...about Dublin Daily going bust is the lack of an alternative to the Evening Herald. Well, there is an alternative -- not buying an evening paper at all. I normally follow this sensible course, but caught a glimpse of someone else's copy yesterday. The crass headline "Top Tribunal Barrister Drops Dead" left me blinking in disbelief for a few seconds. I don't know what sudden impulse of morbid curiosity caused me to pick up the rag, but I immediately turned to the back pages in search of a match report from BATE Borisov vs. Bohemians. This item was, to be fair, present and correct, and afforded a reasonably prominent position (it didn't, however, contain anything that hadn't been available online that morning, and included 150-ish words on David O'Leary's plans for Aston Villa, implausibly grafted on to the end of the Bohs story by the dubious expedient of an incongruous "meanwhile.")
That should have been it. My instinct of self-preservation should have kicked in and forced me, at this point, to fling the "paper" from me like the soiled rag it (figuratively) was. But no. Instead, I committed a fatal error; I turned the page. And who, do you suppose, did I find staring me in the face? None other than Eamon Carr. Now, whatever legitimacy the experience of having been a member (and moreover, the drummer) of a naff seventies Sham Rock band lends to one's career as a music journalist, it surely does not entitle one to so prominent a by-line in the sports pages of a major newspaper. Carr had already begun broadening his journalistic horizons by the time I stopped reading the Herald on a regular basis several years ago (he even had a dig at me - YES, ME - in an article about Padraig Flynn's visit to a computer course I attended a few years back - it's a long story), but his move into the realm of serious sportswriting was news to me (and as such, had no place in the Evening Herald.)
Anyway, here's the thing. The second paragraph of Carr's article on Damien Duff's proposed move to Chelsea read as follows:
"Sign on with the Blues and you sign up to join the Russian bear and his copeck cohorts. In an uncertain world it would be the height of folly for Duffer to pledge his services to a club that's in a bigger state of flux than Chechnya."
Words fail me. I suppose one shouldn't be surprised to read such a crass collection of lazy stereotypes in a newspaper which apes its British tabloid counterparts so slavishly, but how depressing it is to find that Irish journalists have learned nothing (or perhaps too much?) from the reams of predictable "shamrock-blarney-Guinness"-laced idiocy directed at this country from across the water since time immemorial.
Like a trainee undertaker, however, Carr just doesn't know when to stop digging. After making some incoherent argument against Duff moving to Chelsea, our hero goes on to note that:
"On the other hand, if he was to move to say, Liverpool or Manchester United, he'd be on steadier ground. Both those clubs have traditionally had an Irish connection and both have a proud record of nurturing and developing Irish talent. Such unique bonds can't be bought on the open market. At any price."
Don't get me started on the "Irish connections" claptrap (it's a wonder he didn't advise Duff to sign for Celtic, a bastion of all things Irish, as everyone surely knows); what Liverpool and Manchester United really have in common is not a "proud record of nurturing Irish talent" but a shameful record of doing everything within their power (and a good deal that shouldn't be) to prevent players from representing their countries. The day Damien Duff pulls on a Liverpool or ManU (or Arsenal, or Inter or...) shirt is the day Irish international football can kiss goodbye to any hope of a major breakthrough within the next decade.
Chelsea (although fundamentally hostile to international football by virtue of being a Premiership-La Liga-Serie A axis of evil club) may be a far better option for Duff. Exposure to the Champions League will prove beneficial, and the club is unlikely to suffer the same kind of crippling fixture congestion that spells trouble for serious Premiership contenders and (consequently) national teams alike.
To sum up: stop buying the Herald, you're only encouraging them.
