Results tagged “asiangaelicgames”

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Last weekend’s immensely successful staging of Shanghai’s first Asian Gaelic Games tournament has ensured that the event will return to China’s commercial hub next September, when teams from across Asia will once again compete to take home the Derek Brady Cup. This year’s unlikely winners were the Dubai Celts, who pipped Hong Kong to the post in extra time, with the ladies trophy collected by feisty Beijing, a team that lost every single one of their matches this time last year. Following a stunning win over tournament favourites Singapore in the quarter-finals, Shanghai’s mens team lost out to Hong Kong in the semis, but saw their star forward, James McDonald of County Down, take home the Most Valuable Player of the Tournament award. The Shanghai Sirens ladies team held on to reach the Plate finals (one stream below the Cup), but were beaten by a powerful Singapore side, boasting, as rumour had it, a 40-year-old former inter-county player and mother of three, who went by the name of Mary, and thundered in a clutch of stunning goals in the second half.

The "Year of France in China" may have ended, and Shanghai’s Oktoberfest extravaganza may be drawing to a close, but one particularly energetic and unique cultural phenomenon still waits in the autumn wings: Shanghai’s very own 10th Asian Gaelic Games, to be held at the Shanghai Rugby Football Club in Jinqiao, Pudong this Saturday and Sunday. The joys of Gaelic football may not have touched us all -- for those in the dark, it is a whimsical Irish combination of soccer, rugby, basketball and ballet -- but Shanghaiist must confess to being a full, if recent, convert to this most elegant and skill-filled of field sports.