Warm-Up show to entertain fans for All-Ireland football final showdown
The Sam Maguire Cup. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
This Sunday, the GAA will crown its 137th All-Ireland senior football champions. First presented to Bill Squires Gannon of Kildare in 1928, the winners will take charge of the iconic Sam Maguire trophy for the next 12 months. A capacity 82,300 crowd is expected, and supporters will be treated to a special pre-match live show as the Warm Up builds the excitement in the countdown to throw – in at 3.30pm.
‘The Warm Up’ will take place in the stadium from 2pm and will provide entertainment and analysis for those who come to Croke Park early and also those around the world and will also be streamed globally via GAA.ie/thewarmup on Facebook Live, YouTube and on the @OfficialGAA channels as part of the build-up to the big game.
Hosted by Aisling O’Reilly and Dave McIntyre they will be joined by Kerry All-Ireland winning icon Marc Ó Sé and Donegal hero of their 2012 All-Ireland success Rory Kavanagh, as well as Dublin All-Ireland winner Paddy Andrews.
The Warm Up will preview the game and the defining battles and celebrate past meetings of Kerry and Donegal, who last met in a final in 2014, when the Kingdom carried off the honours.
The show will also celebrate the 2000 All-Ireland winning Kerry footballers who are this year’s silver jubilee team – a year when the late, great Paidí Ó Sé led the Kingdom to victory in Munster, and then they survived a titanic battle with Armagh in a replay and again in a replay with Galway before a team inspired by the twin towers of Seamus Moynihan and Maurice Fitzgerald claimed the prized trophy in October of that year. It was the last ever straight knock out football championship in GAA history.
There will be musical entertainment in the stadium and on the Cusack Stand concourse before the game above the GAA Museum entrance from 1.30 with Fiach Moriarty and John Byrne.
As part of the fan engagement, there will be a jersey canon firing free jerseys into the crowd as well as other competitions for the lucky holders of match tickets.
Pyrotechnics, drummers and pitch pageantry will complete the big match build-up and the jubilee captain Seamus Moynihan will have the honour of bringing the coveted Sam Maguire to the pitch.
After meeting Uachtarán na hÉíreann Michael D Higgins in his last official GAA function as Uachtarán at Croke Park, the teams will parade as is tradition behind the Artane School of Music with additional musical entertainment provided by Scór winners Drumcliffe Rosses Point from Sligo.
