It's not often that it comes together!!

There are fewer sporting experiences more satisfying than being a participant within a group of capable athletes who, on the big day, click and perform as a team unit. Normally such team understanding occurs when familiarities and commitments are nurtured and developed through months, or years even, of training and competition. But on certain cases a random selection of individuals with a very common focus can also, almost co-incidently, reach this same level of oneness. This was what happened in Munich on Saturday Aug 10th in the year of our Lord 2002 with the Würzburg St Kilians & Frankfurt Sarsfields amalgamation!! Normally both Würzburg and Frankfurt would be fielding their own individual teams, but due to weddings, holidays and travel members were scarce on the ground & realistically both groups had to join together to form the bare team of 11 players required to play in the European League Rouind 6 in München.

And so it came to be that Owen, Jens and Ronan drove from Würzburg while Feargal, Brian, David, Dan, Liam and Pat 'trained' their way ( almost taking a shortcut via Stuttgart! ) from Frankfurt to the Bavarian capital last Friday night - Aug 9 2002. There, copious amounts of Irish liquid steroids were quickly consumed, but, the bed finally beckoned at two O clock on Saturday morning. Game-time tomorrow after all!! Breakfast was made all the sweeter with the arrival of the lovely Deidre and Sinead from Münich Colmcillies. Through their efforts we arrived, with all our bits and pieces, punctually at the train that took us to Klosterwiese in Fürstenfeldbrück playing fields. Here we found three perfect surface playing fields all lined out with goal posts to boot. Somebody had been hard at work! At the back of the pitchs were benchs and tables, BBQ grills, beer wagens, air castles, small stages and microphone plus speaker systems. All looking very professional and organized.

Once we were togged it was pretty much getting prepared for the first game against Munich A. While everybody else was getting limbered up Feargal was doing a warm-up exercise unique to Offaly - he had a little 'power' nap. The Munich A game itself was very close and hard hitting with both teams trying to find their natural flow. Each game was 20 minutes - this meant 'hell for leather' from the word go with no let upon the pace. Wü/Fk were neck and neck with the Cillies until the last few minutes where their team experience made a difference. We went down with a score line of 0-5 to 0-7 but, Jens ( Thuringer Wald ) and Scott ( Canada ) were blooded and beginning to find their feet - this being their first competetive outing.

Then came The Hague - a team from the North that was expecting to claim overall honours at the end of the weekend. But with Big Pat Mach from Limerick lording it at mid-field and Dave Egan from Tipperary and Dave 'take no prisioners' Walsh holding everything watertight on the full-back line we led for most of the game. Scott was becoming a tower of strength at wing-back. - what he lacked in tact was made up for in graft and speed. A draw seemed a fair result until a well taken point from play allowed the Hague to win the game by the closest of margin 1-5 to 0-9. But the resolve and team spirit was beginning to show.

After a very quick, but rather delicious lunch repast, Luxembourg were at the centre of the cross-wires. Suddenly the team hit it's second wind and with the excesses of the previous night well and truly banished, coupled with strong performances from Dan Kelleher and Mike Tempany the game was all Wü/Fk . But another late point from Lux allowed them an undeserved share of the spoils - which theymust surely have been very glad to accept. The final score being Wü/Fr 1-6 to Lux 0-9. At this stage Rolo from Munich hat found his form and adjusted to the rules! Feargal, being the master tactician ( for which Offaly is renown for producing ), made the inspirational move of moving Dave up to full forward and putting himself back into the heart of defence. It worked a charm and Dave duly banged in three quick goals to silence Munich B's efforts. With Owen McGuire and Pat Mack scoring at will this game was never in doubt. Rolo even managed to get in on scoring act as well. Even though injured Ronan Slattery was rock solid with Felcro hands in goal, only 16 years young this man has a very bright sporting career ahead of him and we'll be looking for big things off him in the years to come.

Then came Paris. A very fit and lively team but, they had to mis-fortune to come up against a Wü/Fk team that had just hit top form. Goals from Owen, Dave and Mike put paid to game early on and any hard-hitting Brian Walsh from Kilkenny made sure that there was never going to be even a glimmer of hope for the Gaels. Jens and Liam were also very strong throughout this game. We ran out very comfortable winners with a scoreline of 3-11 to 0-6. Having the football finished a photo of these bunch of hardy campers what all that was left to complete. After Pat had taken the cup, everybody got together with one of the three referees, that had came out from Ireland for the weekend, and smiled at the camera!!

Then it was back to them to Augustiner Keller in the very centre of Munich, along with the other 250 participants for the day to enjoy food, Irish song, Irish dance and a lot of picking on the Aussie players in our presence!! Medals and awards were all distributed. Afterwards in Killians Irish pub, poor young Ronan had to decline individual advances from practically all of the Luxembourg ladies football team. Not deterred he had to quick Lucozades and had to endure the whole shameful procedure all over again! Have yez no respect there girls!!!! Sunday came slowly and sorely around! It was then off back to O'Reillies pub in Frankfurt where everybody viewed that great Clare team once again prove why they are considered the team of the nineties. A weekend doesn't get much better than this.... Many thanks to Munich Colmcilles for arranging such a weekend so professionally and with such a focus on getting even the smallest detail just right.

Team Picture (to be added soon)

Team Members in Picture Back row, from right - Pat McNamara - Limerick, Liam Knowles - Kildare, Michael Tempany - Sligo, Tyrone Referee Sean Quinn, Jenes Nothnagel - Thuringer Wald, Owen McGuire - Clare Front row from right - Ronan Slattery - Galway, Brian Walsh - Kilkenny, David Egan - Tipperary, Feargal Egan - Offaly, Dan Kelleher - Cork, Rolf Benglan - Bavaria