QuoteOriginally Posted by Murfinator
Seriously...what?
that would be 99% of people i know from limerick, longford and athlone
Seriously...what?
You and Pineapple Stu both expressed incredulity at this part of this post. I don't understand.
On one had he says that supporting, e.g. Liverpool because they're somehow Irish is silly. On the other, he says that supporting, e.g. Barca because they play nice football is understandable. There's nothing shocking or contradictory in what he's posted.
It's this fetishism of Barcelona. It's just get another cop-out. Yes, they're a great team with a great tradition, but why is supporting Barcelona considered a more noble thing than supporting Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal? Why do people who say they support Barcelona get an easy ride, but those who claim to support Liverpool don't? You can admire them by all means, but saying you are a supporter of Barcelona rather than a supporter of Bray because of the way they play is so fundamentally missing the point of being a football fan it's ridiculous.
Also, I don't see Barcelona winning the Spanish League or the European Cup each season; if you are one of these cultured 'followers' of football does this mean that you change allegience year on year depending on who's playing the best football? Or match on match? And it obviously follows that you support Brazil or Argentina at the World Cup even if Ireland are there?
It's seen as 'cool' to support Barcelona so its just yet another easy excuse for people not to support Irish teams. If you seriously think watching Barcelona on TV because they happen to play an attractive style of football is football support you are very much deluded.
Not to mention the fact that plenty of Irish people support EPL clubs and don't purport to choosing them because of any Irish affinity, real or imagined. They might fall back on it now and again if pushed, but many, many more Irish people support foreign teams because it's far easier to sit at the bar watching West Ham United players running in slow motion to Carmina Burana than it is to go to their local grounds, rather than because of any Irish affinity.
Last edited by thischarmingman; 16/11/2009 at 8:11 PM.
No-one ever sees the irony in, on the one hand, bemoaning that people support English football over the Irish game - and then on the other hand, arguing in favour of people 'supporting'/using the English language over the Irish version.
After all, the arguements often trotted out for not speaking the Irish language, and the sentiments behind them, are in many ways similar or identical to those for not supporting Irish football.
"I grew-up supporting Man United. It's my team now as much as it is someone from Singapore or Surrey's. The fact that my grandfather supported only Drumcondra doesn't make the League of Ireland my league any more than him driving a Toyota makes me Japanese".
So you're from a long line of non-Irish speakers then. Well what about the tens of thousands of people in Ireland who are second, third, or even fourth generation supporters of English football teams ? By your logic - the English league is their football league, not the LOI. So why is it fairgame for them to ignore the Irish language, but they can be belittled and bemoaned for not opting for thr Irish option in something as trivial as football ? And anyway, don't you get it - Celtic and Manchester United ARE Irish....
So the Irish language "for all intents and purposes, died out a hundred years ago" ? Well one could easily argue that Irish domestic footall 'for all intents and purposes, died out three to four decades ago'. The league has been seriously on the skids since the early 1980's, and was on a downward trajectory for a period prior to that. So what's with the obsession of you and people on hre ewith this dead league ? Surely that's to the detriment of other aspects of Irish sporting life and culture, and one of the great frustrations and irritations of Irish life ?
And one thing the League of Ireland certainly is NOT is our domestic league. Our domestic league - by definition the league we all grow up supporting - is, whether you like it or not (and seemingly you won't) the English and/or Scottish leagues.
Are we getting the irony of being an LOI'gor whilst at the same time turning your nose up at the Irish language ? It's the same principle - resorting for something non-indigenous because the home-grown version is perceived as largely dead, irrelevant, boring, backward, unfashionable, out-dated, and of little value etc. Both the LOI and the Irish language are viewed as irrelevant fringe activities by most of Irish society - ironically at the same time by people on either side of the fringe activities. The same mentality that sneers at one is usually found behind the sneers towards the other.
Last edited by dcfcsteve; 16/11/2009 at 8:33 PM.
In Derry I remember seeing a fight break out between to rival gangs of Liverpool and Manchester United 'fans.' In. Derry.
That reminds me of Terry Eagleton's description of Ireland during the boom as being akin to "a toilet attendant who has just won the lottery."
I agreed with John:
As a nation, we've done pretty well with it, don't you think? Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, Heaney, Banville, Doyle, Stoker, Swift, Moore, Synge, Lewis, Wilde, Maturin...among others- surely we can claim it as 'our' language as much as anyone else's?
As a nation we've done pretty well with the English League, don't you think ? Brady, Stapleton, O'Leary, Quinn, O'Shea, Keane, Givens, ... among others- surely we can claim the English League as "our" league as much as anyone else's....?
I witnessed a conversation between an Irish woman and a Russian barman in a pub in Salthill, just 3 weeks ago.
The Russian guy said when he came to Ireland, he would continue to play and support football. Injury (and age?) curtailed his playing days but he decided to jump on the bandwagon and support the club that is the best supported in Ireland. No, not Shamrock Rovers, Derry City or Cork City. Not even Galway United, even though he lives within a few KMs of the home stadium.
He supports Man Utd. He is fanatical about them. He didn't support them before he came to Ireland.
I don't know why but I was embarrassed for him and for myself as a fan of an Irish football club.
Nobody knows us, we don't care
Football isn't about something that is nice to watch. If you want to look at something spectacular and impressive, look up videos of parkour on youtube. Football is a tribal sport. I get infinite amounts more pleasure watching Bray or Stoke score the scrappiest goal in the world than I do watchin Lionel Messi beat 3 Albacete players before firing one into the top corner from 30 yards. It's a natural thing to want something you can legitimately associate yourself with to flourish, and it's hardwired into our brains by evolution from the days we were competing with Neanderthals for wooly mammoths to eat. Not many people who have arbitrarily adopted an English club, or a continental club, simply because they play "nice football" will ever experience the highs and lows I've felt in the Carlisle or the Britannia over the years. That's why people support, and I mean properly support, football teams, not just because they want to look at something pretty and intricate on the TV for an hour and a half every Saturday afternoon.
And despite what happened tonight, I still have immense pride in my club and my town. And we will be back.
Two interesting replies, and I wish I had the time to debate these, but the building's about to be locked here, so I'll be very brief.
In my opinion, football supporters, those of us who go to watch our local (and national) team play, who support them independent of merit or success, don't have a monopoly on football. The peak of the game, technically, can be aesthetically amazing at times. I can appreciate the game from this perspective too. From this point of view, I can admire the ethos in Barcelona which will see a back pass to the keeper booed, or a successful manager sacked because his style of play wasn't acceptable. I can admire Ferguson's Man Utd teams for an athletic attacking style, Wenger's Arsenal for an emphasis on short passing, technical play, a great defence like Italy's was a few years ago (it's still very good, but Nesta, Cannavarro and Maldini at their peaks made for a hell of a back line a few years ago). I'm okay with someone being a fan of the game in this sense.
People who support an English team though are the worst of both worlds. They ape the supporters of local clubs, but they're missing the point. I don't care if your grandad and your dad supported England for some ill-conceived reason, you're Irish and you support Ireland.
I think the comparison is facile. I can stop going to UCD games, stop going to Ireland games, stop buying jerseys, watching games on TV, playing the sport (badly) - never think twice about it. Maybe you think you're too big a Derry fan to do that. But you're thinking it in English.
I see where you're coming from, but it's not as if all those people who have no interest in Irish are off learning Basque at the weekend, and claiming it is a much better language.
yea we just cant get rid of you showerhope ye do well next year
No - but they learn and grow up surrounded by and immersed in the English language. In Ireland.
Just like they grow up surrounded by and immersed in English football. In Ireland.
Why is one so unacceptable to everyone on here, but not the other ?
It's a common problem we have. We don't beleve in round-abouts either.
haha thanks for that
Not facile at all, as the same sentiment and mentality rests behind approaches to both 'our' league and 'our' language.
You choose to follow Irish football. So few other Irish people do so that if you want to discuss Irish footbal with other supporters, you generally have to make a bit of an effort (i.e. your work-place/school/college/street/whatever won't be wall-to-wall with fellow Irish football followers).
Likewise, you could learn Irish and similarly chose to use that when you could/wanted to. Though invariably the search for another Irish speaker to converse with in Ireland would be no different a numerically challenging experience than the search for another LOI supporter. (Actually - you're probably more like to find a fellow Irish speaker...). And just like people would sneer at you for being an LOI supporter, the same mentality would drive them to sneer at you for being an Irish speaker.
And someone who speaks Irish doesn't have to think in English - regardless of what they buy.
Apparently the football is better there, LOI is rubbish...
Whole post endorsed 100%.
One point Murfinator made earlier is that the LoI is boring because it has a low goals-per-game ratio compared to the rest of Europe. I don't have time to check that stat out, but in any case, it's irrelevant. If goals-per-game makes entertainment, the UCD Superleague would be selling out to thousands every game.
Absolutely. But Murfinator's point was that -
(My emphasis)
There's a difference between being "a fan of the game in this sense" and being a supporter. I'm a fan of Barca's play, but I wouldn't consider myself a Barca supporter. The Espanyol v Villerreal I (and you) saw last year is by far the best game technically I've ever been at, but it pales in comparison with UCD pummeling Longford to win with two late goals.
For right or wrong, whenever I read Murfinator's posts, all I can think of is that appalling Sky Sports (I think?) ad where the taxi-driver tries to come across really knowledgeable on football just by trotting out random stats they picked up from Sky Sports during the week.
Last edited by pineapple stu; 17/11/2009 at 11:04 AM.
I said it on here before, we not a football loving nation, we're a glory hunting nation.
Look at the amount of people in Ireland who follow the big four. Not many would follow lesser English clubs. How many Chelsea shirts do you see now. How many did you see in the mid-eighties? Remember post 1992 when nearly eveyone had a Newcastle jersey. Where have they all gone? Same with Sunderland. Although its more of a exception than rule with Sunderland!
My mates in Sunderland don't understand why people in Ireland don't follow LOI. It seems natural to follow your local club. Most of them would follow Blyth Spartans or Durham City as well as Sunderland. Plus the season runs opposite to the EPL we've the best of both worlds.
Why should it be either/or? It isn't for most.
ManU and Liverpool replica shirts are a common sight at any LoI ground. It's not realistic to expect people raised on EPL and MOTD before it to abandon British football. It may be possible to persuade them that their own national league is also worth supporting.
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