The Roasterie Cup Gaelic Football Tournament 2010

Some short video clips from the 2010 Roasterie Cup Gaelic Football Tournament down at Swope Park. The Tournament was on June 26th at The Kansas City Wizards practice facility. A big THANK YOU to them for letting us use the field and to all our sponsors for making it such a brilliant day. (The KC Wizards, The Roasterie, The Celtic Ranch, Boulevard Brewing Company, The Celtic Ranch and Mike's Tavern.)

It was over a 100F on the field again this year and took a toll on all players, but everyone from The Twin Cities, NW Arkansas, Little Rock and Kansas City A and B team put on a great show and made it a really competitive day.

If you have any great photos or video footage from the tournament please share them with us through our Facebook page or a link in the comment section on here.

Bloomsday at The IMCC

It was SRO at The IMCC for this year's Bloomsday celebration. Organized by Tom and Nancy Shawver, the annual reading of Joyce's Ulysses brought people from all over the Kansas City community together.

Boulevard provided the beer, The Roasterie the coffee and board members and volunteers brought the food. It really made The IMCC come alive and showed what a great space it is for bringing the Irish community together.

In addition to the reading,  Eddie Delahunt warmed up the crowd with a great set of Irish songs and was joined by the girls from the Driscoll school of dancing. They created an atmosphere that made you feel you were 5,000 miles away in Dublin and not in the basement of Union Station.

 Big Tom Shawver and Eddie Delahunt get on the level with each other

 Steve from The KCGAC talking to the Rugby King of Kansas City

I hope he was asking him to send us more young, fit players!

Coffee Morning at The Roasterie Cafe

With our tournament only a week away, June 26th, The KCGAC green-machine spent the morning at The Roasterie Cafe in Brookside to spread the word.

A big thanks to Scott, Angie, Kurtis, Ryan, Chelsea and Paige for getting up early and showing your support for The KCGAC. 

It was a nice and relaxing morning enjoying tasty beverages and pastries hanging out chatting to people. I was surprised that several people we met were already aware of Gaelic Football and were excited to hear that we have a local club. So hopefully we'll get a good crowd down at Swope Park next Saturday.

The Roasterie will be on site at the tournament providing iced coffees with their silver bullet air-stream. And if the heat is anything like last year, we'll all need a little something to cool down.

Boulevard Pub Quiz at The IMCC

Last Saturday we had another fun night down at The IMCC in Union Station thanks to our sponsors Boulevard Brewing Company and Raglan Road Irish Pub.

Competition was close, but last month's winners The 3 Bs were back, minus a B, but still managed to take home top honors. Brian Sulley is officially a nerd.

Tom and Nancy Shawver from Bloomsday Books were in attendance. Tom is on the IMCC board and it was great to see him and fellow board member Chris Tschihart representing.

For another great night out at The IMCC you should attend their Bloom's Day celebration on June 16th, it is organized by Tom and Nancy Shawver and is a great Kansas City tradition.

Next month's quiz will be on July 10th, hope to see you there.

Rumble in the Rock 2010

Another Memorial Weekend in Little Rock for the KCGAC and a near identical finish to last year: 2 and 2.

We beat NW Arkansas twice and lost, not by much mind you, to LR and St. Louis.

The lads had a great time traveling down there, some had more fun than others, no names mentioned.

Next year we need to start a push early for the trip to LR to get as much of The KCGAC as possible down there and show them what we are made off.

We can get revenge in, oh say, 23 days!

KCGAC at Community America Ballpark

Not quite Croke Park, but the Kansas City Wizards let us take to the field after their game against Columbus Crew at Community America Ballpark. This is the biggest venue the KCGAC has played in to date and it was an amazing experience. 

The speed of the ball on a professional surface like that is something you can't understand until you've played on it yourself. That's no excuse for my lack of fitness, but Chr*#t it was hard going in that early summer heat. Made me feel all 32 of my years.

We all had a great day out there on Sunday at C.A.B. and a lot of the lads got there early to watch The Wizards in action. A big THANK YOU to Betsy Pollard and Chris Wyche for helping to make the day possible. And if they'll have us back, maybe we can turn this into an annual event and get all the Irish community out.

Jerron Taylor, James Taylor and Brad Gaughan...Brad in mid-air still not as tall a Big Taylor

The KCGAC easy to spot in the crowd

Craig and Jeanne Rohner, two of our greatest fans. They've watched us play in Little Rock, our home tournament, pub league, Ran the Wellie Race with us, shoveled snow at the Twin Cities game and here they are supporting us at The Wizards and they took most of these photos and videos. The KCGAC hearts U!

Big Ross on the ball

Ross Vs Teasdale...who gonna win

 Brad, Jake and Carl go for the ball

KCGAC at The Celtic Ranch

Beer 'n Sports: who doesn't love that combination?

The KCGAC board headed up to Weston early and had our monthly meeting upstairs in The Celtic Ranch. We sipped on a few O'Malley's Weston Brewing Company beers while we debated the in's and out's of the club.

Then around 3 o'clock we invited people to come up and share a beer with us and talk about Gaelic Football and Hurling.

We had people from Hawaii there who had never heard of Gaelic games before, but were so impressed that they took our information and are going to see if there are any Gaelic clubs back on the big island.

People from all over the Kansas City metro area and Lawrence came up and we got two new "Honorary" members, the sisters Meghan and Erin, we tried to get their Dad to sign up, but he was having none of it!

Later we walked around the store wearing our club jerseys, listening to an acoustic session of Flanagan's Right Hook and absorbing the great atmosphere of The Celtic Ranch. Some of the lads stayed the night in Weston, and I think I'll do the same next time. 

Thank you Terry and John, you and the gang at The Celtic Ranch are the best.

Mike, Pete and Anto wearing their KCGAC gear

Sully and Scott chillaxing Ranch style

Anthony and Devin showing what not to do with a hurley stick

Curtis explains why looking good on the field is as important as being good!

Erin and Meghan will be out to practice next week or maybe to just cheer us on

Showing ball skills

Fearsome KCGAC players

After a hard day doing PR work, its time to sit down and drink

The Unsung Hero of Gaelic Games

Our Referee most days: Mr. Chad Griffin

When the ball goes wide, when you get a hard challenge and don't get a free, when you miss kick the ball, when you give a bad hand pass, when you run out of energy and gasp for breath: You blame the Ref.

That's right, the guy who is out there of his own goodness officiating YOUR game, so YOU can have fun and play Gaelic games and all you want to do is tell this fella where to stick it. So, today all us hot headed players are going to cool it and show respect for the man that makes tournaments happen and keeps friendly games friendly. All hail the Ref.

Here's some refs in the spotlight:

Haskell Game - A great night in Lawrence, KS

The second annual KCGAC Vs Haskell University Gaelic Football challenge match was a huge success for all involved. Both sides fielded strong teams and showed great skill and athleticism. 

We want to say a big THANK YOU to their teacher Hugh from Mayo and all the students for hosting the KCGAC.

After my injury in practice I was relegated to the sidelines on camera duty. So here's a sample of the shots I took, I've got a bunch more I will post to the website and facebook page.

It's not often that Carl gets out-paced, but this guy gave our team hell, we need to draft him

A physical game...

T'is but a scratch

Taylor takes to the air

 We're all looking forward to next year's game and hope to see some of the Haskell players at our practice, they'd make a great addition to our team.

Spring Fever

It was a beautiful April day in Olathe for the first of our league sessions. However, since we were a few players missing, we played a full game of 11s as a non-league game.

The standard of football was very high today, showing that the winter rust is almost all gone. There were some great runs by Sean and Brendan, coming from deep in their own zones and precision kicking by Scott and Sully. A very promising 2010 KCGAC team.

Haskell better bring their A game on Wednesday, 'cause our lads are not messing around this year. That game is 7pm at their stadium.

Also, we have our new club t-shirt available, modeled here by some old fella, and is available to you in exchange for $10. A bargain for such a sexy shirt.

This is beautiful...this is what our club is about: Gaelic Football

Discussing post-game strategy

Paddy Englishman and Paddy Irishman walk into a bar...

Left Behind: do you own any of this stuff?

KCGAC at Haskell University

It's on like Donkey Kong. We had to cancel the game on the 14th, but it has been rescheduled for April 21st at 7pm. We will be playing in the University's football stadium.

Last year under Una Meabh's coaching Haskell put on a great show, especially in the second half as legs got tired and youth began to wear down Old-Man-Strength. This year they have a new coach and some new players, so we don't know what to expect.  All we know is that it's going to be a great night of Gaelic in Lawrence. 

We are very lucky to have a University so close to us with a Gaelic Football program and every Haskell player can count themselves as an honorary member of the KCGAC.

Here's some photos of the first night we went down to Haskell in October 2008.

This picture was taken in 1936

Devin looks on at the action

And again, Devin looks on at the action (just kidding Dev)

Weinbaum on the ball

You don't take the ball from BIG TAYLOR

This time it's gonna be bigger and better, bring it on...come on