Sir, - Picture it: 6 p.m. on Friday in the EU district. Hassled Eurocrats with polished shoes, shiny briefcases and perfect hair. A normal night as I left work to pick up a few things in the local shop - is until I spotted some strangely familiar creatures. First one, then more groups of Greater Crested Irish Soccer Fans (GCISF). These fine specimens of Irish manhood staggered down the road, their shiny green polyester jerseys (taut over beer guts) peeking out of their business suits. Already hoarse and bright red in the face, their mating cries of "Lads, there's Irish in here", were followed by a mini-stampede into the pub in question. By 11.30 p.m. the Irish pub I was in had been drunk dry.
On Saturday, off they went to watch a group of men in shiny knickers kicking a ball around a field. Which, even if it didn't gain us entry to the World Cup, provided a much needed rest. Then it was back to crammed pubs where fever had set in, and it had nothing to do with soccer. Once respectable, middle-aged Irish men, saturated with alcohol, were trying to proposition anything with long hair that moved (make that anything that moved!) while simultaneously trying to down a pint and sing the National Anthem backwards.
Still, even this could be considered within the normal run of things. The real surprise was on Sunday evening. Match forgotten, I came out of the cinema and headed for a quiet drink, only to find a group of GCISFs on a balcony, serenading bemused locals with the only three words they could remember of that lyrically rich composition Ole, Ole, Ole. The green polyester jerseys were now stiff with three days' sweat, and probably requiring surgical removal. And yet another bar had been drunk dry.
That's when it hit me. The soccer was completely incidental. It didn't matter that we'd lost. It wouldn't have mattered if the Irish team had done the tango and given a gymnastics display. The real achievement was that, in a country where beer is to the natives what tea is to the Irish, we had managed the supreme feat. Irish people be proud; we outdrank them! World Cup fever? Delirium Tremens more like! - Yours, etc., Suzanne Brennan,
rue Tiberghien, Brussels, Belgium.