London’s Ladies GAA Gaelic Footballers will be one of the highlights of the 2008 Crawley Irish Festival as they limber up for their All-Ireland Semi-Final in Dublin against Wicklow.

London has never won the Brendan Martin Cup and will be hoping that 2008 will be their lucky year after successes with the junior squad in 2007.

London ladies Gaelic Football has been the success story of Gaelic games here in the last two years, in 2007 they came from nowhere and reach the All Ireland Junior Championship final, played in front of an audience of 26,000 people and a TV audience of 210,000 viewers, although London lost that final by a goal, they had tremendous games along the way, opening with a draw at Ruislip with Derry 1-11 each, in one of the finest games of football seen there for many a long day, they then travelled to Belfast to take on Antrim and were ten points behind after ten minutes, the girls staged and amazing comeback, to lead by a point at half time and eventually win the game by ten points.

Next up was the semi final were they met a strong Carlow side in Dublin, just holding their own in a tight first half, they hit two goals after half time, to lead by eight points approaching the last quarter, however this time Carlow fought back and a penalty gave them a draw on the stroke of full time, extra time and London won to reach the final by two points. This year London entered the National league reaching the quarter final, winning three of their five games.

The 2008 All-Ireland Championship opened with an away tie in Derry and after a good first half London were beaten, but their determination turned the whole season around when they beat a very strong Louth team in Ruislip on a scoreline of 2-10 to 1-07 to qualify for the All Ireland Semi Final against Wicklow on August 30th in Dublin.

Larry O’Leary, chairperson of the Women’s County Board commented:

London ladies are delighted with the encouragement the organisers of the Crawley Festival have given them and are delighted to play an exhibition match at the festival.”

The ladies team will play an exhibition match at this Sunday’s Crawley Irish Festival. Wish them the best of luck and enjoy the spectacle.