Know The Game lets you know the GAA scores... and predict the next ones

The Know The Game website can provide a wealth of historical GAA scores - and now users are being offered the chance to say what they think will happen in the future, benefiting their clubs in the process.

The brainchild of friends Eoin Keane and James Buckley, the site provides reams of hurling and football data, allowing for the easy filtering of results based on match-ups or venues. Though, in a way, things have happened in reverse order

“We started with the prediction side of it,” Keane says, “and then we said, while we were at it, we could develop the other side.

“There was no website you could go to for data like that – for example, Cork are playing Clare away in the first round of the Munster championship and someone might want to see what their record is like in Cusack Park.

“It didn’t exist and so, over the last two years, I’ve gone through every hurling championship since the late 19th century – I hope I’ve done every one, anyway! – and put them into an Excel sheet and James did the rest, then.

"He's a childhood friend of mine, we’d both be from the same area, up around the Tank Field and Brian Dillons.

“I do the manual entry for the stats and James is the computer-whiz – I wouldn’t know much about that craic.

“I’m secretary of Dillons and I’ve run competitions like this and I know other clubs have. We were thinking that there could be a centralised place where you can go to do all this, it would be much easier and you’d have a better product.”

While it required no small amount of research on Keane's, the end product certainly bears testament to the passion involved.

“The first port of call was Wikipedia, which is great for the most part,” he says.

“You can tell when there’s omissions and things wrong – the further you go back, the more sparse the information is.

“Then there’s the Irish Newspaper Archive, which is brilliant, it really is some resource.

It’s still kind of an untapped market, the historical results database. 

"What would be great would be if we could delve into club championships – you’d need a bit of buy-in from county boards or even clubs themselves.”

“Once you get back to 1890-whatever and it’s a Friday night,” he says, “you’re there scrolling through looking for a result of a Kildare-Meath match and the girlfriend is looking at you, wondering what you’re at!

GAA NERD

“I’m a GAA nerd; I find it interesting and you end up coming across some great things along the way.

“What was awkward was where you’d find a result, say Cork beat Dublin, but then in the boardroom Dublin were awarded the match and you’re wondering whether to put it down as a win or a loss, or a game might have finished as a draw because it got too dark or the ball burst.

“They’re some of the issues we’ve faced!”

With that up and running, the pair are now turning their attentions towards a predictions competition, where clubs can benefit without having to worry about organisation.

“Once a player signs up and inputs their club, they’re automatically entered into a league for that club," Keane says. 

If a club got, say, 200 people to enter, at a tenner a head that’s €2,000 and they’d get back 90% of that, then, which is €1,800.

“They might want to put up a prize, then – even if that was €500, they’d still get €1,300, without having to do a thing. There’s no admin or anything, it’s all run through the website.

“After every round, you can see how you’re doing the league and that adds a bit of craic.”

For more info, see www.knowthegame.ie or email eoin@knowthegame.ie