Squareball, GAA t shirts, irish tshirts, GAA gear

Talking Balls has been forced to watch the soccer World Cup in recent weeks. And, now that France haven’t qualified for the Final we can breathe easily again – thank God, Anyone But France. We will be supporting Spain, now that Ghana choked under pressure.

With SKY + in the house and others keen on foreign games it provides a welcome opportunity to sit on the sofa, away from the possibility and hassle of having to actually do any work.

Also, the benefit of SKY + is that its is possible to have a good sleep and then simply rewind the bits of the match that you want to see. That or have a compliant relative wake you up when there is a goal or a piece of goalmouth action. In the case of most matches then you will understand that my sleep has remained undisturbed by outsiders such has been the paucity of what could remotely be called action. When my children ask what the World Cup 2010 was like I will be able to tell them I slept through the majority of it. Even the thought of it is making me drowsy.

Amidst the Yawnfest several things have struck me that could be of interest and relevance to our national games. The first is the variety of playing strip manufacturers. In the last short while it emerged from Croke Park that northern firm Gaelic Gear had lost their licence to provide approved gear. That leaves O’Neills and Azzurri to our knowledge although there may be others that have been accredited but have yet to secure any real market impact.

Eagle eyed readers will recall Gooch Coopers Dr Crokes wearing Uhlsport shirts in the All Ireland club final a few years back. That may have flown in the face of official regulations. . . I dunno but had Cross been beaten they were never likely to appeal the result on the basis of where a set of shirts were made.

But I digress. Of the designs available most are retro in nature, round collars, V collars plain colours – there is none of the excessive shirt patterns that first gave me migraines in 1994 in the USA World Cup. The shirts have an interesting plainness about them, they looked like they were designed to look good. There is a move in soccer like other sports to make the shirts tighter on the fit – the billowing English effort as outdated as the team’s tactics.

Probably the most stylish efforts were those of the African nations supplied by Puma. The red and yellow affair worn by Ghana during their disastrous exit at the hands of Uruguay and the Ivory Coast’s cool green and white hoops looked different but fashionably cool. (The only problem is when a chap of pale complexion wears one of these shirts he looks nowhere near as cool and funky as an African footballer and that, my friends, is a fact.)

We also had the first brown shirt as worn by the Ghana keeper and the African nations signed to Puma now have a common African unity third strip that was inspired by the soil colour of Africa. I can see it now. . . Donegal’s new away strip taking it’s inspiration from the brown of the bog near Gaoth Dobhair alright or maybe it would be inspired by how crap they were this season! Or perhaps Monaghan may take the field on Sunday week against Tyrone inspired by Paddy Kavanagh’s Stony Grey Soil of Monaghan. Either way these teams will do so wearing the same as they always have.

It all begs the question, why isn’t there more competition in this field in the GAA. Too many shirts lack imagination- – others suffer badly form too much imagination. For us new blood is required – so bring on the Pumas of this world, that would shake things up.