I wrote this article for the Sunderland Fanzine "A Love Supreme" and it appeared in their Christmas edition (No. 176). It ran under the headline "Has the Guiness Gone Sour?"
So will all Irish fans stop coming over to Wearside now that Roy's talked the talk and walked the walk?
If Sunderland’s Irish supporters gave up on the club now that Roy Keane has left what would they do with all that spare time? Maybe they’ll settle down, spend more time with the family and grow out of this football malarkey. It is a sign of arrested development after all. Are they really just going to retire back to their gaffs and walk their dogs until Roy finds a new job and the whole circus of hysteria and Euphoria starts all over again?
Irish people are quite simply obsessed with English football and the Premier League in particular. I met a taxi driver in Dublin last year who told me he spent £18,000 year supporting QPR of all teams. You might remember that last year’s Match of the Day Fan of the Year went to a Manchester City supporter from Ireland who not only attended all the matches but used to fly over during the week to watch them train. He did actually come across as being slightly tapped and he was suitably unimpressed about being interviewed by the Beeb because he was missing City’s pre-match warm-up. These cases show the height of the Ireland’s obsession with the English game which should be all the more surprising given that no one in Ireland has any local connection with the teams.
The Irish are massive subscribers to Sky Sports even though Sky generally ignore the fortunes of the national team and the Irish players in the Premier League. It’s a bit like the girl you love so much because she treats you like shit. There is this idea permeating through the Premier League that Irish players are squad players only in so far as they are thought about at all.
Even last Saturday on Match of the Day after Andy Reid had played out of his skin scoring a header and brilliantly setting up Kenwyne Jones, the only comment that snake Alan Shearer made about Reid was to slag him off over some Country ‘n’ Western shirt he was wearing in the post match interview.
It’s all Petr Cech this, Petr Cech that even though Shay Given is obviously the best goalkeeper in the Premier League. The fact that he is still playing at a half way house like Newcastle just proves that teams have no interest in Irish players. In spite of this the Irish flock to Premier League games like Muslims to Mecca during Ramadan.
It’s funny how you can almost trace the success patterns of different clubs by the age profile of their Irish supporters. Liverpool, for example have an enormous following in Ireland but most of their supporters are in their late thirties and forties now and like the club itself, they have that sort of bedraggled look which comes with not quite being as well successful as you once were or as you thought you’d end up. I know people with Liverpool tattoos even though they’ve hardly even been to Anfield and this is in the west of Ireland. We’re hardly Scousers, now are we?
Man United, having dominated for the last 15 years are the team of the teens but they would also have supporters from that generation who can remember that won the European Cup in 1968. Liam Whelan’s death in the Munich air crash in 1958 created a bond between Dublin and Manchester United and many families have followed United since.
It’s not all about success though and an Irish connection in a club attracts Irish supporters as much as anything else. Liam Brady’s brilliance for Arsenal in the late 70’s and 80’s together with the presence of Frank Stapleton, Pat Rice, Pat Jennings and dare I say it David O’Leary and big Niall himself brought Arsenal a large and loyal Irish following. London was full of Irish immigrants at that time and that contributed too with shirts, programmes and other memorabilia being sent home.
Indeed Aston Villa too generated a large Irish supporter base in the 1990’s when Paul McGrath, Steve Staunton, Andy Townsend and Ray Houghton were playing at Villa Park. The Irish people love to see their players doing well and they will often follow a club just because their favourite Irish player plays for them. It can get confusing if there is ever a move.
Football in Ireland has always been a working class game prospering in the cities. Dublin didn’t have its own team and typically Dubliners would load onto the ferry of a Saturday morning to get over to watch Liverpool or Manchester United. That demographic began to change somewhat with the success of the national team under Jack Charlton and the emergence of Ireland as an economic force. Football fever swept the country like never before and now people had the money to spend on it too.
Big Niall gave the Nuevo Riche Ireland supporter an outlet for this love of good football. Quinn sold the idea of Sunderland as great place to have the crack and watch great football for the weekend by maintaining the Irish connection.
Roy Keane is a cultural icon in Ireland, a bit like Che Guervara to the Cubans but I’d be surprised if that played any part in Quinn’s thinking when he offered him the job. Quinn is the real Irish face of Sunderland and he is what attracts the punters. He’s affable, intelligent and the kind of guy we’d all like to see do well.
He enjoyed his finest spell as a player in a Sunderland shirt which first attracted attention and when he took over Sunderland backed by an Irish consortium, it was then that the whole country began to take notice. Ireland is a very small country and it was a bit like we were all involved in the takeover. Everyone seemed to know someone who either worked for the investors or knew them personally.
If anything is going to stop Irish supporters travelling to Sunderland I’d imagine it will be the recent collapse of our economy. Like I said Niall is attracting the Nuevo Riche Irish from the Property Developers and businessmen who bought the club right down to the construction workers and bankers who go the games. Many of these people will be losing their jobs in 2009 if they haven’t already and it’s that rather than the departure of Roy Keane that might cause the number of Irish supporters at the Stadium of Light to decrease.
The manner in which Roy left Sunderland might already have diminished his reputation among Ireland supporters. In many ways it proves Mick McCarthy absolutely right over the Saipan issue which even now continues to rankle in Ireland. There is a feeling that Roy quits too easily and it’s clear now that he should have stayed and played for Ireland in the 2002 World Cup instead of deciding on a whim that he wasn’t able for it just as he did when he walked out of Sunderland. Since then I think people have questioned Roy Keane’s mentality and while he will receive massive media attention, I doubt he will attract the same following from Ireland when he returns to management.
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