The last day of our visit to Ireland we finally came to the reason for the entire trip - the Croke Park Classic! It's an American college football game played at Croke Park in Dublin. This year the teams were Penn State and Central Florida. My friend Tom is a Penn State alum, so he bought 4 tickets. Knowing my enthusiasm for college football (obviously - Tom knows I'm a Sooner!), I was invited as one of the four!
There was thoroughly American pep rally on Friday afternoon in the Temple Bar neighborhood...we learned the appropriate Penn State cheers.
And they played the Star-Spangled Banner!! Of course they did, but we Americans overseas don't hear it so often anymore!
You can see the stadium wasn't full, but I was still impressed with how many fans had travelled so far! Definitely more from Penn State but I think that is expected with such a long tradition and alumni support there.
There was good attendance by non-Americans as well. I heard lots of Irish and British accents all day! I think it must be a great opportunity to see a sport that isn't played so often here.
During halftime they did an exhibition match of an Irish football type of sport - it's been too long for me to remember the details but it was fast and violent - looked fun!!
A final comment about my day at the game - while I loved seeing American football and completely embraced being part of the crowd, it was a little sad to not be at MY game. I missed my Sooners. Boomer Sooner!!
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