“With Thailand being Thailand most of the good stories are, unfortunately, not fit for print.”
So says James Donnellan of Thai GAA, a club that has been established in Bangkok since 2007 and will celebrate its tenth anniversary next year.
James’ tongue may have been firmly in cheek when he was saying it, but if that line isn’t a good enough reason to play a bit of GAA in the biggest city in Thailand, then we don’t know what is.
Plenty of Irish people have visited Thailand on holiday or have passed through there on their travels elsewhere, but quite a few have obviously hung around too, because James reckons the club has approximately 50 members, a number that is constantly on the rise.
The club has gone from strength to strength since its formation and was last year named as the ‘Club of the Year’ at the Asian Games in Shanghai, a huge honour indeed.
When we caught up with him recently, James was happy to tell us a little bit more about the club and some of the colourful characters he shares a dressing room with.
Focus on Thai GAA
Club: Thai GAA, Bangkok, Thailand
Year established: The club was established in 2007 by John Campbell, a long-time resident of Thailand who spent 2006 in Taipei, where he played with the Taiwan Celts.
On his return to Thailand in 2007, he established Thai GAA with the help of Derek Martin, Padraic Ellicott and Ultan Peters.
Number of members: 50 and growing every week!
Biggest rivals: Viet Celts, Vietnam (men) and Orang Éire, Malaysia (girls).
Biggest representation from a club/county in Ireland: Our biggest representation comes from the capital, with four Dubs in the club.
Most famous ever member: Darren Hanniffy, who won multiple medals with his home club Birr and also played on the 1998 All Ireland-winning Offaly Senior Hurling team.
Most memorable moment in the club’s history: This is a hard one to pick, but winning “Club of the Year” and having two players, Michael Neary and Eimear O’Higgins, win an All-Star and MVP at the 2015 Fexco Asian Games in Shanghai.
Most eye-catching scoreline in the club’s history: The sudden death victory over Orang Éire in the quarter-finals of the 2009 Asian Gaelic Games.
The referee got the full-time score wrong (we had won by a point) and took us into extra-time. John Campbell scored a free with the last kick of the game to take it to sudden death, with Simon Roughneen kicking the winning point to take us into the semi-finals.
Player who makes the longest commute to training: Paddy ‘Octopus’ Kennedy takes a combination of buses, taxis and Bangkok’s SkyTrain to make the trip into NIST International school every Tuesday evening for training.
However, Bangkok’s world-famous congestion means the 30km round trip can take up to three hours of travel time for one hour of training.
Most dedicated club person: John Campbell, club founder and current chairman, has been through thick and thin with Thai GAA.
John worked tirelessly to promote and develop the club in its infancy and since making their competitive debut at the 2007 Asian Gaelic Games in Singapore, the club has gone from strength to strength.
Player who could have made it big if love/career/drink didn’t get in the way: Crosby could have made it big only for a red card in an under-14 semi-final back in 1997 and a caution by Morris Mulcahy in an under-16 match in 1998.
He later came up against Mulcahy again in a junior game and broke his leg. Mulcahy went on to be chairman of the club and barred Crosby for life. That’s why he was “signed” by Thai GAA.
Biggest character: Ger “Dinky” Duignan, the Leitrim legend, has taken on a double role as both the club secretary and entertainer. Ger is always good for a story and is an instrumental player on the field.
Loudest in the dressing room: This award has only one winner and this is Kevin ‘Kev’ McHugh. The Derry man’s thick accent and aggressive tone, mixed with some colourful language, makes him one of the club’s best “motivational” speakers.
Number of romances that started in the GAA club (feel free to name names): Despite the fact that there is almost an even split of men and women in the club, there hasn’t been too many “romances”.
However, there have been plenty of flings and broken hearts over the years. Most of which I have been forbidden to mention here because “my mam will be reading this”.
One romance that I can mention involves a tall ginger from Hull in the UK who loves to tell people that ‘E bloodeh loves ‘urling’.
Duck to water award – Best new player who had never played GAA before: There have been several players from every corner of the world that qualify for this award.
However, Joyti, who was born and raised in Thailand to an Indian family and joined the club in 2014, deserves this.
She has been a key player on the Thai GAA women’s team and played a big part in the success of the team at both the South East Asian Games in Bangkok and the Asian Games in Shanghai.
Most annoying person in the club WhatsApp group: There is a clear winner for the most annoying person on the WhatsApp. Caroline, who hasn’t made an appearance at training in some time, only makes contact with the group to inform fellow members that she is unable to train because of shin splints or to find out the dress code for upcoming socials.
Shin splints can be very painful and rest is important, but remember Caroline, don’t check in on Facebook playing other sports and think you’re getting away with it.
Best story involving a club member that’s fit for print: With Thailand being Thailand most of the good stories are, unfortunately, not fit for print.
However, one story that is involves Tipperary man Brian “Pepsi” Stafford and a five-star hotel. On a recent club trip to Khon Kean, Thailand, where the Thai men’s team had arranged to play the Lao Elephants Aussie Rules team, we were sitting outside a small shop having some post-match beers.
During the evening, Brian was dared to go up onto the roof of the Pullman Hotel. After some time and a few too many beers (we reckon it was about 3am) Brian went about making his way to the top of the Pullman Hotel.
He only made it to the 22nd floor because that’s as high as the lift would go without a special card. So he used the fire escape to go up the other few floors, through the hotel’s service rooms, and there he was shouting down at us from the 25th floor.
When Brian tried to come back down the doors wouldn’t open from the outside, so he began to walk down the 25 floors through the fire escape. After all the excitement of getting to the top he decided to stop for an hour’s kip halfway down.
He eventually got to the bottom about 6am, walked into the breakfast room, grabbed a slice of toast and went on the hunt for the main door. He eventually found his way back to his hotel around 8am, where nobody had noticed him missing.
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.
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