We had planned to go to the Drogheda-Bohemians game. I was late getting home having been delayed crisscrossing Dublin by Friday traffic congestion and just managed to catch an express bus out of it. Still, on reaching home, it left me with no time to do anything other than change into a Liverpool hoodie and head back out the door. Such is my passion for soccer that the gnawing pangs of hunger were never going to be a deterrent. A pleading stomach was later shown mercy by my friend buying burger and chips at the ground.
Turning up at Weaver Park reminds me of my childhood days when I was a frequent spectator at Glentoran games in East Belfast's Oval Stadium. So much so in fact that had I time to find one of my Glentoran tops I would have donned it in a nod to nostalgia. Last time I wore it was during a television interview, prompting some loyalist genius to complain on Facebook that the Provos had taken control of Glentoran.
I am a Glentoran supporter.
But are you a Catholic Glens man or a Protestant one?
A crucial distinction for the sectarian binary binoculars of the North to focus on. Apartheid still has to mean something otherwise the fifth columnist will have a field day, not of the sort imagined by Marianne Elliot and colleagues.
It wasn't a bad game, not the high press of English soccer that we are familiar with, but competitive and entertaining. The keepers tend not to move the ball out from the back, relying instead on the old Route 1. Despite the chill which a packed stadium did little to shield us from it was worth going to. Had I been better organised I would have brought my own son, whose passion for soccer rivals my own. My friend's much younger son was with us although headed off with his own friend once inside the stadium, leaving us to munch our burger and chips and chew adult fat about politics or something that the age of innocence should be spared from enduring.
Apart from the soccer, the sight of so many children there to cheer on both sides portends well for the future of local soccer. As we stood outside waiting on the gates to open, parents accompanied their young, all regaled in Bohemians colours. Tickets at €15 a pop, and €5 for a child, make the games accessible for many people who would be priced out of it by the astronomical asking prices at EPL fixtures. We have to wait until Liverpool players are touching 70 before seeing them turn out.
Apart from the soccer, the sight of so many children there to cheer on both sides portends well for the future of local soccer. As we stood outside waiting on the gates to open, parents accompanied their young, all regaled in Bohemians colours. Tickets at €15 a pop, and €5 for a child, make the games accessible for many people who would be priced out of it by the astronomical asking prices at EPL fixtures. We have to wait until Liverpool players are touching 70 before seeing them turn out.
In the end Bohemians scored two goals and kept a clean sheet. That ensures they will stay at the top of the table. We had a birds-eye view of the second goal, gifted by a howler from the Drogheda keeper. Fortunately, for him, the match was so deep into added time that a recovery seemed almost impossible. Bohemians are an impressive side, well organised and dangerous on the break. Drogheda pummeled them for most of the second half and seemed worthy of a draw. But stamina and precision marks the demarcation line between serious championship contenders and journeymen.
That is something painfully visible to my old friend Nigel and his fellow Arsenal fans in the English Premiership at the minute, a topic broached on our trip back home. My son rang in an excitable state. I put him on speaker so we could share in the craic. Arsenal had clawed back a two goal deficit in their need-to-win clash with bottom of the table Southampton. He told us how the game had progressed, interspersed with sighs and groans as Arsenal tried to resurrect their title chances in eight minutes of added time. My only question for him was how Arsenal could find themselves in a position where as supposedly serious title challengers they had gone two down to the Saints. It might have been Saints and Gunners but it seemed more like Saints and Sinners. As has become evident in recent games, The Arsenal squad after a great run simply did not have the mettle to take it across the line. The title is now Manchester City's, reinforcing the ennui that creeps into the championship race courtesy of the level of predictability now prevailing.
If The Gunners want take the English Premiership title they can't fire blanks.
That sounds like going to an FC United of Manchester (FCUM) game Anthony. Unlike the Old Trafford of yesteryear where no matter how low the temperatures were, inside the ground on the terraces, it was warm as toast. The standard of football at FCUM is about that of Bohs and the Irish league. In many ways its better than the PL, because we have no ruinous VAR and referrees can actually referree.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of nostalgia, when I was much younger, not yet able to go to Old Trafford alone, relying on my parents to take me, I'd go to Bootham Cresent to watch York City. The ground was never full and therefore in winter always freezing, untill in the second division York played Man Utd. United filled the ground on that mild December day, and we, Man Utd, won 1-0. Division 2, Uniteds fightback season, was the season I started travelling alone, with mates, with United but prior to that I had to settle for York City, as you did Drogheda United.
I miss going to Manchester, I really do, but my travelling ability is not improving. I will get to an FC game again and, once the Glazers have fucked off or, preferably died, I may get to Old Trafford, the ground which was once my second home, week in, week out.
Caoimhin O'Muraile
I would have thought you a Cliftonville FC fan?
ReplyDeleteCaoimhin O'Muraile
Never was Caoimhin. Can't even recall being at a Cliftonville game although I am sure they visited the Oval. Was a Glens supporter from as far back as I remember. Then. Cliftonville and Bangor were regarded as the teams everybody else used to thrash.
DeleteIs been a Glens fan like supporting Rangers Anthony, on a smaller scale? Then, I know a Rangers fan on the Falls Road and another from the Bogside in Derry, both republicans through and through. So, to quote the late, great, Jimmy Greaves, "funny old game".
ReplyDeleteCaoimhin O'Muraile
Not then. They were the big rivals to Linfield in the city and both were regarded as the big two. Linfield had its support base in the Shankill and Village. The side the nationalists tended to support then was not Cliftonville but Distillery.
DeleteMy da despite growing up close to Distillery's ground was a Glens man and he took me to see them for the first time in a 2-2 draw with Derry and ever after that I went with my mates.
I went to a couple of Distillery games including the cup final against Derry at Windsor in which Martin O'Neill was sensational.
"Linfield had its support base in the Shankill and Village"
DeletePlus Sandy Row&Donegal Pass. Cliftonville was always a Nationalist club. The Glens we hate mainly for banter. Fuck the Glens lol
"Then, I know a Rangers fan on the Falls Road and another from the Bogside in Derry, both republicans through and through"
DeleteI used to know (deceased) two UVF Celtic mad fans from over east. Funny old game indeed.
Tricky one for you Anthony, sholud Glens draw Liverpool in a European competition. Childhood loyalties or Liverpool?
ReplyDeleteCaoimhin O'Muraile
Liverpool
DeleteI was up at Carmoney Cemetery a while ago. There's a UDA headstone, I think to a young fellow named Glen Branagh, with Celtic insignia.
ReplyDeleteGlen, nicknamed "Spacer", was killed by his own pipebomb in the early 00s. He was Celtic mad, and also a distant relative of Kenneth Branagh.
It's a funny old world.