Our Dirty Little Secret

Belgium G.A.A. and FC Irlande are in bed together. It's unimaginable in many ways to have a soccer club and a G.A.A. club aligned in so many ways and working jointly on so many different ventures. Recently it was the Haiti appeal, which raised a massive €60k. Tomorrow it is the now annual Paddy's Day (www.paddysday.be) bash in the Parc.

However, it goes back further. When we started the football in 2008, the G.A.A. club was in a much less healthy state facility wise and financially. With nowhere to conduct our pre-season training, FCI often let us use one of their two pitches to train on. They also allowed our players participate in their physical training.

An important factor in this was the fact that we shared so many dual players who were in committee or captain positions; myself, Denis, Conchur, Emmett, Enda, Alec and so on. FCI gave us exposure to their players by letting us train alongside them. It showed the confidence they had in their club that believed they could cope with the potential G.A.A. threat. We were starting out then and maybe didn't have the confidence to reciprocate the gestures.

As we've grown, we have worked more and more closely, possibly indicating our increasing confidence in our own club. The Paddys Day do is in its third year in the Parc and now incorporates mens/ladies soccer, hurling, gaelic football and also the kids GAA. The organising committee sees our members work side by side.

We are also starting to work together on other things like the soon to be agreed gym Membership with World Class Fitness. We negotiated the deal under the one umbrella and in getting such a good deal, it demonstrates how effective our clubs can be when working together.

At home, competing clubs view eachother with a degree of contempt. It's rooted in history. They fear the player drain to eachothers codes. In Brussels our hand is forced. We all pull from the same small pot and we all have relatively limited resources and uncertain futures due to the transient nature of the place.

Fortunately, we have some brilliant and mature people involved in both clubs who see the benefit of the clubs working in tandum. Belgium G.A.A. no longer feel like second class citizens (not that FCI ever made them feel like that) in the relationship. With that feeling of equality comes a great willingness to express ideas and that can only benefit both clubs. The relationship has achieved so much in such a short space of time but one feels it's still only the beginning.