Basel GAA organised a summer GAA GoGames event which took place at Basel Rugby club on Saturday June 22nd 2024. We were joined by Luxembourg GAA, Frankfurt GAA and a representation from both Strasbourg GAA & Geneva GAA which resulted in a total of over 90 children taking part on the day, making this the biggest ever children’s Gaelic football event in Switzerland.
Our Gaelic Games invitational day started after midday, to allow our guests to travel from far off locations and ensure that we could divide up the teams by age group, working together in the spirit of the GoGames philosophy, which is to organise our games as appropriately as possible to the children by age. The aim of GoGames is to have fewer children playing but to play more games and get on the ball more often to help practice their skills!
Unfortunately, we had some wet weather in the early afternoon as we were just getting the games under way, however it did little to dampen the skills and enthusiasm shown by the boys and girls throughout the afternoon. In order to cater for all the players the rugby pitch was split in 2 parts with pitch 1 hosting all games u9 & u-11, pitch 2 hosting u13 & u15 as well as a play area to the side of the pitch which was used for the u7s. This meant that we were able to play games parallel and ensure that no one was left standing around for too long!!
As we were able to play games in parallel, we managed to play off all childrens games in circa 4 hours, which were played in a very sporting and competitive manner. This was certainly the case for the u11 & u13 age groups which each had 3 teams competing in a round robin mini league, with the top 2 playing off against each other in the final.
Results on the day were as follows:
| U7 | No Order | ||
| U9 | Basel / Frankfurt | Luxembourg | |
| U11 | Frankfurt | Luxembourg | Basel |
| U13 | Frankfurt | Luxembourg | Basel |
| U15 | Basel | Luxembourg |
Many thanks to our coaches who put in a great effort with the children as well as to those who organised including our pitch co-ordinators, referees as well as those who assembled the goal posts and prepared the pitches. It was also a real treat to have the Irish Ambassador to Switzerland Aoife McGarry present with her family to share with us on this auspicious occasion as well as present the medals along with our Basel GAA chairman Sean Leahy.
In particular a huge thanks to our many family, friends and supporters who provided cold, tired and hungry children as well as adults with much needed food and drinks, in what proved to be a very enjoyable and memorable day.
After the children`s medals presentation was completed, there was just about enough time to play an adult football game which featured Luxembourg taking on a combined Basel / Frankfurt combination. In a competitive 13 a side game it was even throughout the game only for Basel / Frankfurt to show a little more composure towards the end on front of goal to win the game by 3 points .
The games were finished by 18:30 which gave time in the evening for everyone to meet up to have a drink and a chat. As a symbol of the friendship and ties that exist between Basel and Frankfurt Dave McCabe kindly presented to Niall Ryan a beautiful handmade Bembel jug which is native to Frankfurt. This will be Dave`s last active event with Frankfurt and although sad to see him leave to go back to Ireland, he deserves great credit for the role he has played in setting up the club to succeed, grow and prosper into the future.
Comhghairdeas Daithi agus go n-eiri an bothair leat!!
Basel GAA 