Share
5th July 2017
12:41pm BST
With a nice mixture of indigenous and Irish players, the Rebels have approximately 30 members and remain active the whole year round, sponsoring a free monthly indoor practice from November to March to keep fit during the off-season.
Chairperson Cillian Flavin filled us in on life at the Rebels when we caught up with him recently and shed some more light on the exploits of ‘Roy’ and ‘Paddy’ in a tale that will likely never be forgotten by anyone associated with the club.
Player who makes the longest commute to training: Bradleigh Wilson from Saratoga, New York, makes a 45-minute commute.
Most dedicated club person: Cillian Flavin. A former coach, he is the current Chairman and a director of the club and he used to be treasurer. He’s also one of the original team members.
Player who could have made it big if love/career/drink didn’t get in the way: Ian Maher. He never orders a single drink; he made our pub crawl this year a blast!
Biggest character: Again, Ian Maher. When he orders a pint of milk at the bar, no-one can understand him, but every time he repeats himself he gets louder and more annoyed that no-one can understand him.
Loudest in the dressing room: Dylan Conklin. He heckles his own team during games and is just generally mad in the head.
Number of romances that started in the GAA club (feel free to name names): Cillian Flavin and Ryan Moloney have an unhappy marriage; it’s a real love/hate relationship.
Duck to water award – Best new player who had never played GAA before: Mark Adam. Mark and Ian are the engine of this team. Mark is a dynamic player with a real eye for goal. He is tenacious and from day one, he lifted the entire team to a new level.
Most annoying person in the club WhatsApp group: Timmy Gerrish. We don’t even have a team WhatsApp group but if we did, he would definitely be the most annoying person in it.
Best story involving a club member that’s fit for print: Two of our lads, let’s call them Roy and Paddy, ‘rescue’ a dog on a night out.
Roy and Paddy like to drink, and they have had a few notable stories while on the drink. The ‘dog stealing’ episode in Saratoga is by far the best of them.
The two lads are out drunk, it is late at night and they call the cops. What is interesting about this is that they are calling the cops on the owner of a dog, who they are convinced is not the owner of the dog because said dog likes them better. In reality, they called the cops on themselves as they have taken possession of a pet and won't return it to the owner! Eventually, an officer arrives and makes them give the dog back to the owner and tells them to go home.
Cillian Flavin and Timmy Gerrish, not 'Roy' and 'Paddy'... maybe
After this, they get back to Paddy’s apartment where they can’t get in. Paddy sleeps in the hallway, Roy goes outside and sleeps in the back of his pick-up truck. 911 gets called again because there is a guy reported dead in the back of a pickup truck. The fire brigade responds and wakes up Roy. They tell him to go inside because you can’t sleep in your car!
But that is not the end of it… the next day they run into the dog owner from the night before walking his dog. Not only that, it turns out the keys were actually in Paddy’s pocket all night long, which could have prevented a lot of hassle had he been sober enough to actually check his own pocket in the first place.
If you're a member of a GAA club abroad and would like to be featured on the site, feel free to send a mail to conor.heneghan@JOE.ie or find us on Facebook or Twitter.Explore more on these topics:
