Dublin

UPDATE Aug 2017: I was reading an ESPN article on the Mayweather vs. Mcgregor fight and came across this part, “Sheriff Street was among the worst streets in the city, blocked off at one end, the area controlled by one of the two local gangs”, which is pretty awesome (and scary) since Sheriff Youth Club is right on that street and I walked around in that area trying to find the gym…

Finding and getting to the court (6 – Need to look for an indoor court because Dublin weather is really random with rain)

Dublin, Ireland was an interesting place for pickup basketball. Weather predicted intermediate rain everyday of the week so I figured outdoor basketball was out of the picture. Facebook was proving to be a reliable source as it’s how I found my last two pickup games in Rome and Lisbon, so I depended on Facebook again in Dublin. Dublin somehow had ~5 Facebook groups dedicated to indoor basketball.

Now this is where it gets interesting. The indoor court FB groups are private and you can’t see any information, so you must request access into the group. I was skeptical if anyone would accept random people but I requested access anyways to all 5 groups. By the time I got to Dublin, 2 out of the 5 groups accepted me. I was in in Dublin for only 2 nights and was very fortunate that one of the groups, ‘IFSC Basketball Dublin’ played every Thursday night and I would be in Dublin that Thursday night. (IFSC stands for International Financial Services Centre because the court is located in Dublin’s financial center)

But I wasn’t guaranteed to play just yet. They had a long 2-pager on rules for how to claim your spot to play. I’ll provide a summary of the rules here but I posted the full rules at the bottom of this blog so you can read it in its entirety at the end.

In short, the guy who organizes it posts on the FB group a day before asking who will play. The first 18 people to respond will get a spot. The difficult part is that he posts at a different time every week, so you don’t know when he will post. Anybody after the first 18 will be put on a waiting list, and if anybody drops out, the waiting list will go in order of when they responded. So essentially first come first serve. It’s very well run and extremely organized as he would comment at the 18th person letting everyone know that that they were full and everyone else would be on the waiting list.

With a group of 800 members, I had to be one of the first 18 to respond so this naturally became a game to me. I needed to plan accordingly and being somewhat of a stats nerd, I went through the past 12 posts by the guy, and inputted in excel the time he first posted, as well as the time when the last 18th player signed up.

The average time he posted was 5:42pm the day before (earliest=3:46, latest=11:43pm) and it took just under 4 hours for the 18th member to reply (removing outliers because there were a couple days where not enough players wanted to play so they cancelled and other times when they still played, but 18 people did not respond).

I figured 4 hours was plenty of time to respond but for some obsessive reason, I wanted to correctly predict when he would post and I wanted to be the first to respond…or the more reasonable answer was that I didn’t want to spend my whole evening stuck inside my hotel waiting for the post (Some may wonder why I don’t have notifications on and that’s because I don’t have a data plan internationally. I only have Wi-Fi. So if I leave the hotel, I won’t have Wi-Fi and without Wi-Fi, I can’t check FB). So I created a simple forecasting model and projected that he would post sometime between 5:50pm and 6:20pm.

If you’ve made it this far, I hope to not bore you any longer on non-basketball related topics, but he ended up posting at 5:53pm and I got on my computer at 5:55pm to respond.

If you do make it to Dublin and you want to play basketball on a Thursday night, be sure to add yourself to the ‘IFSC Basketball Dublin’ FB group and be sure to be on sometime between 5:30pm to 6:30pm and you will essentially be guaranteed to play indoor pickup basketball. They also play every Monday as well.

Dublin is a very small walkable city so if you are staying near Dublin city center, getting to the court is actually very easy as it shouldn’t be more than a 30-minute walk. Just google map ‘Sheriff Youth Club’ and you’ll be on your way.

They rent the court, and it costs $50 an hour. We played from 8pm-10pm. So the $100 was split evenly between the players who showed up.

The Basketball Court (8 – standard indoor court for recreational use. Lines everywhere for other sports as well)

This gym reminded me of my elementary school gym with its old equipment and random furniture like chairs, tables, signs and other sporting equipment all around. I am sure this gym was used for every sport and event imaginable because of the equipment and multi-purpose lines on the floor. But for basketball, it had all the standard lines so it could be used for league games as well. On one side, the out of bounds was slightly interfered with by a soccer goal that was too big to hide anywhere else. Underneath the basket were stacked chairs and commercial signs that one might run into, but no one did.

Because the court was pretty old, the rims felt like they could fall off anytime, giving any shot a nice soft roll. Plus, the backboard was a soft wooden material giving all shots an extra soft bounce. I did not find a water fountain so make sure you bring lots of water but there was a bathroom. The court was connected to a bar, so as you come in, you actually pass by a bar, and on a Thursday night, it was packed.

The Players (7 – everyone was solid, no one stood out above the rest and no one was that much worse than everyone else.)

I hate to say this but the players here represented the most stereotypical type of players you would find at any pickup game. Everyone kind of just blended together because everyone was around the same skill level that if you randomly took any 5 players they would have the same chance of winning as any other team.

Average height was 5’10 with the shortest being 5’3 and the tallest being 6’4. The average age was 28 with the youngest being probably 22 and the oldest being 38.

I would say that the players were mostly guards. No one really posted up so just be cautious of scrappy guards every direction you turned. The taller people do get more rebounds but that is expected. Everyone was also extremely friendly and respected foul calls.

Only 15 of the 18 players showed up, which was fine because that meant we didn’t need to wait more than 1 game before playing again.

The Game (9 – fun fast paced games up to 5)

The most interesting aspect of this pickup basketball game was that the games were played up to 5 with 1’s and 2’s. That meant that games went real fast. Games could be over in 3 shots if the team hits two 3’s and another shot. I don’t think any game lasted more than 15 minutes and most games were quicker so there was plenty of time for everyone to play 5+ games each. People also got tired because of the fast paced games so they were always asking everyone to play as much as possible.

The European check ball was similar to the other European cities where you don’t have to ‘pass in’ after a check. Though in Dublin, you did have to check the ball at the top of the key.

If you call a foul on a shooting foul and make the basket, the basket still counts.

Like I said, most of the players and games were pretty standard and it’s like the most conventional pickup basketball you would play anywhere. You had some good players making good plays here and there, some players trying to be too fancy, lots of unforced turnovers, not much arguing because everyone respected calls, and good ball movement and lots of screens. Everyone played hard so no one slacked on defense or cherry picked which is always good. Overall, fun fast paced games.

Conclusion

I hope I didn’t make Dublin basketball sound too boring. If I were to come back to Dublin, I would definitely come back. It was incredibly fun because it was very well organized and everyone played basketball well. If you are looking for a safe and easy way to play indoor basketball in Dublin, Ireland on a Monday or Thursday, make sure you join the FB group ‘IFSC Basketball Dublin’ and be on the lookout for a post the day before asking who wants to play.

Rules

Local Games and Venue Information

This group is for local pick up/scrimmage games. Anyone of any level is welcome but please familiarise yourself with general basketball rules and the rules of the group before attending.

Games will usually be announced 24-48 hours in advance and your attendance must be marked on the relevant post. Do not contact the organiser or group admin directly expecting them to mark your attendance. Do not post to the group page to mark attendance for a game before the organiser does so. Only replies to the organisers post will be accepted for marking attendance. Games have a 15 player limit unless otherwise stated. If you don’t mark your attendance before the limit is reached, please don’t show up. If you fail to monitor the numbers and show up unannounced and the game is full, you won’t be able to play. After the limit is reached, the waiting list will be on a first come basis so please mark your interest for any cancellations.

If you confirm for a game and don’t show up without notifying the group, you’ll be put to the last reserve position for your next game, regardless of who you confirm ahead of. If there is more than one no show, the confirmation time will determine who’s ahead in the queue between them. The cut off time is 3 hours before the game start time for cancellations. After this time, any new players wanting to play, will be behind the no shows in the queue. If you’re on the reserve list and are no longer able to play, you must mark yourself out ahead of the cut off time, or you’ll be on the reserve list for your next game.

Each player is only allowed a maximum of one Plus 1. Players are responsible for the status of their Plus 1 unless the plus 1 makes a comment after they have been mentioned. It’s essential to mention your Plus 1’s name or they will not be counted, this is to avoid any confusion of double bookings and miscalculations. Please check to make sure you haven’t already been included as somebodies Plus 1 before posting. Do not mention a friend in the thread to get their attention to see if they are in, this causes confusion when counting numbers too, these posts will be removed.

Make sure group notifications are on, so as to mark your attendance once games are announced.

Please always assume:

• There’ll be at least 6 players at each game and by confirming you agree to still attend to play 3 on 3 unless you mention otherwise.

• If there isn’t 6 confirmed, the game will be cancelled and announced on the post.