So Yard of Grass returns after a long hiatus – the last post was back on January 30th, a lifetime ago in footballing terms. And a lifetime ago quite literally in real terms, as the break was down primarily to the birth of YoG no.2, my daughter Rosie. Now 8 weeks old, the lack of sleep is kicking in, so instead of the usual wonderfully researched posts you’re used to, this one will be more of a scattergun summary of the last couple of months, written in between patches of sleep here and there, starting with the trials and tribulations of the boys (and girls) in Green.
There’s a lad in the south east corner of the upper tier in Lansdowne Road who travels down from (I think) Armagh for the matches and plonks himself behind us for every game. He first came to our attention when we played England in that half-asleep pre Sunday lunch friendly a while back. It seemed he had the day off. Off work, off family duties, and off sobriety. For the entire first half, this big pissed man belted out the “50 Grand, 50 Grand, Séamus Coleman…” chant at the top of his voice to the extent that it’s effects went from curiosity to irritation to rage all the way to comedy in 45 minutes. Then he moved at half time. There was silence for a while, until we heard the chant echoing across from behind the goal at about the hour mark. Since that day he has returned each time, and most days he has had a go at the chant, even when sober. Totally and utterly alone every time, he proudly sings for his Séamie. No one joins in. Because no one needs to. He is all that is required. This man is a football hero. He was strangely quiet throughout the Wales game for some reason even before the injury. But then the object of his dedication was crippled by that horrific challenge. There were to be no chants at all tonight.
This type of thing can happen at any stage in any game. It doesn’t have to be dirty and the culprit doesn’t have to be a pantomime villain. What Taylor did was dangerous play, punishable by a red card. Sometimes there are no consequences. Sometimes careers are ended. Football isn’t tennis or chess. It’s a contact sport. People get injured and sometimes people injure each other. The most galling thing about this aspect of the Welsh game is that Gareth Bale got away with fucking murder. How he escaped a red on 2 occasions beggars belief. While conspiracy theories around referees favouring big clubs can usually be proven as nonsense, I think it’s time to start examining how certain players get away with things. As a Liverpool fan I remember Gerrard (or Stevie G) getting away with a few reducers. I still think he went down a bit easy in Istanbul as well. Messi lost the plot a while ago also and was finally done for misbehaviour on international duty more recently. As other far more learned commentators have said, had Bale been dealt with appropriately, my friend in the South East Upper would still be singing a joyous anthem rather than a lament. Get well soon Séamus.
As for the match, it was a great advertisement for football. 1970’s lower league football. It was a dog. I can’t remember a single passage of nice play from either side. Bale played a beautiful cross-field pass into the box once, but that really was that. However, when the bare facts say that we held the European semi-finalists to a 0-0 draw without half of our squad and when losing our captain to injury, meaning we’re still joint top of our group, you have to be satisfied enough.
The following Tuesday another game of football threatened to break out down D4 way. Iceland were in town and England’s conquerors were Ireland’s too. Not a lot to see here either other than a few debuts with a decent shift put in by Daryl Horgan in particular. Just about a worthwhile exercise so. The reaction of Brian Kerr was a tad over the top, suggesting fans should get their money back. C’mon Greener, you’re better than that. We know what we’re getting in friendlies and this is the precise reason they are being done away with to a great extent in the coming years.
The real villain of International week in this part of the world though was one Ronald Koeman, probably the most controversial Dutch bloke in Irish life since yer man that had that scrap outside Drogheda in 1690. Not content with the damage he did us in setting up that freak offside goal for Wim Kieft in Gelsenkirchen in ’88, he returned to haunt us and Martin O’Neill with his barbed comments in relation to James McCarthy’s lack of fitness. O’Neill was not slow in descending to Koeman’s level and a back and forth straight out of the “your team is so shit” sort of crap you hear on the playground made them both look like dicks. It made us glad to see the back of international week.
I was delighted, however, to see so many people so interested in women’s soccer last week. Jaysus I’d no idea the Girls in Green had so many passionate supporters willing to belch their outrage at their mistreatment. Pity the vast majority of them never show up to any senior football regularly played on this island, or could tell you anything about Irish soccer beyond the Men’s senior team and even at that would fail to recognise half of them. Of course this faux outrage clouds the real issue. No team does what the Irish Women did last week for no reason. Some of the things they described were fucking shameful. Changing in an Airport jacks and borrowing gear is not far off a form of bullying. These are elite female athletes representing our fucking country and once again the pathetic shambles of John Delaney’s FAI has been exposed. And wheeling out Noel King to bat for him shows both of them up for the men that they are. This is basic stuff that an U-11 SDFL team wouldn’t stand for. Yet here we are with the FAI doing it. The speed with which the dispute was resolved is proof perhaps of the basic nature of the problems themselves. Did the FAI just show up with some tracksuits? They didn’t seem to be demanding that much more than such basics.
Stephanie Roche, Louise Quinn and Sophie Perry applaud fans following a 9-0 win over Montenegro at Tallaght Stadium in 2016. Credit: Laszlo Geczo
(Yeh that did say NINE nil)
But as the magnificent David Moyes showed, the women are still ok with a bit of manly banter and “special” treatment. Guilty of treating a female reporter exactly how he would a man, but with the added qualifier of “even though you’re a woman…”, poor ol Moyesie has taken a hell of a beating himself. He’s not the most enlightened man but jaysus compared to what goes on in football and life outside football, this is not the platform for a gender conflict. Paul Ince’s casual use of “darlin'” is worse in my view. Moyes would never slap Vicki Sparks or any woman, or man for that matter. Ince however represents a real patronising side to the Proper Football Man club. Awful stuff all round. Not a great few weeks for footballing gender equality on either side of the Irish sea.
Elsewhere, Mourinho has kept up his unbearable comic villain routine going quite well through this period. The worst unbeaten run in living memory has United wallowing in 6th place with 9 games to go – the sort of statistic that would have Moyes and LvG flat on their arses in the dole queue. In Mourinho’s case though, it’s all someone else’s fault. Luke Shaw, Linesmen, the lack of a Video Ref. Christ, imagine there was a woman in the dug out now!!! Football does not need a successful Mourinho, but a failing Mourinho is an absolute nightmare to witness. The sooner he pisses off the better. (As I type, Mkhitaryan has put them 2 up at Sunderland. They’re up to 5th now!!).
Liverpool have been a nightmare to follow. Up and down like freaking yo-yos, the draw to Bournemouth the latest down, only days after a fine up against Everton and that mouthy Dutch clown they have in charge. No Mané for the rest of the season will probably see us limp into next season’s Champions League. But a good win against Stoke at the weekend has perhaps given us Reds more reasons for optimism than before.
Thankfully us dual fans can seek solace in the domestic game, but as a fan of Shamrock Rovers, even this cannot help. The noble aim of giving youth a chance is not paying dividends. Rovers have lost 5 and won 3 of their first 8 games. They will settle and improve but there are many better teams in the league this year and the gap to leaders Cork is 15 points. In April.
Cork City though must be applauded for such an impressive start. I don’t know my Irish football records that well but 8 straight wins to start must be up there with the best of them. It’s between them and Dundalk again already. Fans of Pats must be in a similar mind to Hoops as they now sit second from bottom, but there’s a long way to go in a league where anyone can beat anyone.
So as the League here settles down into some sort of pattern and as we face into the business end of the English season, there’s plenty of nonsense to keep us distracted from all the other trials and tribulations of life. I’ll do my best to keep writing as much as possible and, as always, thanks for reading.
YoG no. 1 learning the ropes:
A Yard of Grass 