GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 35 – October 6, 2015 | Page 10

Eire Og pictured at the ‘La Liga’ exhibit game. Photo: Pizjuan Sanchez/Kevin Lenane Eire Og Seville

braltar this Saturday October 3rd where they play two games
each and in November do the same in Seville and in December
the venue will be at Costa Gaels (Marbella). The process is repeated after Christmas and with six games under their belts the
combined clubs that make up the Andalusian side gain valuable experience and match practice ahead of the start of the
Iberian championship next March.
“It´s great craic and the three teams have some great battles on
the field and great craic afterwards,” Lenane enthused.
Indeed, Eire Og have got off to a flyer for the new season as of
the time of writing news is in that they won both their Andalucía league games beating both Costa Gaels and host’s Gibraltar.
HISTORIC FIRST
The year 2013 was also a very big one for the young Eire Og,
as not only did they win the regional league that year, they also
made history in becoming the first ever Spanish and European
GAA club to exhibit Gaelic football at a premier soccer league
match.

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The date was 28th of January and it turned out to be a
memorable night for Eire Og.
Professional soccer club Seville FC had begun a drive to
attract more of a non-Spanish audience to the stadium and
so as part of that decided to host an Irish night at the Seville
versus Granada Primera Division game. Eire OG got themselves invited to the party.
“It was a huge night for the club. The Irish flag was flown
from the stadium and Eire Og played a six minute 7-a-side
exhibition at half-time,” stated the chairperson.
“It was a fantastic experience for all of us involved. We had
male and female players on the pitch that night and to play
in front of 25,000 people was just brilliant and something to
remember. The coverage we got back home and in the GAA
community all over the world was fantastic.”
The publicity locally was limited but the club not wanting to be complacent decided the following year to relaunch
themselves and it paid dividends. They received local inter-