49 or via the University Sport Centre (SUAPS) or by writing to kayleigh.osullivan @ univ-angers.fr