I'm an old-fashioned bloke. I sent it to the letters page. This is actually what I wrote:
Dear Sirs,
If David Kelly doesn't have anything positive to say about the Irish football team, please don't let him bore us with his continuous attempts to undermine it. International match week guarantees two things these days: I get excited about flying home, and Mr. Kelly takes a needless snipe at our team in your newspaper.
There was nothing "lily-livered" about not playing a football match in Tbilisi when Russian tanks were firing on the streets only three weeks previously.
Nobody cares about Robbie Keane's popularity relative to Brian O'Driscoll's. Has anyone in Spain, Germany or Japan ever even heard of Brian O'Driscoll? If Brian could earn Robbie's income by playing rugby in England, he'd do it in a heartbeat.
I support my country in sport regardless of whether we are successful or entertaining, well-paid or amateur, media-friendly or aloof. I grew up watching a perennially unsuccessful Irish football team and kept coming back. I went to the rugby throughout the 90s, a particularly grim time for us. I gave fair criticism where it was due, and took the rough with the smooth. In 35 years I never once developed an agenda and stuck to it whether the facts fitted it or not.
Mr. Kelly's constant digs are tiresome and subjective, and make him sound like a bitter man.
Yours etc.