Paris-Bordeaux gear up for AIB All-Ireland club quarter-final

Against all odds, Paris-Bordeaux (ParisBurdi) have become the first French side in history to progress to an All-Ireland LGFA Junior Club Championship quarter-final. The team, which was formed earlier this year as an alliance between Paris Gaels and Burdigaela (Bordeaux), overcame all-Britain Champions Wandsworth Gaels in a thrilling encounter at McGovern Park in Ruislip on Saturday October 26th.

The next stage of the competition is the quarter-final which will take place between Paris-Bordeaux (European Champions) and Coolera / Strandhill (Connacht Champions) on November 23rd in Maastricht (2pm).

The French win is historic in many ways. Not only is this the first time a French side has progressed to this stage of the championship, it is also the first time that a team composed of mostly non-native players has made it out of Europe. Eight of the starting fifteen for Paris / Bordeaux are French-born and took up the sport in adulthood.  “I took up Gaelic football four years ago and it has become a huge part of my life” said Fanny Lézin of Bordeaux. “I love the sense of community associated with Gaelic Games and see the club as my second family”.

Even the team’s management team is a mix of Irish and French, with Conor Pelan of Paris Gaels and Jean-Baptiste Bouglouan of Bordeaux at the helm. “We are excited about the upcoming game” says Belfast-born Pelan. “We have a good balance of experience and talent in our squad and our players have adapted well to the fifteen-a-side format. We will undoubtedly be considered underdogs for the quarter-final, but that doesn’t faze us in the slightest; we are confident in our abilities”.

With 90 per cent non-Irish players, and a continuous members growth of 10 per cent for the past 15 years, GAA is going from strength to strength in France, which is now home to 31 clubs and over 1200 players. The Federation for Gaelic Games in France is continuously working to develop new clubs and is campaigning to be recognized by the French Ministry of Sports. This recognition should help clubs get new partnerships and improved facilities in their local areas. In the meantime, players and volunteers face significant organizational challenges in their efforts to promote the games.

Despite impressive wins over Belgium and Luxembourg at the home ground of European GAA in Maastricht, the road to the quarter final has been challenging for the French side.  “We don’t have the same infrastructure and resources as other teams competing at this level” says team captain Ruth Ferguson, originally from Clare and now based in Paris. “We managed to get jerseys made before the Wandsworth game thanks to our sponsors Hannon Transport and Molly Malone’s Irish Pub, and we had help from the LGFA with our travel costs for London which we are extremely grateful for.”

French clubs don’t yet have access to playing facilities that most clubs take for granted, “It’s a constant struggle for us to have access to pitches for example, and we generally have to organise and pay for our own travel to matches” continues Ferguson. “We appreciate every single opportunity we get to play, and we will do our best to provide Coolera / Strandhill with the match conditions they are used to when they come to Europe for the quarter-final on November 23^rd.”

This historic journey comes with considerable costs and European clubs unfortunately do not yet have access to the same resources as our Irish counterparts. Our players have already made significant  financial contributions for travel and expenses in the championship campaign so far. This is why we need to reach out to our community, the team have made a GoFundMe which can be found in the descriptions of their Instagram pages or by going to – https://gofund.me/2a1d6022

About Paris-Bordeaux:

Paris-Bordeaux is composed of players from Paris Gaels (founded in 1995) and Burdigaela (formed in 2013). Paris and Bordeaux ladies’ teams regularly confront each other as rivals in the French championship in a nine-a-side format. For most of the panel, this is their first experience playing fifteen-a-side championship football.   

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Picture credit: Damian Dolan/The Irish World