The Last Ball
One last free, an empty pitch and a team-mate who understands the usefulness of staying behind.
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Gay GAA fiction · LGBTQ+ Gaelic stories
Original, clearly labelled fiction about adult players and supporters across Gaelic games. Read one, then send us the story you could never find.
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Fourteen original stories, newest first. All characters are invented and no real player is used as a romantic character.
One last free, an empty pitch and a team-mate who understands the usefulness of staying behind.
Read itA borrowed jersey, a winning point and somebody waiting beyond the wire with a red umbrella.
Read itTwo players repair a scoreboard before a night match and make one invitation provisional.
Read itA broken urn and a match morning reveal the quiet jobs that make room for people.
Read itA new player borrows the one hurl nobody else wants—and meets the person who kept it.
Read itA goalkeeper, a missed bus and a conversation under the scoreboard.
Read itConor arrives early enough to leave before anybody sees him. A pair of borrowed boots—and a very ordinary welcome—change the plan.
Read itTwo supporters, one away match and a seat quietly saved for the long road home.
Read itTwo members of a small-club senior side walk back to the car after losing a county semi-final. A conversation neither planned to have opens anyway.
Read itA new panel member on a U17 team makes a decision about being out at training — and another one about whether to take his coach's advice.
Read itTwo team-mates in a Galway ladies football dressing-room realise they've been dancing around each other all season.
Read itTwo supporters meet properly for the first time in a pub in Thurles at the half-time of an All-Ireland semi-final. The match is not the point.
Read itA camogie goalkeeper coaches the under-12s with her girlfriend and tries to work out, one under-12 at a time, how out she wants the club to be.
Read itA fictional corner-back on a fictional Leinster county senior panel decides, in the week of a provincial final, to come out to his team manager.
Read itGGA.ie runs on stories. Send original fiction or a real Gaelic games experience, with a pen name or no public name at all.