Month: June 2017

This series of “Great Days and Nights in Ireland” was intended to inspire people to get up off their arses and head down to their local club some night by showing how good it could be, especially those magical European nights. But given the week that we are in, and in particular given the response to Dundalk’s fantastic run last season, let’s have a look at the night in Serbia that first brought an Irish club to that next level – a place in the group stages of a European competition.

The first leg in Tallaght did not go particularly well with Rovers needing a late Gary McCabe equaliser to peg Partizan at 1-1. I’ve little memories of the match other than the usual technical ability of the opposition, but while it was a late goal, a defeat would never have been a fair outcome here.

Onto Belgrade and it seemed unlikely that Rovers could take that next step. Partizan’s resources would surely show. And Volkov got the breakthrough for the Serbs on 35 minutes with a header. Nothing so far had given any indication that Rovers would bounce back in the manner they did. And then after the break, one of the finest goals in Irish UEFA history – in terms of quality yes but moreso because of what it meant – was slammed in by Pat Sullivan, etching his name forever into Rovers folklore.

It was one of those ‘jump out of your seat’ moments. I was in Devitt’s pub on Camden Street, a fine pub you’ll agree, although I haven’t been in since its recent makeover. I, being a very pushy Hoop, had managed to drag a few football loving mates out, including one Bohs fan and also a friend who was home for a few weeks from New Zealand. And when this hit the back of the net, the lot of us erupted, even the Bohs fan who quickly realised her heresy and sat back down politely. Another friend was listening to Off the Ball on Newstalk at the time at home and immediately grabbed his bike and crossed town to meet us to see the rest of the match. (Ah the days of midweek scoops, living in town, no kids…)

More drink was taken. By extra-time it was getting a bit blurry. And then, believe it or not, our fine pub turned into a trad session. Now I know the place well on the Friday nights when they have the sessions upstairs, but this was Thursday and they were having it downstairs. For fucks sake. The TV is muted, and we have to hush for the ballads. Ah Jaysus….

Extra time. A young lady starts sweetly singing alone in the corner. A hush descends on the pub. A few Americans are loving this wonderful picture postcard view of Ireland while the rest of us respect the moment. “FUCKING PENALTYYYYYYY!!!!!”.  Sheppard is bundled over by the keeper. I get extremely animated and extremely stared-at. I do not care one iota. I like Devitt’s but I’ll risk a barring if they give me the next few minutes. Stephen O’Donnell slots it home. Again we erupt. The shakes then start and they last right up to the final whistle. I struggle outside to light my cigarette. I text the friends who couldn’t make it – “the domestic game’s Italia 90” I write with unfettered hyperbole. Screw it. We’re there. An incredible night. Eventually I calm down after one or two more pints – beautiful, wonderful pints – you know the ones – the post-match ones where you’re bloody parched and your heart is still jumping out of your chest. You take a deep breath and you start to imagine what’s to come and where will this take us…

Then in the group stages there was Ricer in White Hart Lane. For just a few minutes anything was possible…

Good luck to all the Irish teams in Europe this week. We should, all of us, put the weekly rivalries to one side and support whoever is playing and keeping the flag flying across the continent. I love this part of the season. I love the fact that not even one month on from the Ronaldo and Bale megastar show in Cardiff where the weekly wage bill could buy and sell the entire leagues of some of this weeks competitors, some remote outpost in the north Atlantic will host my team from Tallaght and that Derry, a city of 90,000 will send a team to Herning, a town of less than 50,000 in Jutland. As Alesandro Del Piero of Juventus said on his arrival in Tallaght for a Europa League game in 2010, this is pure football.

Thursday looks as follows:

Levadia Tallinn (EST) v Cork @ 16:30

Midtjylland (DEN) v Derry @ 19:00

Stjarnan (ICE) v Rovers @ 20:15

_________________________________________________________________________

Full highlights of the above game in Belgrade in what I presume is Serbian:

The relentless march of gambling, colonising every part of the game, every moment of every match, has corrupted football and has compromised its integrity in a way no other force has to date. And while it is doing this damage, it is also taking many of us for a ride. A ride in which you are simply robbed of your money. We know it’s a mugs game. We know there’s only ever one real winner. Yet many of us are still willing to risk everything. And that is what we are doing – we are risking everything. I say that simply because you never know when the buzz from a wee flutter will grow into an all-consuming addiction and a serious illness that affects you and everyone around you.

The facts are shocking. They are available from gambleaware.ie and include the following:

• Approximately 12% of Irish adults bet with a bookmaker weekly;
• Less than 1% of those who need treatment for problem gambling actually receive it;
• Irish people are estimated to gamble over €5bn per year; thats €14m per day or €10,000 per minute; and
• According to the Institute of Public Health in Ireland, adolescent gambling is thought to be 2-3 times the rate of adults.

5 Billion euros! That’s 7 or 8 National Children’s Hospitals, or Metro North plus DART Underground, countless schools, thousands of Gardaí, and tens of thousands of social housing units. (Unfortunately for this line of argument, it’s still only a fraction of the banking bailout, but moving on…) And you can be damn sure that a massive fraction of that €5bn is kept by the bookie. Pissed up the wall in other words. A pointless waste of money.  And according to Paul Rouse in the Irish Examiner last year, Ireland is said to have the highest gross gambling revenue by capita in Europe. That’s a lot of people wasting a lot of money.

Football has in recent years thrown its arms around this insidious industry, and has helped, via its slick and incessant marketing, to make it mainstream and perfectly acceptable. Paddy Power’s funny ads with the steward and the bus driver; Ray Winstone’s bloated cockernee face imploring us to “ave a bang on that” 4 times per ad break; in-game odds on the fucking advertising hoardings during a game – what tasteless bastard allowed that to become the norm? All of this serves to make it ok for us to throw €5bn into this industry. It makes it ok to whip out your smartphone on your barstool while your mates are looking the other way and spunk €20 on Coutinho to score next goal on B**V*****’s oh-so-easy to use app (the official betting partner of Liverpool FC) .

Or to do so on your couch, while your kids play on in the same room, oblivious to Daddy’s increasingly serious habit that may one day end up costing them something important. It may be a bit harsh to think of it in that way, but I’m sick to the back teeth of the direction in which my peers, my fellow fans, are bringing the game I love. Every conman needs a rube, and sports gambling has countless millions willing to blow their wages, wages their families may rely on, to feed the industry’s soulless ugly corporate black hearts. The vile takeover is almost complete. When gambling corporations and the global match-fixing networks have come to the League of Ireland, it’s almost all over.

But it’s not over. Not yet. And maybe a fightback can happen and football clubs will listen eventually. Half of last season’s premier league club shirts were sponsored by betting companies. That means that every week, millions of children were walking around towns and cities, into schools and playgrounds advertising an industry that leeches off the most vulnerable in our society. And that doesn’t account for the numerous clubs with “betting partners”. The need for “partners” in everything from tyres to hair products is another issue I have with the corporatisation of football, but y’know I don’t really mind Adam Lallana’s baby’s-arsed complexion popping up in the ad break, because I need shaving gel regularly enough, so it’s ok. Plus I’ve never heard of a marriage breaking up because the husband was over-moisturised. I do not need to muck a tenner on Liverpool to win 2-1 because Ray fucking Winstone shouted at me as I was coming back from the jacks!

I know the tone of this post won’t make Yard of Grass many friends. I know some of you will think it’s over the top and unfair on those who maybe spend a few quid a week here and there on the odd bet. But their casual acceptance of gambling into their lives means that it will continue to grow and continue to snare the addictive personalities. This could mean that your mate of 30 years who’s by your side in the pub, in Tallaght, Dalymount or Lansdowne Road for every match, falls victim to this vicious habit.

I do not think that it is a step too far to say that every one of us knows someone who could end up being that victim. I don’t know anything about the psychology of an addictive personality but we all know the one who 20 years ago obsessed with his fantasy football league team and maybe still does; the one who knew the word to every single Oasis song ever recorded, even all the shit B-Sides; the one who drank everything in his 20’s and did all the drugs all the time. He stopped doing the real drugs, but every time he watches a match now he is being very cleverly massaged into thinking that the latest drug is 100% socially acceptable and sure y’know, everyone does it anyway. Maybe watch out for that one if he starts betting.

There have been better articles on this topic, most notably on Football 365 earlier this year. If enough journalists and enough fans take notice of what is going on and kick against this trend, the clubs and the associations will eventually listen. This could be a phase and we may be looking back in 10 years at this period as a commercial and moral aberration. When I was a kid growing up in the 80’s, the greatest threat to football was hooliganism. Grounds, particularly in England, were not safe places. You wouldn’t bring women and children in. That changed radically – inside the grounds at least – because it was compromising the sport. Today the slick multi-billion corporate behemoth that is the betting industry, in my view, is the greatest threat to football. Our game is not horse racing or dog racing. It’s a much more important social and cultural phenomenon and I believe it needs to drag itself out of this cesspool.

 

I’ll leave you with a quote from the referenced Football 365 article written by John Nicholson, which is itself harsh, but worth reflecting on as you trawl for events to gamble on over the summer:

“When the fun stops, stop? Well, the fun has stopped, but there seems no stopping the takeover of football by the gambling industry, and that’s to the benefit of no-one except those who feast on the profits it carves out of its low rent, shallow, debased culture, and still, more importantly, carves mercilessly out of human misery.”

Once again, thanks for reading and please click on the links below.

Recognise the problem

The Rutland Centre