Once upon a time, just about all Irish hearts and minds would have been focused on Lansdowne Road and the match against Switzerland today, but that era is probably over. Speaking for myself, I could hardly give a wall containing a large body of water and which, uniquely for the purposes of this metaphor, concludes with an unuttered alveolar nasal. Who cares any more about soccer?
Who gives a fig about the callow millionaires who nowadays wear the green shirts with as much passion as a bunch of anorexic fashion-show cat-walk strutters briefly donning the latest Karl Lagerfeld? Just about the only Irish player who might ever have need of a cardiologist is Shay Given. The rest apparently do not have hearts so much as hydraulic pumps with centrifugal-governors which ensure they never get overworked.
These boys have platinum credit cards in the dressing-room, Porsches in the car park, and billiards rooms plus indoor swimming pools at home. Meanwhile, their loyal fans live in vast housing estates, and catch buses to work in order to save for away matches.
The most telling story of Irish soccer is of the footballer who, back in Ireland for an international, took a fellow international to visit his mother. The friend was shocked by the appallingly dilapidated condition of the house and the obvious poverty the mother was living in. The friend asked him why he wasn't giving her a weekly allowance. "If I did, she'd lose her benefits," came the reply. Ah yes, modern footballing values indeed.
It is not an Irish problem only. Indeed, it seems as if the English Premiership has corrupted very many players from what we might call the British working classes, for the truth is that the working-class estates of Dublin in many ways are culturally more British than "Irish". Pub televisions are rarely tuned to RTÉ, and Irish music is hardly played, unless it is in the Anglo-American idiom. A French or German visitor would have trouble spotting the differences between some areas of Dublin and those of Preston, Blackburn or Newcastle, either in architecture, alcoholic consumption, sexual habits, diet, gang-traditions, music, high illiteracy and low educational aspirations.
The Premiership's corruption of players from such backgrounds does not seem to have occurred with footballers from mainland Europe or Africa, who have generally retained their personal discipline and sporting passion. Perhaps this explains why watching any teams representing the five "British" countries these days is as enthralling as watching a centenarian Tibetan hermit treat his athlete's foot. Yet the Irish soccer teams in Germany in 1988, and Italy in 1990, though short on skill, were defined by their passion and discipline.
We told ourselves lies when we said they were Irish. They weren't. They were British-Irish: Brirish. Ray Houghton was as Irish as Aberdeen; Tony Galvin hadn't a clue he had Irish ancestry until some FAI official went sleuthing into the genealogy of English players with Irish surnames. It didn't matter. Under the English management of Jack Charlton and the quintessential British army sergeant-major, Maurice Setters, they bonded as men and played as men, with traditional Brirish qualities of doughtiness, courage, loyalty, oh yes, and heart, all within green shirts. And by God, those green shirts meant something to the hearts beating within them back then.
There might once have been an argument for five teams from the Brirish Archipelago being allowed to play international football. Scotland produced great players such Jim Baxter, Denis Law, Dave Mackay, Kenny Dalglish.
England produced Bobby Charlton, Jimmy Greaves, Johnny Haynes, Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney. Wales produced the occasional great players, like the Charles brothers, and in addition to producing Danny Blanchflower, George Best and Norman Whiteside, Northern Ireland qualified for the World Cup finals in 1958 and 1982.
What is the argument now? Why should the United Kingdom have four teams competing for the World Cup, when the Federal Republic of Germany and the Federal Kingdom of Spain are allowed just one each? Bavaria is as distinctly Bavarian and Catalonia distinctly Catalan as Scotland is Scottish and Wales Welsh: why are they not allowed to enter teams in international competitions? The truth is that the quality of native soccer players from the Brirish Archipelago does not justify such huge over-representation in international soccer competitions. There should simply be one United Kingdom team, and one Irish team, and of course under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, players from the island of Ireland could declare for either, to engage in whatever form of witless clodhopping the two outfits would presumably
aspire to.
Moreover, there is one stunning and irrefutable virtue in this arrangement: we would never have to see one more dire Northern Ireland football team hoofing away on our television screens like a rabies-infected donkey derby, nor endure the abysmal and oafish sectarian chants from its supporters. Watching Northern Ireland play is as captivating as gazing at the centenarian Tibetan hermit as he finishes with his feet and decides to treat his piles. So he lifts his toga - yes, a delightful sight indeed - he turns, but he's got arthritis, and can't quite reach. He tries again. No, still can't reach. All right, one more time. . .
In most countries in the world, soccer matches last 90 minutes; but according to the strange laws of Orange gravity and 17th-century time warp, Northern Ireland matches last about as long as 90 hours of hermit-watching. (He tries again: aaahhhh, still can't manage it. . .) A permanent end to Northern Ireland international soccer: is that not a consummation devoutly to be wished?