A Coruna / La Coruna

I received a call at the beginning of the month from Denis Reidy, Coaching Officer on the County Board. It was a bit like one of those Mission Impossible ones. He said the mission would involve upwards of thirty Spaniards with a token Irish man. Their English would be limited or non-existent but they needed some Gaelic Football training.

It sounded doable. Where is it I asked? Galacia, Denis replied. I asked for more specifics and Denis said somewhere in the north of Spain. He thought the place was called A Coruna. How ignorant we are. I got onto google and it all became clear; La Coruna to us foreigners. Home of the Riazor stadium, scene of a famous David Beckham goal in the Champions League back in the day. The town is situated on the north-west coast of Spain which means the sea and I rarely turn down a visit to the sea.

I’ve taken Friday off as the journey isn’t so straight forward, requiring a change in Madrid. Still, I leave Brussels at 12h and all going well, I will land in La Coruna at 17h and be met by aforementioned token Irish man, Peter Vard. I know little of Peter or the La Coruna football team, just what is on their website. That was in Spanish however, so I rely on the photo gallery to piece the story together.

Gaelic football is a growing phenomenon in the region and the Galcians (?) have strong Gaelic heritage and football is the perfect expression of this. There is talk of a league forming up there with Vigo and other neighbouring cities. Madness!

The team played their first tournament in Seville recently and whilst results against Irish backboned teams like Madrid and Barcelona didn’t set the world alight, they have numbers and enthusiasm and thus great potential to improve. The Spanish know their sport and so adapt quickly. Denis is in Spain on business this week and will also travel up on Friday so hopefully we can help the team progress on their journey.

I’m jotting down the key football phrases now and will send to Anay, a Spanish girl who plays with our Ladies team for translation. Even a few words would help and make us more accepted and understood! I’m contemplating the necessity to include Paidi O’Se’s famous phrase about the game which went something like, “Football’s a simple game lads. Get out to the ball first and f**k into them”. The Cork accent might not to it justice though.