Football fever grips Galway as Croke Park glory beckons

Football fever has gripped Galway this week, as Pádraig Joyce’s Tribesmen prepare to defy the odds to claim the county’s tenth All-Ireland title at Croke Park on Sunday.

The game’s most decorated team, Kerry are favourites to regain the title for the 38th time and first time since 2014, a famine by their standards; but there’s a swagger about Galway this season that suggests the outsiders could cause an upset.

Galway hasn’t lifted Sam Maguire since 2001, and the team’s desire to bridge that gap is matched only by the insatiable hunt for tickets to the Jones Road venue.

Despite the €90 price tag for stand seats, and hotel prices beyond most supporters’ reach, demand for tickets has soared, including among neutrals, for the first post-Covid full-house football final since 2019.

It’s the earliest All-Ireland final ever to be held thanks to the trialling of a new ‘split season’, to facilitate both club and county competitions.

And if Galway, led by captain Seán Kelly, manage to pull off a surprise win, then it would spark one almighty party – as the match falls on the eve of the start of Galway Races Summer Festival and at the end of the Galway International Arts Festival fortnight!

Galway GAA Chairman, Paul Bellew, said he hoped it would also usher in a new era of All-Ireland appearances for Galway footballers in the years ahead.

And by Tuesday evening, 80% of Galway’s circa 17,000 tickets allocation had been dispersed, through clubs, players, officials, managers, committees and sponsors.

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. And don’t miss our free All-Ireland supplement, with all of the latest news and views ahead of Sunday’s Final.

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