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The Arabian Celts ladies are celebrating the sweet taste of success after claiming their first championship, a decade on from their formation.
The women secured a stunning victory in Al Ain last weekend to be crowned the Middle East League Intermediate Champions of Gaelic football, one of the most popular sports in Ireland and growing as a multi-national expat favourite.
The league standings are based on aggregated points accrued from finishing positions in four regional tournaments, and the Arabian Celts have more than earned their spot having won three and finished runners-up in the other.
Alana McConalogue, chairperson of the Arabian Celts, was beaming with pride at the club’s achievements.
She said: “This is my seventh season playing for the Celts, and it’s amazing to think how far we’ve come. I remember when I first joined, we only had six girls turn up to a training session.
“Fast-forward to 2019, and we have on average 30 girls during each session, and have as many as 50 regulars coming.
“We won our first tournament at the end of last season, and we used that as an important foundation to build confidence on. We knew we had a chance coming into this season, but when we won the first two tournaments of the season, including our home games in November, we really started to believe.”
The Celts then narrowly lost by two points to arch-rivals Sharjah in the final of the Muscat tournament, leaving it all to play for in Al Ain.
There, the two teams met in the semi-finals, with the winner guaranteed to finish top spot in the league and win promotion to the Middle East League Seniors. After a gruelling battle, the Arabian Celts emerged narrow victors by two points.
To add a cherry on top, with the pressure off and the team playing without shackles or nerves, they hammered Abu Dhabi A in the final to put an emphatic stamp on their achievement.
Gaelic football is usually played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch, although the ladies in the Middle East play nine-a-side with a squad of 12. The objective of the sport is to score by kicking or punching the ball into the other team’s goals (three points) or between two upright posts above the goals and over a crossbar 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) above the ground (one point).
McConalogue, who works as a personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach, credits the remarkable rise of the sport and the increase in the team’s quality to the fantastic work of coach Anthony Friel and his support staff, and also the friendliness of the group.
She explained: “The Celts as a club has always been looked at as inclusive. So not only do young Irish girls who come to Bahrain for work see us and want to join, but so do players of other nationalities, such as British and American.
“We cater to all levels of skill, whether you’ve been playing since you were a girl in Ireland or are an adult and have just picked up a ball for the first time. We have a number of social events and everyone just enjoys playing.
“I truly think Gaelic football as a sport attracts players because you use both your hands and your feet, so it offers a little more than perhaps volleyball or netball. I think it really strikes a chord with people looking for something a little different.”
The team trains on Sunday and Tuesday evenings, as well as Friday mornings. They will play in a one-off Cup at the beginning of March before the league adjourns for the summer, although the ladies will continue to train amongst themselves and play inter-team matches and compete in mixed events with the men during that period.
One of the Arabian Celts’ star players, Deena Rahman, who is also a member of the Bahrain women’s national football team and owner of Tekkers Football Academy, is one such player who discovered the sport recently, but quickly fell in love with it.
“After the summer, I went to a training session purely for fitness reasons and I was unsure if I could commit long-term,” Rahman said. “An hour later, I had thoroughly enjoyed the session and I was determined to fit it into my schedule.”
“Coming from a football background, the transition to Gaelic with the skills is easier than if you were a netball or basketball player, for example. I loved it straight away and saw it as a new project that I wanted to master, with so many elements of the game to think about.
“I like to try and be as good as I can at what I do in a sports sense. I really enjoyed that challenge, and I think the Celts in general as a club is utterly fantastic. I’ve never felt so much warmth and friendliness within a group before, and it boosted my confidence to keep going.
“When it came to the league, we never envisaged we could win it, but we built skill and confidence over time and we’ve become a fantastic team. Now that we’re promoted to the Senior League, the quality of opponents will be tougher but we’re happy with that, we want to come out of our comfort zone and challenge ourselves with no expectations.”
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