HONG KONG LETTER:Some 700 people are playing in what is now the largest amateur team event in Asia, writes CLIFFORD COONAN
AS THE ball sailed high between the posts for another point, the commentator Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh spoke words of praise for the player’s home county and the referee from Offaly resumed proceedings.
So far, so Irish.
This could be a game of Gaelic football on any given Sunday in Ireland, but the searing heat lets you know we’re not in Tyrone anymore. And when the winner of the men’s football competition is deemed Dubai, while the stands ring with cheers for Shanghai and Dalian, you know you are in a very different kind of Gaelic arena.
This is Hong Kong and these are the 15th Asian GAA Games, and the sliotars, handpasses, solos and hurleys all featured at the Kings Park sports ground on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong.
At a time when there is a major debate in Asia about China’s growing influence and whether it will wield its new power in a benevolent way throughout the continent and beyond, the sight of hundreds of Malaysians and Indians and Chinese and Singaporeans playing Gaelic football is a great example of Irish “soft power” in action.
Players from 14 Asian countries, including India making its first appearance, Qatar, Singapore, Dubai, and as far to the east as Japan, were competing to be crowned the Asian Gaelic champions in football and hurling.
Dubai won the men’s football top category, a sign of the growing importance of the Emirate states in Asia’s mix.
“We should have it in Dubai next year, but it’s a bit expensive for people to get to. And they’ve done an amazing job here, isn’t the organisation fantastic,” said Niall Meaney, from Crusheen in Co Clare, one of the triumphant Dubai players.
Another powerful presence at the Asian Games was Qatar, which has benefited from an influx of football talent working for the Kentz engineering group. This is a regular trend – Dalian in northeast China has become a big local club because of talent arriving to work for Intel there, or for associated firms.
“It has gone really well. We have had 65 teams on five pitches, and 1,400 people through the gates. More than 700 players are playing in what is now the largest amateur team event in Asia,” said Shane Harmon, chairman of the Hong Kong GAA, which organised the event.
The profile of the players is quite unexpected. Many of the players in places such as Singapore and Hong Kong are investment bankers, lawyers or senior management, the kind of demographic that is normally associated with rugby. There are plenty of former rugby players togging out three times a week in Asia to train with the GAA teams of the region’s cities, as the association has been more successful at motivating local Irish expatriates to join in than many of the local rugby or soccer clubs.
The profile of the players in Asia has been noticed, and one of the more successful advances in recent years has been the attachment of a business forum to the games, so that the high-powered expats in Asia can meet and discuss ways of marrying their Irish heritage and business success. Imagine the Farmleigh love-in meeting of the business elite, except the delegates are expected to tog out and play hurling afterwards.
This year, among those attending the event were former taoiseach John Bruton, former tánaiste Dick Spring, Minister of State Martin Mansergh and a muscular cross-section of ambassadors from the region.
The sport has also been a big hit with women in Asia.
Brenda Chan Ka-ka (31), first started playing this summer, after some friends from her rugby team told her about it. “I’d heard about the sport but didn’t know the rules. But it’s very easy to understand,” said the consultant from Hong Kong island.
“It is fantastic exercise, so much running,” she said.
Bláthnaid Mac Namara, from Dublin and now living in Singapore, is the ladies’ officer of the Asian Games Board and she reckons that women go for the sport because there’s nothing else for women in terms of sport that mixes the competitive and the social. “Also it’s easy to take up – 65 to 70 per cent of our girls had never played before. I never kicked a ball before coming to Asia,” she said.