Basel GAA took part in the Benelux juvenile GoGames tournament in Luxembourg on Saturday May 18th 2024.
In total 23 players represented the club including one player who travelled to play with us from Geneva. Our players were evenly split amongst the u7, u9, u11 age groups as well as eight players from our feile team. The GoGames approach is designed to enable matches with smaller numbers however as we did not have enough of our own players we were teamed up on the day with Den Haag for most age groups, with the one except our u-9 team which played with Frankfurt.
The other teams that participated on the day at various age groups included the hosts Luxembourg GAA, Den Haag GAA, Frankfurt GAA and Brussels GAA as well as a surprise entry of Luxembourg RFC in the U15 competition! In total there were 153 kids that played on this GoGames day, the most ever in their history and highlighting the growing popularity of Gaelic football in Europe!
The day started dull, cold and damp however we were all happy that the heavy rain from the previous couple of days had dissipated. The grounds at Luxembourg RFC were magnificent, with two large astro turf pitches to play on which made the games generally open and fun to play. Pitch one hosted all games from u7 – u11, with pitch two hosting u13 & u15.
On pitch one Basel, after a rather slow start we got to know our new team mates and rather got into the swing of things, competing well at all the younger age levels, with the kids really enjoying the fun and the experience together. Luxembourg had strong representation as the hosts as did Frankfurt who brought more players then had been expected!
On pitch two Basel / Den Haag u13 came up against strong Luxembourg and Frankfurt teams both of which contested the final. This however provided us with valuable game time for our younger feile players as well as to give us the chance to get to know the Den Haag players. This proved to be very beneficial as four of their lads joined our team for the u15 competition, which followed straight afterwards!
In the u15 age group we played Brussels in our first game as well as in the final which they won. They are the 2024 European champions having won the feile in Vigo, Spain in April. They will represent Europe at the All Ireland feile finals in Mayo on 29th June.
Our other u15 matches were very close affairs with a victory of the tightest margins 0:3 v 0:2 against Luxembourg GAA, followed by a 2:4 v 2:1 win against Luxembourg RFC enabling us to qualify for the final. This was really a fantastic achievement with a reduced panel and in particular given that some of our u13 team actually ended up playing a total of 6 matches!
Special mention to Killian McCarthy who showed great bravery against Luxembourg RFC and had to be brought by Len to hospital for a check up. We were all delighted to see him again later in the evening and that he got a good bill of health and has even been back training with us since.
The games finished around 5pm with a medal presentation by Tadgh Dunne of Luxembourg GAA and the Irish ambassador to Luxembourg Jean McDonald for all the children. There was then time in the evening for Basel members to meet up together socially and join with all the other teams at the Pizzeria-restaurant Chez Stefano where each game was discussed and new friends made in what was an action packed day with many very tired but happy kids!
Here’s an article from the chronicle.lu on the event, as well as some pictures.
Basel GAA 