It's a game more readily associated with Sligo than St Augustine's School - but apparently Gaelic football is all the rage at the Maida Vale school.

The appeal, according to John Doyle, who coaches the pupils there in an after-school club, is a game where the action represents something akin to a structured punch-up.

Doyle believes the appeal of using hands, feet and legs gives gives Gaelic football extra clout, if that's the right word, by his insistence on as few rules as possible.

He said: "It's liberating for the kids because they just want a game. They don't care about the rules.

"It's not like football where twoboys are picking teams and kids are waiting to be picked. They just turn up and we get a game going - regardless of ability."

In fact, girls get mixed in with the boys, and the so-called fairer sex give as much as they get.

Doyle is also the treasurer for Fulham's Irish GAA Club, who play in South Park, Fulham.

It might be a far cry from Dub lin' s Croke Park with its 82,000 capacity se ve rel y tested at All Ireland cup finals, but Doyle insists the sport in west London has plenty to offer.

According to club coaches who are driving the sport throughout London, Gaelic football is easier to pick-up and the all-inclusive, 'turn up and have a game' coaching ethos is giving it an edge over the 'stand in line and pick your teams' culture of schoolboy football.