The Spectator

EXTRA TIME: THE SPECTATOR

SPRING IS AFOOT. THERE A CRISP FRESHNESS IN THE AIR. BUDS ON THE TREES PROMISE NEW LIFE. AND IRISH FOOTBALL’S SPRING TRADITIONS ARE IN FULL BLOOM. THE FAI IS IN CRISIS MODE. A SELECTION OF ELITE LEAGUE OF IRELAND PLAYERS HAVE DEPARTED FOR THE GLAMOUR OF ST MIRREN, LINCOLN CITY AND NEW MEXICO UNITED WHILE A RAGTAG BUNCH OF REPLACEMENTS HAVE BEEN SOURCED FROM CROSS CHANNEL CAST OFFS AND THE IRISH FOOTBALL FOOD CHAIN. The League of Ireland First Division has been cobbled together like a street game composed of all available kids aged between 7 and 16, with Shamrock Rovers’ ugly little brother drafted in to make up the numbers. The ’Irish football in crisis’ tradition is almost as inevitable at this time of year as the newer but equally deep-rooted and intractable tradition of things being called off because it’s a bit windy or rainy- in one of the windiest, rainiest countries on Earth. Last week’s curtain-raising President’s Cup clash with the aforementioned Hooped Minions of Beelzebub was postponed not because Satan, with one eye on protecting his preferred League of Ireland club, had sent an apocalyptic storm to wreak havoc, but because it was a bit windy in Galway. The Spectator is being facetious (perish the thought), but the gist of it was that the match was postponed due to an orange weather warning imposed on the entire country. (Prepare, dear reader, for The Spectator’s passable impression of Grandpa Simpson launching into an incoherent rant about the modern world.) The orange weather warning which was only in effect until midday anyway and which even by Met Eireann’s alarmist standards only means ‘be prepared’, resulted in matches throughout the country being postponed with the inappropriate haste of a gaggle of schoolkids pre-empting the bell at the end of school. By 3pm on Sunday it was sunny, 10°C and a bit breezy in Dundalk. Match postponed. Met Eireann’s colour coded warning system is part of an everincreasingly risk-averse culture that prioritises safety- read avoiding a claim- over everything else. This is caused, in no small part, by an insurance industry gouging the public to a degree that would make ticket scalpers blush, and has generated a sub-culture claims industry and economy. The result is a society where insurance costs are driving small businesses to the wall, where we’re afraid to let children play football (or even run) in the school yard and where we’re afraid to play a football match on the east of the country when there’s a storm in the west. In recent years when The Spectator was involved in coaching kids soccer (and people wonder why the game in Ireland is in a mess) any bit of wind or rain would bring inevitable texts and WhatsApps from parents querying whether training was going ahead. The Spectator’s default reply was a terse “Yes, the all-weather pitch is playable in all weather”. But then The Spectator has a friend who is a piano teacher and she regularly gets questions about whether teaching is going ahead during weather warnings. Just to clarify she’s one of those weird piano teachers who teach indoors. Perhaps The Spectator is screaming vainly into the void, perhaps ‘health and safety’ should be prioritised above all else, perhaps the fact that vast swathes of Oriel

Park are, ahem, exposed to the elements should be a deciding factor in the decision. Even just a few years ago the match would have gone ahead. Those who were here for a wintry game with Rovers in 2006, playing in gale force winds, will not forget it in a hurry. That night the winds were strong enough to briefly knock the floodlights out, prompting a memorable call over the PA for the help of any electricians in the ground. There was no orange warning and we all lived to tell the tale. Perhaps that was risk that shouldn’t have been taken, but perhaps, perhaps, perhaps we’ve just slipped a little too far in the safety-first direction. Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, back to football! Well, hopefully we’ll get back to football on Friday 14th of February- if it’s not raining in Kerry. Whatever about the President’s Cup debacle, the season starts in earnest tonight when Dundalk host Derry City. Tomorrow’s bloodn-thunder Dublin derby should be entertaining in a drunken fight kind of way, but tonight’s match will be of more interest to people who like watching football. Vinny Perth’s Dundalk have always been good value for money and the addition of the likes of Greg Sloggett, Darragh Leahy and Will Patching add a frisson of newbie excitement. Declan Devine’s alliterative Derry, too, are unafraid to play ball, and the addition of a Belgian, an Ivorian and a Norwegian to their squad has added cosmopolitan glamour to the Bogside. Let’s hope these foreign types aren’t put off by a bit of wind and rain. end of season anti-climax, losing the cup final to a Cork City side that kicked on spectacularly in 2017. It’s enough to traumatise a Lilywhite. Here’s hoping Vinny Perth’s men lay down a marker today to exorcise the ghost of November. If not, well, it’s only a pre-season friendly, isn’t it?

30 January 2020; Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Brendan Griffin TD, and Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross TD, following a Government Officials, FAI, UEFA and Bank of Ireland meeting at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport in Dublin.