Football is back”, screamed a Sunday newspaper banner headline ahead of the resumption last week of the English Premier League season. On twitter, League of Ireland fans were enraged. Football, they argued, has been back for several months now. Of course, they were referring to the domestic league, which sadly enjoys little by way of the adulation which the English game enjoys this side of the Irish Sea.

You have to admire the dedication of the archtypical league of Ireland fans. They are true believers in the game and wonder aloud why others who wear Manchester United, Liverpool and Celtic jersey’s are not instead sitting beside them supporting the local teams. It is a fair question alright. The answer is full of contradiction.

In this country, when it comes to team sports like the GAA, and to some extent rugby, we are unique. We support our local team. In the main, Limerick rugby fans support Munster. A Galway man will support Connacht. A Monaghan GAA fan supports, well, Monaghan. It is of course more pronounced in the GAA. The team you support is in general your local team. And there isn’t a square foot of ground anywhere in Ireland where you are not in the territory of a club first and county second.

So if you want to support a team, you are born into it rather than choosing it. It is hard to find that sort of predetermined support in any other country because the GAA structure is so unique, while the rugby provincial set up in Ireland also lends itself to a that inevitability.

The league of Ireland is hugely different. Yes, all of the teams will enjoy “local” support and even support from outside the parish or county boundary. But there are only 13 of the 26 counties represented in the League of Ireland.

I am sure there are Shamrock Rovers supporters in Meath and Kildare, but in general the sort of local loyalty which is in our DNA when it comes to GAA and rugby simply does not exist for at least half the counties in the republic.

If my local club Castleknock Celtic was ever to make their way into the League of Ireland, of course it would be great, I would go to see them and support the local team. I just don’t have that sort of lure to go supporting Bohemians, St Pats or Shamrock Rovers. And that is always going to be the way. The League of Ireland will just have to continue watching in envy at the crowds who attend GAA matches while their product has a relatively small support base.

But here is that contradiction I mentioned. While I might argue that I have no natural loyalty to a League of Ireland team to be attracted to going to matches, I have no problem supporting Manchester United and going over once a year to Old Trafford to cheer them on. And there are tens of thousands like me, who fly across the water with jerseys on but have never darkened the gate of a League of Ireland ground.

So in fairness, you can appreciate why diehard League of Ireland fans get frustrated. CL

Should Michael D

get another term?

I don’t think anybody would say Michael D Higgins has not been a very good president, no matter how that might be measured.

And so you could argue that he should be allowed serve a second term if he so wishes, unopposed.

He said he would only serve one term. He may have changed his mind.

But what sort of a democracy means that some citizens will be in their early 30s before they get the chance to vote for their President?