The kids are back in school now and around our way the football on the green in front of our Inchicore home is more or less confined to the evenings. Just about every night there they are, the same gang of half a dozen or so, boys and girls, kitted out for the most part in the gear of their local club, St Patrick's Athletic. Not, as it happens, a particular devotee of the Supersaints myself, but everytime I see them it warms my heart.
The locals aren't entirely above appearing in the Manchester United, Liverpool or Arsenal jersey, but more often than not it's Pat's - something which may or may not be connected with the fact that Pat Dolan is only a few hundred metres away in Richmond Park. They may simply fear that the Saints' new owner is liable to appear and start quizzing them - as I have seen him do at matches - about why they are wearing the colours of a team they have no real connection with.
Dolan knows where he stands on the relationship between clubs here and those across the water. They are competitors. He has respect for them, but knows that if the league here is genuinely to flourish it is unlikely to do so by allowing its potential fanbase to look across the water for its footballing entertainment.
It seems a pretty straightforward line but it appears to be only one of several approaches taken by clubs here as they try to resolve their rather uneasy relationship with the English game. There is, on the one hand, the fact that clubs like Manchester United draw huge number of kids into playing football in this country, while most managers, well chairmen anyway, probably lie awake at night dreaming of packing the next Steve Staunton, Curtis Fleming or Paul McGrath off across the water.
As the business side of clubs in England becomes increasingly complex, however, so have the attitudes of managers there towards clubs here.
Three years back Birmingham City's joint owner David Sullivan talked confidently about the first division outfit buying Shamrock Rovers and using it as a feeder club. Not long after, Home Farm entered into a sponsorship deal with Everton and Bray Wanderers established a school of excellence with the help of Newcastle United.
More recently Dundalk have been looking at way of making more of the good relations they enjoy with Liverpool and Galway United's underage teams have been nipping across to Derby County. Galway boss Don O'Riordan is certainly clear on what he sees as the objectives for United as they attempt to forge a relationship with the Rams. Selling on players who show promise is pretty close to the top of the list, while visits to Ireland by Derby's leading coaches is something, he feels, that can benefit not just his club, but all of the schoolboy clubs in the Galway area. To judge by the reaction so far, the schoolboy clubs are not so sure, however, for O'Riordan admits that some of the attempts at bridgebuilding locally have been even tougher for united than forging their overseas ties.
One of the few things that everybody is agreed upon is that the education of youngsters who think they are going to make the big time but probably won't has to become a far more central issue.
Some sort of consensus amongst key players on how to move the issue forward would be a positive sign of progress and perhaps it's something that Brian Kerr, Irish Youth Team Manager and FAI Technical Director, can make some progress on with his seminars for national managers.
Let's hope so because while scrapping it out with the Brits for the affections of the next generation of fans has been a increasingly important part of football here for a long time so, generally, has squabbling over the next generation of players. For Irish clubs, tackling the latter problem effectively can be a major factor in turning the tide in the former.
