I sat in the back of a cab in Singapore discussing English football with the Taxi driver. He was up to date on the latest transfer speculation and even knew which player was doing immoral acts with grannies or farm yard animals. He asked me who I supported and I told him “Arsenal” which at the time was not the subject of ridicule that it is now.
He nodded sagely and left a gap in the conversation for me to return the question. “And who do you support?” I asked. “Goalkeepers” was his response. “I watch games and I want to see the keepers do well. Best game for me is one that finishes 0-0”. I thought he might have been extracting the urine, but Singaporean taxi drivers are not known for their humour.
I thought about his comments afterwards and while his support is unusual, it’s no dafter than attaching your fanaticism to a bunch of sulky millionaires who play for the same team in a league at the other side of the world.
Being a sports fan is crazy when you think about it. You will inhale the occasional whiff of high octane when your team does well but given the odds, you are far more likely to experience heartbreak. Leagues tend to be made up of 16 or more teams. Only one can win and the rest must wallow in the sport’s fans biggest fanciful dream, which is that next year will be better.
Last weekend, Ireland beat Australia for the first time at a World Cup. One headline I read said “One night in paradise makes up for 24 years of pain”. But is that true? Perhaps it is appropriate to a sailor on shore leave after a long stint at sea, but it doesn’t really apply to the rest of us. I could have switched teams for example and barracked for the All Blacks if I wanted success (or maybe not, given their World Cup record). I could have given up following Rugby completely, which in Melbourne at least would make me the same as everyone else.
The other complication is that for every team I like, I tend to passionately despise another. You might think that evens out my chances of being happy. But actually it tends to double the pain. I’m naturally drawn to underdogs and as a result I tend to dislike cocky favourites. The problem is that the cocky ones are usually favourites for a reason, as are the underdogs.
In AFL for example, I follow Carlton, a team that hasn’t won anything in sixteen years and were bottom of the league when I arrived in Australia. I am just as happy to see them win as I am to see Collingwood lose. They are the self appointed giants of AFL and strut around like peacocks in heat. I’ve put up with four years of disappointment, watching Carlton stumble at a crucial stage of the season and at the same time seeing Collingwood rise to the top.
This year I made the mistake of getting my hopes up. We finally found some form and made a late run for the title. That dream ended last Saturday night when they went down by 3 points in Perth. What was worse for me (apart from the fact that Collingwood still look odds on to win again this year) is that the Carlton game was on TV immediately after Ireland’s historic win against Australia in the Rugby world cup. Nothing highlighted the swings and arrows of outrageous fortune more than those few hours. I went from being ecstatic to been downright grumpy, with the beer I’d drunk being a catalyst to swing my mood.
At least now that Carlton are out of the running in the AFL and Arsenal never even got into a running stride, I can devote my attention to the Rugby. I have a chequered past in that respect. Despite my size and obsession with sports, I never actually played the game. In my hometown, Rugby was the preserve of the Doctor and Solicitor community with the occasional social climber from my working class end of the street. I followed games on TV and became fascinated with the complicated rules of the sport. But to the outside world, I maintained a well nourished chip on my shoulder about the middle class roots of the game.
Then of course I met a nice middle class girl whose Father happened to be President of the Munster Rugby Union. And so it came to pass that the first ever live game of Rugby I attended was the World Cup Final in 1991. We obtained 11 tickets from her Father and distributed them among the few people we knew in London at the time who had a passing interest in the game. That only amounted to 7 and so we watched the sell out final from the West Stand at Twickenham with 4 empty seats beside us.
After that nice middle class girl turned out to be not so nice after all, I rebelled a little against Rugby and mocked the pretensions of its yuppy supporters. But like Michael in the Godfather, I tried to get out but they pulled me back in again. I started going on away trips to Rome and following club matches and before I knew where I was, I was back in the warm embrace of those with money and manners.
Alas, I won’t make it to any games at this World Cup. Upcoming fatherhood brings other priorities. But I am at least in the right time zone to enjoy the matches and I find that I don’t dislike any of the teams with the sort of venom I reserve for the likes of Manchester United and Collingwood. So if Ireland doesn’t win, I won’t be too distressed about the team that does.
If Ireland does win of course, that will be a different matter. My cries of joy will be heard as far away as the taxi ranks of Singapore.
Monday 26 September 2011
Thursday 15 September 2011
Rugby as non International Sport
Don is an American and very proud of his country. Although not so proud that he would actually live there (the irony of me being proud of my country is not lost on me). I want to watch Ireland’s games at the World Cup in the company of somebody from the country against which we are playing. Rugby is a deeply illogical game and having somebody to banter with is the only way of making it even mildly entertaining.
We played the yanks on September 11th, a day that is important to them for obvious reasons. Don got emotional during the minute silence before the game. I thought it might be a good time to bring up some of the conspiracy theories that surround that day. I don’t mean the ones about the towers been brought down by preset explosives or the van load of Israelis who were seen cheering as the towers collapse. I mean the one about how America used the events of that day to press their crazy date system on the rest of the world. Days are followed by months which are followed by years and that’s the logical way to express a date. So why does the world talk about 9/11? Let the Americans call it that if they want. But to the rest of us it should be 11/9.
I think this is a slippery slope and soon we will not just be using their date format, but we’ll scrap metric and return to pints and gallons. I think there is also room to speculate that the London bombings in 2005 were orchestrated to happen on the 7th July so that the English could talk about 7/7. This allows them to simultaneously keep their American paymasters happy by using the Yankee date format while pretending to the rest of the world that their using their format too.
After Don had dismissed my theories with a disdainful look, we turned our attention back to the pre match entertainment. The Auckland choral choir stepped up to sing the Irish anthem. Except of course it wasn’t the Irish anthem. It’s a made up song designed to not upset anyone but in the process pleasing no one. “Ireland’s Call” is a dirge that would not be out of place in a Michael Flatley musical.
To make matters worse, the Auckland choir decided to only allow its female singers to participate, which made the aforementioned call sound like a screech from a pack of banshees who had just had boiling water poured on them. The male members of the choir followed with a powerful rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” which was almost enough to encourage me to buy a helicopter and head off to some Middle Eastern country on a bombing mission. The contrast between the two anthems could not be starker.
Don, like many Americans, has some Irish blood racing through his veins. It’s mixed with some German, Cherokee Indian and lots of cocaine, if his bulging eyeballs were any guide. When the fine ladies of Auckland had finished butchering Ireland’s Call, Don looked at me with a quizzed expression. “That’s not the song they used to play at the end of the night in Dropkick Murphys in Boston”, he said. I sighed, because I knew that I was about to set off on an explanation of Ireland’s twisted nationhood for the thousand time since I arrived on this fatal shore.
I should say upfront that I voted for the Good Friday agreement which was the definitive Irish solution to an Irish problem. That agreement allows people in Northern Ireland to choose between British and Irish citizenship. I might be wrong, but I think this is the only place in the world that allows this duality. You can be in Ireland all your life but choose not to be Irish. As a country of course “Ireland” doesn’t actually exist. Geographically, it is an island off the North West coast of Europe. But politically, in terms of the United Nations and all that, it’s made up of the Republic of Ireland and a dysfunctional province which is part of the United Kingdom.
Many Australians think Ireland is part of the UK as the media likes to use those two letters as shorthand for anything in that far off neck of the word. This pricks my national pride as it is only Northern Island that is part of the United Kingdom, but we southerners don’t help the confusion by using the shorthand of “Ireland” to represent our part of the country.
Don’s eyes were drooping as I continued with an explanation of dominion status in the 1930s. None of it matters of course, except when it comes to sport. Ireland has two soccer teams which reflect the political structure of the Island. It sends one team to the Olympics which is drawn from the whole island but only includes those who have chosen to be Irish. The only sports in which we present an All Ireland team are Rugby, Hockey and Cricket. Which are of course, the old middle class garrison games of British occupation.
None of these teams fly the Irish flag or play the Irish anthem before games. To complain about this sets you out as a petty minded nationalist. Yet these teams participate in International sport. Which of course contains the word “nation” at its heart. Sport between countries is all about nationhood. The feeling of representation that it brings and the pride in being from a particular place. We Irish are the only participants at the world cup that come from a compromise of two countries. And that compromise dilutes us all I think.
But they wear the green and at the end of the day that’s enough for me. I think we have a good chance of winning, even though Don thinks it has already been fixed that New Zealand will lift the trophy. He likes a good conspiracy theory it must be said.
We played the yanks on September 11th, a day that is important to them for obvious reasons. Don got emotional during the minute silence before the game. I thought it might be a good time to bring up some of the conspiracy theories that surround that day. I don’t mean the ones about the towers been brought down by preset explosives or the van load of Israelis who were seen cheering as the towers collapse. I mean the one about how America used the events of that day to press their crazy date system on the rest of the world. Days are followed by months which are followed by years and that’s the logical way to express a date. So why does the world talk about 9/11? Let the Americans call it that if they want. But to the rest of us it should be 11/9.
I think this is a slippery slope and soon we will not just be using their date format, but we’ll scrap metric and return to pints and gallons. I think there is also room to speculate that the London bombings in 2005 were orchestrated to happen on the 7th July so that the English could talk about 7/7. This allows them to simultaneously keep their American paymasters happy by using the Yankee date format while pretending to the rest of the world that their using their format too.
After Don had dismissed my theories with a disdainful look, we turned our attention back to the pre match entertainment. The Auckland choral choir stepped up to sing the Irish anthem. Except of course it wasn’t the Irish anthem. It’s a made up song designed to not upset anyone but in the process pleasing no one. “Ireland’s Call” is a dirge that would not be out of place in a Michael Flatley musical.
To make matters worse, the Auckland choir decided to only allow its female singers to participate, which made the aforementioned call sound like a screech from a pack of banshees who had just had boiling water poured on them. The male members of the choir followed with a powerful rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” which was almost enough to encourage me to buy a helicopter and head off to some Middle Eastern country on a bombing mission. The contrast between the two anthems could not be starker.
Don, like many Americans, has some Irish blood racing through his veins. It’s mixed with some German, Cherokee Indian and lots of cocaine, if his bulging eyeballs were any guide. When the fine ladies of Auckland had finished butchering Ireland’s Call, Don looked at me with a quizzed expression. “That’s not the song they used to play at the end of the night in Dropkick Murphys in Boston”, he said. I sighed, because I knew that I was about to set off on an explanation of Ireland’s twisted nationhood for the thousand time since I arrived on this fatal shore.
I should say upfront that I voted for the Good Friday agreement which was the definitive Irish solution to an Irish problem. That agreement allows people in Northern Ireland to choose between British and Irish citizenship. I might be wrong, but I think this is the only place in the world that allows this duality. You can be in Ireland all your life but choose not to be Irish. As a country of course “Ireland” doesn’t actually exist. Geographically, it is an island off the North West coast of Europe. But politically, in terms of the United Nations and all that, it’s made up of the Republic of Ireland and a dysfunctional province which is part of the United Kingdom.
Many Australians think Ireland is part of the UK as the media likes to use those two letters as shorthand for anything in that far off neck of the word. This pricks my national pride as it is only Northern Island that is part of the United Kingdom, but we southerners don’t help the confusion by using the shorthand of “Ireland” to represent our part of the country.
Don’s eyes were drooping as I continued with an explanation of dominion status in the 1930s. None of it matters of course, except when it comes to sport. Ireland has two soccer teams which reflect the political structure of the Island. It sends one team to the Olympics which is drawn from the whole island but only includes those who have chosen to be Irish. The only sports in which we present an All Ireland team are Rugby, Hockey and Cricket. Which are of course, the old middle class garrison games of British occupation.
None of these teams fly the Irish flag or play the Irish anthem before games. To complain about this sets you out as a petty minded nationalist. Yet these teams participate in International sport. Which of course contains the word “nation” at its heart. Sport between countries is all about nationhood. The feeling of representation that it brings and the pride in being from a particular place. We Irish are the only participants at the world cup that come from a compromise of two countries. And that compromise dilutes us all I think.
But they wear the green and at the end of the day that’s enough for me. I think we have a good chance of winning, even though Don thinks it has already been fixed that New Zealand will lift the trophy. He likes a good conspiracy theory it must be said.
Thursday 1 September 2011
We Can Be Heroes
They say that you should never meet your heroes because you’ll find that they are human like everyone else. I don’t hold to this belief. I want to see my heroes as real people. It makes me realise that anything is possible. You don’t have to be superman to become a writer or a football star.
I had the pleasure of meeting two of my heroes recently. Martin Flanagan writes about sport and culture in the Melbourne Age. I noticed him shortly after arriving in this fine city when an article about the aboriginal contribution to Australian Rules Football appeared in the paper. He seeks out the spirituality of sport and delves into its emotions. His book “Southern sky, Western Oval” was almost enough to make me give up my new found love of Carlton and pledge my allegiance to the Bulldogs.
He is the first person I look for in the Saturday newspaper and I was delighted when I found out last month that he was booked to speak in our local, at an event called “Spirituality in the Pub”. This is aimed at what might be charitably described as cafeteria Catholics. There were about 300 hundred people there, but it felt like he was making the speech directly to me. Like many Australians he has an Irish surname and through his writing I know that he is proud of his heritage and has visited the old country on many occasions.
His story that night began in 1977 when as a troubled Tasmanian teenager; he made his first journey to Roscommon where the Flanagans originate from. He found himself at a Mass rock in the wild countryside and felt a homecoming. It wasn’t to the land of his forefathers however. Instead, he finally felt a connection to the aboriginal people of his homeland and he had to travel to the other side of the world to discover it.
He went on to explain that Irish and Australian indigenous spirituality is basically the same. I could tell that this was shocking most of the audience, who being Catholic, were largely comprised of third and fourth generation Paddies who had risen to the middle class ranks of Melbourne society. While many would have a strong social conscience, there is an undercurrent of racism in Australian society and they would not like to think that the Irish culture to which they cling to so proudly could be connected to the black fellas of Australia that they spend so much of their lives avoiding.
But I was fascinated. I suddenly saw that the things we did as children were similar if not the same as that done by aboriginals. They walk many miles to a particular tree in the desert to sing a song and eat a meal that reminds them of their ancestors. They treasure rocks such as Uluru and hold them sacred and they have a connection and affinity to the land and sky.
In Ireland, we climb Croagh Patrick in our bare feet. We leave fairy mounds untouched while ploughing large fields. When we were kids we would regularly climb into the car on a Sunday and travel to a place called Faughart. The back door would open and the five of us would pour out and make our way to a stone in the centre of an ancient graveyard that had a strange indentation.
We would touch this indentation and then climb back into the car. At other times of year we would visit a holy well and wait for a spring to miraculously appear. Luckily the rainfall in Ireland means that you can justify a puddle as a spring and we were always satisfied that a miracle had occurred.
It suddenly all made sense. We are an indigenous people and we share a spiritual connection to our brothers across the world. When I shook his hand at the end of the lecture, I realised that he was a humble man who was happy to chat about his possible cousin, Ming Flanagan, part time pot smoker and full time politician.
I still search for his stories first each Saturday and, if anything, meeting him in person has increased my fascination with the man.
Last week I met another hero. On my second day in Melbourne I went to an AFL game. Carlton was playing Melbourne at the MCG in front of a bored crowd. It later transpired that the Blues were bottom of the league and Melbourne weren’t much higher. I had pinned my colours to the Blues mast before landing on these shores because they contained among their playing list a guy who had thrilled me on the hurling pitches of Ireland. His name is Setanta O’hailpin and he plays AFL like nobody else. Which is why he regularly gets dropped from the team.
I met him at a local footy oval where Ireland was playing New Zealand in the semi finals of the International Cup, a sort of World Cup for Aussie Rules without the inclusion of Aussies. I built up the courage to approach him and planned to say something erudite and witty. In the end I gushed in a high pitched voice “you’re my hero”.
He had the good grace to ignore my teenage fan club impersonation and we ended up speaking for ten minutes on diverse issues such as whether Jim Corr is gay and the obvious mutual dislike that exists between Setanta and the Carlton coach.
I came away feeling that my hero worship had been justified and I’ll be screaming support for him on Saturday night when he plays against St Kilda.
Ireland went on to win that International Cup in a come from behind victory against Papua New Guinea. It was a day when a group of ordinary Irishmen became heroes on the majestic open spaces of the MCG. It showed me in the most spectacular way that we can all be heroes and if not, we can at least talk to a hero every now and again.
I had the pleasure of meeting two of my heroes recently. Martin Flanagan writes about sport and culture in the Melbourne Age. I noticed him shortly after arriving in this fine city when an article about the aboriginal contribution to Australian Rules Football appeared in the paper. He seeks out the spirituality of sport and delves into its emotions. His book “Southern sky, Western Oval” was almost enough to make me give up my new found love of Carlton and pledge my allegiance to the Bulldogs.
He is the first person I look for in the Saturday newspaper and I was delighted when I found out last month that he was booked to speak in our local, at an event called “Spirituality in the Pub”. This is aimed at what might be charitably described as cafeteria Catholics. There were about 300 hundred people there, but it felt like he was making the speech directly to me. Like many Australians he has an Irish surname and through his writing I know that he is proud of his heritage and has visited the old country on many occasions.
His story that night began in 1977 when as a troubled Tasmanian teenager; he made his first journey to Roscommon where the Flanagans originate from. He found himself at a Mass rock in the wild countryside and felt a homecoming. It wasn’t to the land of his forefathers however. Instead, he finally felt a connection to the aboriginal people of his homeland and he had to travel to the other side of the world to discover it.
He went on to explain that Irish and Australian indigenous spirituality is basically the same. I could tell that this was shocking most of the audience, who being Catholic, were largely comprised of third and fourth generation Paddies who had risen to the middle class ranks of Melbourne society. While many would have a strong social conscience, there is an undercurrent of racism in Australian society and they would not like to think that the Irish culture to which they cling to so proudly could be connected to the black fellas of Australia that they spend so much of their lives avoiding.
But I was fascinated. I suddenly saw that the things we did as children were similar if not the same as that done by aboriginals. They walk many miles to a particular tree in the desert to sing a song and eat a meal that reminds them of their ancestors. They treasure rocks such as Uluru and hold them sacred and they have a connection and affinity to the land and sky.
In Ireland, we climb Croagh Patrick in our bare feet. We leave fairy mounds untouched while ploughing large fields. When we were kids we would regularly climb into the car on a Sunday and travel to a place called Faughart. The back door would open and the five of us would pour out and make our way to a stone in the centre of an ancient graveyard that had a strange indentation.
We would touch this indentation and then climb back into the car. At other times of year we would visit a holy well and wait for a spring to miraculously appear. Luckily the rainfall in Ireland means that you can justify a puddle as a spring and we were always satisfied that a miracle had occurred.
It suddenly all made sense. We are an indigenous people and we share a spiritual connection to our brothers across the world. When I shook his hand at the end of the lecture, I realised that he was a humble man who was happy to chat about his possible cousin, Ming Flanagan, part time pot smoker and full time politician.
I still search for his stories first each Saturday and, if anything, meeting him in person has increased my fascination with the man.
Last week I met another hero. On my second day in Melbourne I went to an AFL game. Carlton was playing Melbourne at the MCG in front of a bored crowd. It later transpired that the Blues were bottom of the league and Melbourne weren’t much higher. I had pinned my colours to the Blues mast before landing on these shores because they contained among their playing list a guy who had thrilled me on the hurling pitches of Ireland. His name is Setanta O’hailpin and he plays AFL like nobody else. Which is why he regularly gets dropped from the team.
I met him at a local footy oval where Ireland was playing New Zealand in the semi finals of the International Cup, a sort of World Cup for Aussie Rules without the inclusion of Aussies. I built up the courage to approach him and planned to say something erudite and witty. In the end I gushed in a high pitched voice “you’re my hero”.
He had the good grace to ignore my teenage fan club impersonation and we ended up speaking for ten minutes on diverse issues such as whether Jim Corr is gay and the obvious mutual dislike that exists between Setanta and the Carlton coach.
I came away feeling that my hero worship had been justified and I’ll be screaming support for him on Saturday night when he plays against St Kilda.
Ireland went on to win that International Cup in a come from behind victory against Papua New Guinea. It was a day when a group of ordinary Irishmen became heroes on the majestic open spaces of the MCG. It showed me in the most spectacular way that we can all be heroes and if not, we can at least talk to a hero every now and again.
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