Back in a time when men were men and a Gaelic Football pitch was no place for the faint-hearted.
The popularity of All-Ireland Gold on TG4 and of vintage GAA clips on YouTube tell us something that we probably knew already; that GAA fans love nothing more than a healthy dose of nostalgia.
We’ve featured a few classic clips from the past on the site in recent times – one of the all-time great misses in the 1993 North Mayo Junior Final, for example – and after a clip from a local GAA Junior C match proved particularly popular on the site yesterday, our attention was drawn to another vintage piece of footage from the 1990 Cavan County Final between Kingscourt Stars and Mullahoran that we felt we had to bring to your attention.
The fact that it’s had nearly 25,000 views on YouTube already would suggest that a few of you, particularly Cavan folk, may have seen this already, but for those of you who haven’t, the opening 20 seconds of the game are well worth a watch.
Teams will often talk about the need to set their stall out at the start and both teams certainly did that directly from the throw-in; you’d nearly be covered in bruises just watching the physical exchanges so we can only imagine what it was like to play in. Needless to say, frees didn’t come easily.
We’ve included a clip of the opening 30 seconds or so above but the highlights are worth a look in their entirety as they feature no shortage of good scores, plenty of high-fielding and more of the aforementioned physical exchanges, if not quite as manic as the opening minute or so. Oh, in case you’re wondering, Kingscourt Stars won.
‘Tis almost like a different game these days.
Video via YouTube/KingscourtStarsGFC
Hat-tip to David Owens for giving us the heads up on this one
