Six reasons 2015 can be great

The above montage always bring a smile to my face, we don’t smile enough.

League of Ireland supporters love a good moan, especially on those factors outside of our own control. My twitter timeline was busy following the announcement that the English Premier League would offer live Friday night matches when it kicks off its next bidding war. LoI supporters were aghast, though knowing we have far bigger fish to fry.

Still, I’m an optimist by nature and I thought it might be worth pointing out that while there are concerns, we do have much to be positive about. Here’s six reasons I’m looking forward to the 2015 Premier Division season;

1. The Market’s Field

In one paragraph its hard to detail the importance of Chairman Pat O’Sullivan returning the club to its spiritual home. Thomond Park offered something new to the league and the experience will benefit the club but it was simply too big. Limerick FC will be tenants in the LEDP operated stadium, which is central and accessible to the entire city. With only 20 games sanctioned on it for 2015, it should also be one of the best surfaces in the league. I can’t wait to visit.

2. Away trips to Galway!

I was in Galway recently for the launch of the Galway United Co-op, which gives the public a chance to be directly involved in the Board, and thereby the running, of Galway United. It’s another important step, with the return of the name, as the club continues it’s remarkable rise. Galway is one of the best weekend’s away in the country without football, when you add in a League of Ireland match it can’t be beaten. If United continue the style of play that saw them promoted, there’ll be no shortage of entertainment either.

3. Cork City in Europe

When Cork City play in the Europa league next season, it will be seven years since the crushing defeat away to Finland’s FC Haka in 2008. Club employee Eanna Buckley had to withdraw his own cash to settle the team hotel bill that day as then owners Arkaga began to pull away all financial support. Seven years and a lot of heartache later, John Caulfield will lead a supporters-owned Cork City into another European Odyssey. It’s a remarkable story of which every City supporter can be proud. I can’t wait for the draw.

4. Keith ‘hoop’ Fahey 

Every year there’s a player move that whets the appetite; Keith Fahey’s move from St. Pat’s to Shamrock Rovers is the big one ahead of 2015. Fahey’s passion for Pat’s, displayed in the above photo, coupled with his interview comments about moving for ‘less money and to be ‘closer to home’ only adds fuel to the fire. It’ll be one to watch when he takes to the field in Inchicore in hoops.

5. Some new blood on the management benches

Of the twelve managers in the 2015 Premier Division season only Stephen Kenny, Liam Buckley and John Caulfield are in the same position as last season. Tommy Dunne and Tony Cousins, while familiar names, are bringing newly promoted sides to the Premier Division. Heary, Long and McDonnell are starting from scratch at Sligo, Bohs and Drogheda respectively. Fenlon, Russell and Hutton were all mid-season appointments last season, looking to put their own mark on Shamrock Rovers, Limerick and Derry respectively. All the change, while terrible for stability, will give us all a huge amount to talk about through the season.

6. Balls

Friday Night EPL coverage should kick-start a discussion on where we’re going, it must. In the last year Brian Kerr and Stuey Byrne, among others called for a task force to examine the league and its future. In a way, clubs had already started this process, meeting through 2014 under the guise of the Premier Clubs Alliance [PCA] as revealed by Daniel McDonnell this morning*. Having sat on some of the early sessions I believe it’s the right way forward. The PCA are setting themselves up to take more responsibility for those aspects of the game which clubs can control and seeking ways in which they can work more effectively with the FAI for the betterment of the league. What’s vital is that league-wide issues, rather than those which are out of self interest and club-specific, are targeted. I’m looking forward to seeing where this leads us.

*http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/league-of-ireland/tv-issue-an-excuse-for-league-of-ireland-to-have-real-chat-30835557.html

Joe keeps Brolly up

There are two aspects of sports commentary I find particularly tiresome. The first is the use of shock tactics by career pundits to stay ‘current’ in their off season, the second is the insecurity of commentators who seek to define their sport in comparison to others. Joe Brolly brought both together in recent weeks in a saga which started when he offered his opinions on Roy Keane’s “deep-seeded psychological issues” before calling him a “soccer coaching Kardashian”. Brolly also said the following;

“It always amuses me to hear soccer players described as role models. They are nothing of the kind.”

Stephen Hunt waded into the conversation using his weekly column [of which many had been unaware] and emerged poorly as the public ignored the nub of his poorly made point; competing at the Elite level of any sport requires an individual to make sacrifices. Brolly responded by throwing a blanket over soccer players on the basis of class and education,

“It never ceases to amuse me when you see these young fellas – many of whom have have spent their lives playing soccer at the expense of education and come from very strong working class backgrounds – being described as role models because they’re famous.”

His comment has some truth of course, Football players are not role models. However, his snobbish implication behind the comments is ridiculous, and deserves criticism.

Football players are not role models. GAA stars are not role models. Rugby stars are not role models, neither are cyclists, swimmers and basketball players. It’s not your chosen sport which defines you as a role model, it’s your behaviour. There are footballers, hurlers and rugby players who are fantastic role models. There are footballers, hurlers and rugby players who are idiots and gobshites. Those in the public eye who uses their status and position to set a positive example for others and/or those who choose to contribute to their wider community can be role models. It’s down to the individual, not the sport.

There are no moral sports, there are no noble sports. There are moral and noble individual sportspeople, there are immoral and ignoble sportspeople. All sports offer great moments, some of those capture the imagination of an audience beyond that which the sport normally enjoys. Equally all sports regularly offer up turgid events and performances, moments that cause even the die-hard fans to shake their heads and ask ‘why do we bother’.

There’s an insecurity in being unable to enjoy your sport or your sport’s heroes without making immediate comparison with other sports or heroes in other codes. A big tackle in a rugby game leads to comparisons to diving and feigning injury in soccer; there was a ridiculous opinion piece in the Irish Independent recently by a commentator terrified that soccer culture was lowering the tone at Rugby games. An epic amateur hurling encounter leads to pundits discussing the money paid in other codes, and the pace and excitement levels of other sports. it was a card Brolly was happy to play when discussing Stephen Hunt;

“I don’t imagine Stephen would have lasted five minutes in the Ulster club final last Sunday. I wouldn’t fancy his chances standing on the edge of the square with Patsy Bradley.”

Hunt probably wouldn’t last that long in a high level Gaelic Football match, neither would Lionel Messi, LeBron James, Katie Taylor or Johnny Sexton. Likewise, Patsy Bradley wouldn’t last long in the English Premier league, the NBA, a World Championship boxing ring or an Irish Rugby international. These are ridiculous comparisons to make, Elite sportsmen and women make sacrifices to get to the top of their chosen sport, not every sport..

For the Elite inter-country GAA player the sacrifice may be his family and social life, cramming four of five days training [for no wage] around a full-time job, mostly in the depths of winter. For an professional footballer it can actually be education that is sacrificed, as travelling to the UK is seen as necessary at too young an age. But any footballing biography deals, at some stage, with family sacrifices similar to those of the GAA player; the missed Christmas for a St.Stephen’s Day fixture, the insecurity of short term contracts, moving from club to club, the lack of a fall-back option if your career takes a negative turn.

We can respect the commitment and sacrifice of people who compete at the Elite level of any sport. We don’t need to compare sports, we don’t need to compare sportspeople across codes. So why is Brolly doing this, why was he even commenting on Roy Keane in the first place?

Controversy isn’t new to Brolly, he regularly finds himself in arguments, mostly within GAA circles e.g. the comments that angered Kerry footballer Kieran Donaghy a few months back, or that which required his apology to Sky’s GAA anchor Rachel Wyse.

It’s the quietest time of the year for Brolly, the Championship season is a memory yet he’s in the public eye. He’s on Newstalk, RTE and splashed across print and online media. No one at RTE is going to lose his number between now and the start of the 2015 Championship season, when the RTE panel might need to be freshened up. He can enjoy Christmas safe in the knowledge that the producers in RTE sport will see his presence as a draw for viewers.

Whether they earn their money in GAA [Brolly] or football [e.g. Eamonn Dunphy], the most successful carer pundits offer a particular skill set. They don’t educate, they don’t really inform. They realise their function is to entertain and build controversy and discussion beyond their ten minutes chat around a sporting event.. If Keane is a “soccer coaching Kardashian”; Brolly with his controversial comments, designed to pick arguments and keep him in the public eye, seems to be targeting a niche as GAA’s Katie Hopkins. He’s played a blinder, he might even last five minutes on the RTE Soccer panel.

Note: While I’ve worked in Football in recent years and football is my own chosen sport, I do enjoy GAA and sit on the Juvenile Development Committee of my local GAA club.