Support your local sheriff
Credit:
BRIAN de SALVO contemplates an unexpected by-line for Miguel Delaney and the advent of the nineteen word football report.
Last week’s column provoked some interesting comment, some of it triggered by the success of Shamrock Rovers in Belgrade. However you view it, this was an outstanding achievement. It needs to be seen in context, however.
One match does not a season make. The same week that Rovers was making the headlines abroad, Sheriff YC was knocking Shels out of the FAI Cup in Tolka. On the strength of this exceptional victory, do you really think Sheriff would be contenders for promotion if they featured, week in, week out, in the second tier of the Airtricity League?
It’s not so much a question of talent as structure. There are now only two full time professional clubs in Irish domestic soccer, Sligo Rovers and Dundalk. These two clubs may not finish up first and second in the Premier table but there is no doubt that a full time set up has immense advantages over a part time one. Ask any manager.
Both the English clubs I watched at the Abbey Stadium last week are full time professional and what we should really consider is the current status of Irish domestic football. When I discussed this with Brian Mullins, Head of Sport at UCD, he pointed out that we have always aped the English game with disastrous results in terms of clubs imploding financially in pursuit of success.
The Mullins plan for sustainable Irish soccer was to associate every club with some seat of learning on the lines of the way the College operate the UCD teams. He was prepared to concede semi-professionalism but this, to me, was essentially a structure for amateur football. The academic blueprint was undoubtedly sound but so is the concept of St Patrick’s Athletic and Bohemians sharing a Dublin venue! I didn’t say as much because the genial GAA legend is still a huge physical presence across a desk!
Tom Cremins made several valid points in his comment on last week’s column and I’m going to take the liberty of quoting him without permission for the benefit of those who may not have seen his original submission. “How fair is it,” Mr Cremins wonders, “to make… comparison (between Ireland and the fifth tier in England)? … England has a population of 51 million versus just four…(and) doesn’t have to compete with the likes of the GAA… Irish clubs have shown that they’re competitive against teams from the top divisions of Estonia, Iceland, Malta, Kazakhstan and… Serbia… so could it be that Irish teams are doing as well as they can be expected (to)?”
I would agree; indeed Shamrock Rovers has just exceeded realistic expectation. The mention of Malta reminds me that the last time I attended a league match there I was taken to task by a shopkeeper in Marsazlokk the following morning for watching “rubbish football!” When I was handed a receipt for my purchases I noticed his company was called “Old Trafford Trading!”
The corresponding lack of interest in the domestic game here is highlighted by the Indo’s coverage of the FAI cup last Saturday morning. Accounts ranged from 19 words on Cork’s victory in Wexford to a massive 93 for Pat’s success at the RSC. Only the giant killing exploits of Sheriff got realistic coverage by the exotically named Miguel Delaney who might well have been in line for nineteen words himself at half time in Tolka had the non-league side not confounded expectation in the second half.
Something must have been squeezed out to allow Mr Delaney his by-line and three hundred word surplus. It wasn’t the page on Liverpool owner John Henry, the double page spread on Wenger and Ferguson, or the eight pages on Gaelic games and five on rugby. Sure, Daniel McDonnell himself covered the exploits of Shamrock Rovers expansively enough but that was international not local soccer. If you write to the editor of the Indo he may well assure you that his business is to sell newspapers and the coverage reflects his readers’ interest in sporting matters. So the problem is not his but ours.
Last time I looked the Airtricity League occupied 31st position in the European rankings, between Moldova and Norway according to calculations which are about as clear to me as cricket’s Duckworth-Lewis law. That doesn’t seem nearly as bad as poor old Malta, last, with just one percent, in an alternative table whose rationale I couldn’t follow at all.
Perhaps the best guide as to how the cookie crumbles is that I know of at least one Premier League player in Ireland operating on €150 per week. In the Greek league, by contrast, it is rumoured that there might be at least one million euro contract tucked away in some filing cabinet.
Now if you watch the same news broadcasts as I do you might be forgiven for believing that Greece’s financial predicament is even more precarious than our own. You have missed one salient point. The Greek public supports its domestic football.
Last week’s column provoked some interesting comment, some of it triggered by the success of Shamrock Rovers in Belgrade. However you view it, this was an outstanding achievement. It needs to be seen in context, however.
One match does not a season make. The same week that Rovers was making the headlines abroad, Sheriff YC was knocking Shels out of the FAI Cup in Tolka. On the strength of this exceptional victory, do you really think Sheriff would be contenders for promotion if they featured, week in, week out, in the second tier of the Airtricity League?
It’s not so much a question of talent as structure. There are now only two full time professional clubs in Irish domestic soccer, Sligo Rovers and Dundalk. These two clubs may not finish up first and second in the Premier table but there is no doubt that a full time set up has immense advantages over a part time one. Ask any manager.
Both the English clubs I watched at the Abbey Stadium last week are full time professional and what we should really consider is the current status of Irish domestic football. When I discussed this with Brian Mullins, Head of Sport at UCD, he pointed out that we have always aped the English game with disastrous results in terms of clubs imploding financially in pursuit of success.
The Mullins plan for sustainable Irish soccer was to associate every club with some seat of learning on the lines of the way the College operate the UCD teams. He was prepared to concede semi-professionalism but this, to me, was essentially a structure for amateur football. The academic blueprint was undoubtedly sound but so is the concept of St Patrick’s Athletic and Bohemians sharing a Dublin venue! I didn’t say as much because the genial GAA legend is still a huge physical presence across a desk!
Tom Cremins made several valid points in his comment on last week’s column and I’m going to take the liberty of quoting him without permission for the benefit of those who may not have seen his original submission. “How fair is it,” Mr Cremins wonders, “to make… comparison (between Ireland and the fifth tier in England)? … England has a population of 51 million versus just four…(and) doesn’t have to compete with the likes of the GAA… Irish clubs have shown that they’re competitive against teams from the top divisions of Estonia, Iceland, Malta, Kazakhstan and… Serbia… so could it be that Irish teams are doing as well as they can be expected (to)?”
I would agree; indeed Shamrock Rovers has just exceeded realistic expectation. The mention of Malta reminds me that the last time I attended a league match there I was taken to task by a shopkeeper in Marsazlokk the following morning for watching “rubbish football!” When I was handed a receipt for my purchases I noticed his company was called “Old Trafford Trading!”
The corresponding lack of interest in the domestic game here is highlighted by the Indo’s coverage of the FAI cup last Saturday morning. Accounts ranged from 19 words on Cork’s victory in Wexford to a massive 93 for Pat’s success at the RSC. Only the giant killing exploits of Sheriff got realistic coverage by the exotically named Miguel Delaney who might well have been in line for nineteen words himself at half time in Tolka had the non-league side not confounded expectation in the second half.
Something must have been squeezed out to allow Mr Delaney his by-line and three hundred word surplus. It wasn’t the page on Liverpool owner John Henry, the double page spread on Wenger and Ferguson, or the eight pages on Gaelic games and five on rugby. Sure, Daniel McDonnell himself covered the exploits of Shamrock Rovers expansively enough but that was international not local soccer. If you write to the editor of the Indo he may well assure you that his business is to sell newspapers and the coverage reflects his readers’ interest in sporting matters. So the problem is not his but ours.
Last time I looked the Airtricity League occupied 31st position in the European rankings, between Moldova and Norway according to calculations which are about as clear to me as cricket’s Duckworth-Lewis law. That doesn’t seem nearly as bad as poor old Malta, last, with just one percent, in an alternative table whose rationale I couldn’t follow at all.
Perhaps the best guide as to how the cookie crumbles is that I know of at least one Premier League player in Ireland operating on €150 per week. In the Greek league, by contrast, it is rumoured that there might be at least one million euro contract tucked away in some filing cabinet.
Now if you watch the same news broadcasts as I do you might be forgiven for believing that Greece’s financial predicament is even more precarious than our own. You have missed one salient point. The Greek public supports its domestic football.
