The football Gaelic (Irish Peil , Peil Gaelach or Caid ) is the most popular sport of Ireland. If the play resembles a mixture of Rugby and Football, it is less violent than the latter, since the plating and the tacle are prohibited. The rules are simple and offer more freedom to the team which attacks. It is a sport completely amateur, and each player could play only for only one team in all his life, that of the county from where it was originating.

Football Gaelic is one of the four sports gaelic directed by the GAA (athletic Association Gaelic) which is greatest association in Ireland as well by the number of its members as by his influence. This sport is based on strict rules of amateurism. The sporting top is the finale of the championship inter-counties (the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. This sport goes down from an old form of football practiced in Ireland known under the name of Caid which one finds the trace as of 1537 and of which the modernization of the rules (always into force nowadays) date of 1887.

Football Gaelic is played by teams of 15 players, on a rectangular ground with goals in form of H interfering the goals of Rugby for their high form and those Football for the low part. The primary goal is to mark points while sending by a kick or by boxing the ball with unfavourable aims. The team which has most score at the end of the match gains the part.

Rules

See also: Official Payment of football Gaelic

The ground

The ground is of form rectangular. It measures between 130 and 145 meters length and between 80 and 90 broad. The posts of the embut have the shape of H with the low part closed by a net. The same ground is used for the Hurling. The GAA, which organizes and governs the gaelic rules of the sports has made this decision in order to facilitate the double use of the grounds.

Lines are drawn on the ground at a distance of 13m, 20m and 45 meters of the line of funds of the ground.

Smaller grounds so much in width than in length are used for the young people of less than 14 years.

Duration of the match

All the matches of football Gaelic make 60 minutes, divided into two 30 minutes half-times each one.

The matches of the national championship senior make exceptions to this rule: they last 70 minutes with two 35 minutes half-times. A match which cannot end in a tie, two solutions exist according to the competitions: one rejoue the match or one plays an extension by 20 minutes (with two 10 minutes half-times).

Teams

The teams are made up of 15 players who are distributed as follows:

• 1 goalkeeper,
• two side backs (corner back),
• a center back (full back),
• three backs (half back),
• two medium grounds (mid fielder),
• three half centers (half forward),
• two wingers (corner forward)
• before center (full forward).

With these fifteen players fifteen substitutes are added. Five of them can penetrate on the ground during a match. Each player is numbered of 1 (goalkeeper) to 15 (before center). The goalkeeper carries a shirt of color different from all the other players.

The balloon

The balloon is of form spherical, similar to the soccer ball, but heavier. The envelope consists of rectangular bands rather than Hexagone S or Pentagone S used on the soccer balls, which gives him paces of balloon of Volley ball. The balloon can be struck foot or hand

Goals and the calculation of the points

There exist two ways of marking with football Gaelic.

• If the ball passes between the posts and to the top of the transverse bar, one marks 1 point.
• If the ball enters with an aim under the transverse bar, one marks a goal is 3 points.

These points must be validated by an assessor present close to the goals. With this intention, it raises a white flag.

The points are entered in this way:

Team a: 0-15

Team b: 1-11

What means:

Equipe a: 0 drank and 15 points

Equipe b: 1 drank and 11 points, is 14 points.

The team has is victorious

Play

The carrier of the balloon does not have the right to make more than four steps while carrying the balloon. To continue his action and to progress on the ground, the player must carry out a Dribble (as with the Basket-ball. He can then set out again for four steps. He must then connect on a toe-tap i.e. to release the balloon on his foot and to return it in his hands.

One can thus schematize a sequence of progression like that:

• 4 pas + 1 dribble + 4 pas + a toe-tap and so on…

The player does not have the right to collect the balloon on the ground with the hands. It is necessary to raise the balloon with the foot, to make small juggles to bring it in the hands (a record player).

The master key with the hand is authorized, but the jet of balloon is prohibited. The master key is done by boxing the balloon with the dish of the fist. It is necessary to propel the balloon in such way that at the time of striking the two hands are in contact with this one. The cuff of the type Volley-ball is prohibited.

The physical contacts are very regulated. If the contacts shoulders against shoulder are authorized, platings as those which one finds with Rugby are prohibited.

Any fault of play is penalized: the player starts again the play by typing the ball with the foot since the place of the fault.

The arbitration

With football Gaelic there is to eight referees to direct a meeting.

• the referee of fields (principal referee)
• Two linesmen
• Four assessors (two near each goal).
• a second official referee and a linesman replacing (out of Championship AlIreland only)

The central referee is responsible for the good progress of the part. He judges the faults of play, counts the points, and sanctions when that is necessary.

The linesmen consider the handing-over concerned after the balloon left the ground.

The fourth referee, placed on the edge of the ground, manages the replacements and timing.

The assessors validate the points. Vêtus of a white blouse, they agitate a white flag to validate the points and a green flag for the marked goals. To announce that the point is not marked they put their arms in cross without taking the flags.

All the referees can announce a fault to the central referee and help it in its decision making. The central referee always has the last word and can invalidate a decision of one of his subordinates.

History of football Gaelic

The first mention of football in Ireland appears with 1308 when John McCrocan, a spectator of play of football in Newcastle in the suburbs of Dublin was accused of aggression on a player named William Bernard.

The statute of Galway of 1527 authorizes the play of " foot balle" and the shooting with the prohibited arc but the “hokie” and the hurling as well as other sports.

In 1695 the play is prohibited by severe the Sunday Observance Act which imposes a sanction of a Shilling (a substantial sum at that time there) on those which are surprised playing football. In fact it was very difficult at the State to make apply this Act and the first match inter listed county to take place in 1712 between the Comté of Louth and the Comté of Meath to Slane.

At the beginning of the 19th century, various forms of football appearing under the term of caid are popular in the Comté of Kerry, especially in the Péninsule of Dingle. The Father W. Faris describes two forms of caid : the first the " field game" in which the objective was to make pass the balloon between formed posts of the trunk of the two trees, and the second, epic the " cross-country race game" who was played a whole Sunday after the Messe and in which the objective was to take along the ball beyond the limits of the parish. One could catch the adversary, to make it fall on the ground, to carry the balloon.

In the years 1860 and 1870, the Rugby and the Football start to become popular in Ireland. Trinity College quickly becomes a fortified town of Rugby. The rules of football, codified in 1863 by the English federation of football, are spread quickly. At the same time, according to the historian Jack Mahon specialist in football Gaelic, the caid started to leave its place to a disordered play which allows even the platings.

The Irish rules of football will not formally be laid down before 1887. GAA wished to promote traditional sports like the Hurling and to reject any importation and influences English. The first rules of football Gaelic went in this direction by taking up some ideas of the hurling and while wishing to be different from English football by not rejecting example the rule of the off-side. These rules were retranscribed by Maurice Davin after a meeting with Thurles and were published in the review United Ireland the February 7th 1887.

It is on a football field Gaelic that it is unrolled one of the event most outstanding and more symbolic systems of the Anglo-Irish Guerre: the bloody Sunday. The British forces, at the time of reprisals after a series of assassinations of civils servant of the British crown, ouvrèrent fire during a match with Croke Park on the crowd of the spectators and the players. 14 people were killed and 65 wounded.

Football Gaelic became a female sport only during the Années 1970.

Championships and organization of the sport

Like all the gaelic sports, football Gaelic is a sport Amateur. This amateurism is narrowly supervised by the GAA and the association of the players. Football Gaelic is organized on the scale of Ireland and this in spite of the partition of the island of Ireland in two states in 1920.

The base of the organization is the club. This one is generally structured around a Paroisse. These clubs play a local championship on a scale Comté. The players are divided by level of age:

• Senior : more the high level

• Intermediate : junior champions compete in this the following season
• Junior : the weakest clubs, often resulting from small communities
• Less than 21 years
• Minor : less than 18 years
• Under-old : all ages between less than 17 years and less than 9 years

At the national level, the teams are copied on the system of the Counties. The GAA thus counts 32 teams of Counties and supports two teams external to Ireland, representing the Irish diaspora, London and New York.

The teams of counties are trained of the best players of the level of club. These teams meet in the national championship, the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.

The team of the millenium

This team was designated in 1999 by a panel of former presidents of the GAA and journalists. The goal was clear: to select the 15 best football players Gaelic in their respective positions, since the foundation of the championship until the year 2000. Naturally this selection was lengthily and firmly discussed in the various counties.

Football Gaelic out of Ireland

It develops since the beginning of the 21e century with the creation of Euroleague, " thirteenth the comté" from Ireland.

See too

• Sport Gaelic
• Sport in Ireland
• Hurling

Random links:

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