From 1988 onwards, Ireland have enjoyed about a two decade-long love affair with the beautiful game. That relationship is disintegrating and it may even already be dead.
D. Ray Morton, 31st August 2015.
The decline of the Irish twenty-something
For the past four years, this writer used to play six-a-side football on Monday nights. The games were played in a new facility, a lovely artificial grass surface in a suburb of Cork City. As a weekly activity, the games brought a lot of fun and were a nice way to get through the gloomy fog of a Monday evening. After a long run of games, the weekly match is slowly unravelling to nothing, the player numbers simply no longer available. Whether off to Dublin, London, Toronto or Sydney, the young people have left. Some frightening statistics illustrate this with a massive exodus of twenty-somethings leaving the country in their droves. Adding to this, the teenagers are not interested in soccer any more and the lads in their 30s and 40s don't take good enough care of themselves to run around for an hour a week. A small tale of tragedy but an indicator of a bigger picture.
The Republic of Ireland went mad for football from 1988 onwards. They qualified for their first major tournament that year and trips to the World Cup in 1990 and 1994 added to the hysteria. Irish players were of a high level. We had a world-class centre-back in Paul McGrath and midfielders as talented as Ronnie Whelan and Roy Keane. The likes of Damien Duff and Robbie Keane followed. Unfortunately the supply line has dried up. If James McCarthy is the future, that is one worrying future.
For the past four years, this writer used to play six-a-side football on Monday nights. The games were played in a new facility, a lovely artificial grass surface in a suburb of Cork City. As a weekly activity, the games brought a lot of fun and were a nice way to get through the gloomy fog of a Monday evening. After a long run of games, the weekly match is slowly unravelling to nothing, the player numbers simply no longer available. Whether off to Dublin, London, Toronto or Sydney, the young people have left. Some frightening statistics illustrate this with a massive exodus of twenty-somethings leaving the country in their droves. Adding to this, the teenagers are not interested in soccer any more and the lads in their 30s and 40s don't take good enough care of themselves to run around for an hour a week. A small tale of tragedy but an indicator of a bigger picture.
The Republic of Ireland went mad for football from 1988 onwards. They qualified for their first major tournament that year and trips to the World Cup in 1990 and 1994 added to the hysteria. Irish players were of a high level. We had a world-class centre-back in Paul McGrath and midfielders as talented as Ronnie Whelan and Roy Keane. The likes of Damien Duff and Robbie Keane followed. Unfortunately the supply line has dried up. If James McCarthy is the future, that is one worrying future.
Once upon a time, Ireland used to produce players capable of winning the PFA Player of the Year award. Those days are over
Ireland play Gibraltar in a Euro 2016 qualifier this Friday in a game no-one really cares about. Then they play at home, after a big GAA weekend, Monday against Georgia. The attendance could be embarrassingly low. The League of Ireland is hanging in tatters, arguably no better than it was in the '90s as some of Europe's other minor leagues develop through sensible investment and advancing through the earlier rounds of UEFA's club competitions. Ireland remains in a quagmire.
Rugby, with the success of the Irish national team, has become the sport of the common man now. This was not always the case as rugby is something of a specialist sport in its own right. It is not as if the average man is fifteen stone of bodybuilt muscle. The sport of the people is a sport played by giants. Not a sport where size, see Lionel Messi, necessarily matters. Despite the fact that thousands still watch the Premier League and the Champions League, Ireland are on the periphery feeling the effects of the more globalised English game that once allowed many Irish, Welsh and Scots to dig out successful careers.
The end is nigh for football in Ireland and it may take many, many years or something extremely radical to change that. Over to you, John Delaney.
Rugby, with the success of the Irish national team, has become the sport of the common man now. This was not always the case as rugby is something of a specialist sport in its own right. It is not as if the average man is fifteen stone of bodybuilt muscle. The sport of the people is a sport played by giants. Not a sport where size, see Lionel Messi, necessarily matters. Despite the fact that thousands still watch the Premier League and the Champions League, Ireland are on the periphery feeling the effects of the more globalised English game that once allowed many Irish, Welsh and Scots to dig out successful careers.
The end is nigh for football in Ireland and it may take many, many years or something extremely radical to change that. Over to you, John Delaney.
