| The Joe Horgan Column By Joe
Horgan
We probably take sport too seriously and we probably take songs, music
and literature and all the other seemingly non-essentials of life too seriously
as well. Still there is good reason for they are all, as the Irish writer
John Banville, he of Booker fame, once said “wholly necessary and wholly
useless”.
So while we are being serious about it let us admit that failing to win
a football match has hurt a lot of people. There will be no Ireland team
in Germany next year and the next World Cup in 2010 seems like a very long
way away.
What has been most surprising about all of this here in Ireland is how
much we are still in the summer of 2002 and the row on the luxury tropical
island of Saipan. Brian Kerr always was the man who was not-Mick McCarthy.
Reaching back even further he was also not-Jack Charlton. What I mean by
that is that there appeared to be two clear reasons why Kerr was given the
job. True he had done marvellous things for Irish soccer and had a tremendous
under-age record. But Kerr’s credentials post-Saipan were two things. One,
as the applause and bonhomie in the Shelbourne Hotel on the night of his
appointment told, he was a savvy media operator who was personally associated
with a number of journalists.
Seeing a bright new future of even more direct access to the team they
were loud and consistent in calling for his appointment, loudest amongst
them many of the very voices that had backed Keane in the row that had eventually
unseated McCarthy. Secondly and in many ways most tellingly Kerr had the
right accent. An Irish one.
The lid first came off in Saipan when Keane’s alleged questioning of
McCarthy’s Irish identity was thrown up as part of the whole furore. Although
it now seems as if those words of Keane’s were never actually uttered and,
considering his second-generation wife and his British-born kids it appears
unlikely that they were, the fact that this became part of the story is
quite telling. Somehow a fault line that had long lain hidden was about
to crack. It eventually led to Kerr because as was stated in Ireland again
and again here at last was “one of our own”.
Under Brian Kerr this fault line widened almost in step with the decline
of team performances. Those who couldn’t bear the Yorkshire accent of McCarthy
in charge of the Irish team, those who quite openly question the Irishness
of players whose backgrounds in Britain are as Irish as many of the people
reading this paper have revelled in the ordinary Dub persona Kerr has perfected.
So once again the lid is off and things that may or may not be have any
truth in them are actually being discussed. Live on RTÉ Ray Houghton was
recently asked what he thought about the suggestions that Kerr might not
be favourable towards non-Irish born players. Whether there is any truth
in that or not is not the point. The point is that these things are now
part of the agenda of Irish soccer. As in Saipan this is about Irishness.
All of those voices that supported Keane against McCarthy were not doing
so just out of the player’s excellence and the manager’s failings but because
Keane was “one of our own” and McCarthy was the Yorkshire son of an emigrant.
Let’s be honest about that. They are the same voices that have recently
been acclaiming the fact that the Irish soccer team finished a recent game
with an all Irish-born set of players.
So the fault line that first appeared in Saipan has continued to crack
and the fissure is widening not going away. The lid is well and truly off.
The very journalist whose interview with Keane started this whole thing
has recently written that 1990 is now viewed as a “cruel and unusual punishment
under the guidance of a big bluff Geordie”. Kerr is lauded because people
have a “feeling of connectedness with his character” i.e.; the one of our
own thing again. We were told also that Kerr is better than any “fly-by-night
mercenary”.
So for all of those now in the ascendancy who want only a team from Dublin,
Cork or Donegal I say this: We’ll take back the Glaswegian Ray Houghton’s
goals against England and Italy. We’ll take back the truly finest player
you’ve ever had, the London-born Paul McGrath. We’ll take back the London-born
O’Leary’s penalty against Romania. We’ll take back the scouser McAteer’s
goal against Holland. And you can keep Keane and Kerr and Dunphy and your
narrow-minded idea of who and who isn’t Irish and you can stick your team
where the sun don’t shine.
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