Underage football… For fans above a certain age, it conjures up an image of endless summer days kicking a pig’s bladder around the local pitch, writes An Fear Rua ...

But it is more than that. Underage football is where you learn the rites of passage. It is where you first get to know and love that patch of Earth you call your parish. It is there you begin to appreciate the great edifice that is the Gaelic Athletic Association and realise what it has done for the country. But as Darth Vader used to say in those ‘Star Wars’ films a few years ago, ‘You have to go to the dark side of Gaelic fuzzball, Luke, and see why it became so popular...’

What they used to call faction fighting was rife – or popular, depending on how fastidious your point of view – in many parts of the country years ago, especially in Leinster and in Munster. Large, extended families – tribes, in other words - would gather around the head honcho and loudly enquire: 'Who'll we fight today, bhoys?', The sons would look up at their chieftain with gaping mouths and reply, 'Dem lads from the bottom of the parish, sir', and off they would go with sturdy blackthorn sticks or stout ash plants, ready to bate the heads off their enemies.

Often, the avenging tribes would wear a piece of apparel to distinguish themselves from their opponents in the thick of battle as the blackthorns and ash plants were swirled around vigorously. One famous crowd of faction fighters affected a kind of a scarf around their necks and open neck shirts. They were known as the ‘caravats’ – a corruption of the Irish word ‘carabhat’ for a ‘neck tie’. Their main rivals would throw on the nearest oul grimy waistcoat and so they gloried in the title of the ‘Shana Veists’. Again, a corruption of the Irish word for an old waistcoat.

But the local curate would often hear about the planned fight, report it to the parish priest, who would report it to the bishop and then all hell would break loose, in a manner of speaking. The religious A Team would head for the fight site and with threats of 'eternal damnation' the factions would head home fuming, ready for their praties and cabbage, (no bacon available in those days) washed down with a few drops of poitín.

Eventually, after years of disappointment, some clever faction fighter came up with the idea of a way of getting to beat their great rivals but without incurring the wrath of the clergy. He probably had the benefit of a bit of education from a wandering Gaelic poet in one of the local hedge schools. He said: 'Why don't we play them in a game of peil or caid ? That way we can still have a right ‘go’ at them but claim that ‘tis only all in the name of sport ... ‘ And so the practice began of huge teams of men from rival ends of the parish roaming across fields and meadows for hours on end trying to finish the ball into a goal at one end of the parish.

It was into this loose version of history that the Gaelic Athletic Association was founded in 1884. It made faction fighting respectable. But then a funny thing happened....

The people who had been at each other's throats within parish boundaries suddenly had bigger fish to fry. They could join forces and compete, be it in football or otherwise, against (spit it) The Neighbouring Parish.

The Neighbouring Parish is a bit like your next door neighbour. You can get on well enough sometimes but when it comes to who has the best garden, who has the latest technology installed in the living room, who has the best SUV and so on, people seem to lose the head and try their best to be better than the people next door. And, sure, you know yourself what neighbouring counties are like.

And so it was with this Quentin Tarantino vision of what Gaelic football is all about, that we entered the realms of underage football. It was a scary experience entering that dressing room for the big Under 12 game, especially when you had forgotten to bring your gear and you lined out wearing jeans and a pair of cheap department store runners.

It was scarier still going out to the field and seeing the opposition. How is it that in underage football every team you play all look at least six inches taller and wider than you? Somebody should write an academic thesis on that mysterious topic.

So it begins. The ball comes your way. Your first competitive handling of the ball. You look up at yer Daddy who has nearly collapsed with pride and anticipation. 'Would you kick the ball!’ the trainer roars. You think about doing as you're told. Up the field to the star full forward. He is already earmarked as a county star in fifteen years time and he must be fed the liathróid constantly lest it would upset the balance of nature as well as his father, who also happens to be the club sponsor.

But you don't pass it. Why? Something stops you from kicking it to the star boy at number 14. You run with it, hopping, soloing, looking around, panicking, and wishing the goalposts would come nearer to you. And they do. You begin to wish you had passed the ball to number14 when you were told.

Now you're on your own. You’re the next in a long line of faction fighters.
Except, these days, you’re called an underage footballer...

First published in the programme for the Cork v Meath All Ireland senior football semi-final 2007