A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

God, I'm feeling old this week and it only takes the picture at the bottom of this page to reinforce that notion - can it really be 20 years since I crossed the Atlantic to report on Leitrim's first ever meeting with New York in the Connacht Senior Football Championship?

Twenty years have flown by in the blink of an eye  but, I probably recall the sheer extravaganza of that wild adventure  in 2003 better than many occasions much more recent as that first Leitrim expedition to Gaelic Park probably set the record for heart-stopping  drama, sheer excitement and bizarre off-field controversy.

Back then, travelling across to the US wasn't that common - the Celtic Tiger era had yet to take hold but the thought of a Leitrim team playing in New York caught the imagination of Leitrim people everywhere as thousands hopped on flights for a truly historic occasion - I don't have actual numbers that travelled, some estimate 1,500, more still two thousand and a few wilder guesses have it closer to 3,000.

Meatloaf is wrong - two out of three IS bad!

THE LAST POINT

Honestly that 3,000 Leitrim fans in The Bronx may actually be accurate because taking breakfast in our hotel off the Tuckahoe Road in Yonkers, we met Drumreilly men who drove almost 800 miles from Chicago  to the game while one intrepid fan covered well over 1,000 miles on the I95 from Florida - all for a match involving Leitrim and New York!

It wasn't just Leitrim fanatics who made the journey - I was part of a trip organised by the intrepid Seamus Regan and Willie Donnellan and the party had interlopers from Roscommon of all places! But a chance to get to New York for a week, to check out the sights, do a bit of shopping and take in the match with a load of friends was too good of an opportunity to miss for so many.

I'm not sure how many were in our party that headed down to Shannon airport on that May morning but it must have been over 50 and that was just the group we were in so to be honest, it felt more like a home away from home rather than an away game although the sight of Budweisers flowing and the smell of hot dogs and burgers wafting over Gaelic Park meant we quickly realised that, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we weren't in Kansas anymore!

Unless you've experienced the occasion, I'm not sure words can do justice to the entire experience. Connacht Championship days in Ruislip come close with the communal sense of belonging and identity but it is even more pronounced in Gaelic Park, the distance between their native shores and their adopted home making days like next Saturday all the more special for our Exiles.

From a purely sporting standpoint, I wonder if the trip to New York will survive as the All-Ireland series undergoes radical change, the oft whispered notion that had New York won a game over the years that they wouldn't be able to travel over for a Connacht semi-final due to the status of some of their team could be said to strip the competition of its integrity - indeed, after Leitrim's great escape 20 years, the New York players were probably more relieved they didn't have to head home to Ireland for another match.

But, the GAA is not just about sporting success, it is a social and community organisation and in places like Gaelic Park and Ruislip, you see that ideal in its purest form. You only have to spend a few minutes in Gaelic Park to know how much occasions like next Saturday mean to the Irish in the Big Apple - for Leitrim folk in New York, it is the chance to see their county team in action, a chance to meet family and friends and an opportunity to express their pride in their place of birth.

Three might be the magic number

THE LAST POINT

Twenty years ago, that feeling was more pronounced - mobile phones were only starting to make their mark on everyday life, internet coverage a rare object of wonder and social media not even invented yet. Think about it, TV programmes back then were screened here about a month after first shown in the States but nowadays, there are simo-cast premieres and  we're watching the NFL and NBA live as it happens!

The reaction after the game was different too from those present in Gaelic Park to those listening back at home on local radio - when the team returned home, they were expecting a tongue lashing from all and sundry but the drama of the broadcast transmitted down the airwaves meant that those back home in Leitrim regarded the game as some kind of classic.

Boy, was it different around Mac Lean Avenue - even on the  night before we headed home, there was a quiet fury over Leitrim's close shave and the fans weren't shy about expressing it either  - quite an eye opener how one set of fans can experience two very different reactions to the same event! 

The trip was also hard work, and I mean hard work! Writing up the report and interviews was a nightmare because right after the match, it seemed as if the entire Leitrim contingent in Gaelic Park decamped to the Terrace on the Park at Flushing Meadow for an enormous  event organised by the Leitrim People's Association of New York for the team that also had to be covered.

That left me, with a bare few of hours sleep, struggling the next morning to write up a report of a match that Leitrim should have lost and get it, along with photos, to Seamus Gallagher who would bring all back to good old Leitrim, his flight with the Leitrim team leaving late on Monday with everything back in our old offices in St George's Terrace for early on Tuesday morning.

A much needed rest day on Tuesday entailed sightseeing around New York with the eerie silence around the site of the World Trade Centre still resonating with me all these years later and a meal down in Chinatown - one of those great memories I'll treasure.

Of course, everything “blew up” (pun intended by the way) the next day when I was woken from my slumber in New York by a phone call from the Observer wondering all about the Kieran Murray story, something that was, hand on heart, news to me. I'm not going to go into the chaos around Mac Lean Avenue that Monday, I wasn't there for most of it and it is 20 years ago but it elevated what had been a lucky escape for Leitrim into something very different that, even to this day 20 years later, defies belief.

The calm before the storm

THE LAST POINT

But there was more to that trip that just the match  - myself and Willie Donnellan did a load of stories on Leitrim people in New York  that kept appearing for weeks after in the Observer and Willie must have taken thousands of photos over that once in a lifetime experience.

Things are different now - the world is so much smaller, most of us have jetted across to do Christmas shopping in Woodbury Common or Jersey Gardens and the idea that New York is a different planet no longer seems true. But it will be different for the Leitrim players who have not  experienced it before. The travel, the party atmosphere, the pressure and the hype, not to say anything about the now artificial pitch - are very different from 20 years ago when one corner of the field had a pitcher's mound ! And  Saturday's game will be like nothing Leitrim players have experienced before.

All I can say  is safe travels to everyone going over, here's hoping for a Leitrim win and plenty of memories that will be treasured in 20 years time just as much as mine from 2003 still are.