no he didnt, he said that people who want to go to the theatre once a month should be allowed poison the majority of people that live in the city
thats nonsense
Sigh. He didnât. He said people should be allowed drive EVs and calling to ban all cars is a little bit silly.
You need to read to inform and not to seek to immediately contradict.
Sigh
in 2030, if more people drive EVs they should be allowed to drive into the city so we should give them all the space at the expense of residents & its grand to poison people for the next 7 years - not having it mate
wont someone think of the people who go to the theatre once a month, the true victims of climate change
He never said give the EVs all the space pal.
He said articles/opinion pieces saying to ban all cars including EVs are fanciful.
but they are taking the space up now at the expense of residents, so he wants that to continue
We all need to get along and move away from dogma.
stop poisoning Children
Whats up @The_Seven_Car_Giant? You seem particularly vexed this morning.
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They should build more theatres in the suburbs
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the one in Rush is great, there is one planned for Swords & they are at the early stages of building one in Malahide
would be great
Swords Cultural Quarter project takes a âmajor step forwardâ - Independent.ie
Once the 15 minute cities are implemented Eamonn Ryan wonât let you into the city anyway.
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How is the one out in Balllyer doing?
Thereâs a lovely theatre in Ballymun where I saw the 4 of us once cc @flattythehurdler
The pints are chape too
1 Like
Thereâs a name that takes me back
1 Like
Nice piece from Dave Hannigan. Heâs a great writer who has endured a tough year.
SoccerAmerica At Large
Dave Hannigan: Liam Brady? Paul McGrath? UCC freshersâ soccer team? Funny where life takes youYards from Arsenal tube station, memories of the first flush of a journalism career return
The old Arsenal Stadium at Highbury, the venue for the north London clubâs 2-1 win over Newcastle some 30 years ago. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
Dave Hannigan
Wed Apr 19 2023 - 13:00
I am staring wistfully at a phone booth on the corner of Gillespie Road and Drayton Park, yards from Arsenal tube station. A relic from another era. The last time I stood in that glass box was November 27th, 1993. Brandishing a wire notebook full of hieroglyphics, I filed a match report about Arsenal versus Newcastle United, phoning my hurried take on a 2-1 home win down the line to a copy taker at the dear old Sunday Tribune in Dublin. My first Premier League gig. All I was short was a trilby hat with a press card tucked into the band and somebody shouting, âGet me rewrite!â
That earnest young man enunciating every precious word was 22 and giddy at the prospect of the strap under his byline next morning reading, âAt Highburyâ. The impossible glamour of it all. In the first flush of a journalism career, I had a head full of hair and some serious notions, oh so many notions, about myself. On this particular afternoon in April, Iâm 52, near enough bald as a coot, world-weary, and traipsing through North London with two exhausted American teenagers in tow. They are not in the mood for their fatherâs hoary reminisces of a time three decades ago when he fancied himself as quite the soccer correspondent.
Imagine their delight, then, when I stopped on the Ken Friar Bridge leading to our Airbnb abutting Emirates Stadium so I could admire a flag containing an image of a hirsute Liam Brady. They had no interest in my yarn about the afternoon a quarter of a century ago when Chippy, then head of youth development at Arsenal, gave me a tour of the art deco marble halls of hallowed Highbury. No, the lads were more concerned with how soon they could get back on wifi. Nostalgia is so wasted on the young.
We had not come to England at Easter specifically for their father to trip down memory lane. It just couldnât be avoided. The original purpose of our odyssey was a couple of football matches to take the boysâ minds off the first anniversary of their motherâs death, the chance to catch up with old friends, and to maybe absorb some accidental history along the way. Turns out we had different ideas of what that last bit entailed. I envisaged us stopping at Westminster Abbey. They wanted to go to JD Sports. I was hopeful of visiting the house where Giuseppe Garibaldi once stayed. They refused to leave the admittedly wonderful Classic Football Shirts shop and cafe in Spitalfields
Still, they picked up local culture here and there. âWhat is a facking twt?â asked Finn 20 minutes into watching West Ham United getting dismantled by Newcastle on a Wednesday night. I feigned ignorance but he wasnât buying it. âThey keep saying, âMoyes, you facking twt!â What does that even mean?â He entered London Stadium an innocent 12-year-old Long Islander and departed with an enhanced swearing canon and a love of randomly shouting âIrons!â as if raised on a diet of jellied eels and Upton Park.
Newcastle United players and fans after their victory at West Ham, oblivious to a truculent cockney statue of liberty. Photograph: Alex Pantling/Getty Images
His older brotherâs most memorable cameo that evening came after Newcastleâs fourth goal went in, prompting a sustained chorus of âGeordie boys, taking the pissâ. The home supporters streamed towards the exits, but one elderly gentleman stopped, stood legs apart and lifted his right arm in the air, two defiant fingers cocked at the oblivious away fans in the section next door. The image of that truculent cockney statue of liberty is still making us laugh.
In lieu of the stations on Good Friday, we went to Shrewsbury Town v Peterborough, accompanied by Mark (our genial host for the week) and Ray, two old college pals long in English exile. Thirty-three years ago, we wore the skull and crossbones together on a UCC freshersâ soccer team, all undergraduate brash, brio and beer. Somehow, we have reached middle age, sensible and staid, a school principal, a university administrator, and a history professor, sitting in the stands, surrounded by our sons, their accents traversing the globe from Noo Yawk to cut-glass Middle England. Funny where life takes you.
It was my first time in Shrewsbury since a February morning 27 years ago when I interviewed Limerickâs Tommy Lynch, a true gent and club stalwart, about the impending visit of Liverpool in the FA Cup. They played at rickety Gay Meadow then, where an ould codger named Fred Davies manned a coracle to fish wayward balls from the nearby river Severn. Montgomery Waters Meadow, their slightly antiseptic current home, boasts no such quirks but, thankfully, still sold steaming half-time Bovril. Every beefy sip was a sense memory transporting me back to childhood days dipping shards of Cuthbertâs bread in bowls of the stuff in my motherâs kitchen.
At Villa Park for a 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest, the thrill for my boys was an up-close glimpse of Emiliano Martinez, whose appalling buffoonery and antic chicanery was one of their enduring highlights of the World Cup. For me, that game was an opportunity to wheel out the age-old boast. âI was out on that field once.â Silence and disbelieving stares. âWell, I was with a television crew and we were given the run of the place because we were making a documentary about the great Paul McGrath.â
They still seemed slightly incredulous, so I clarified that this was before they were born. Different time. Previous life.
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Never heard of this guy before but an interesting article about him and abuse in Womenâs Soccer in the States.
Soccer
Who is Christy Holly? The Irish soccer coach banned for life after sex assault allegations
The Derry man was hired to three elite coaching roles in US Soccer before being banned after investigations
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Former Racing Louisville head coach Christy Holly. Photograph: Joe Robbins/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Sun May 14 2023 - 06:00
The temperature was rising at the town hall meeting and all the heat was coming for Racing Louisville club president James OâConnor. It was Friday night, March 10th, 2023 and about 100 or so season ticket-holders had the former Republic of Ireland under-21 international in their crosshairs. The subject was Christy Holly, the Derry man who OâConnor had hired to be head coach in 2020, before firing him the following year as the biggest sexual misconduct scandal in American sport was coming to light.
Holly is a pariah now. Banned for life from coaching in the US, his behaviour towards Racing Louisville player Erin Simon had been laid bare in the opening paragraph of the 319-page report conducted by former US deputy attorney general Sally Yates in October 2022. But sitting in front of the town hall meeting, OâConnor was being asked to account for the clubâs actions around the time of Hollyâs firing.
How could the club have let this happen? What has changed in the meantime? How can anyone be sure the next Christy Holly wonât be able to find his way into a job coaching players at their club?
OâConnor came under scrutiny for one incident in particular. He did a TV interview after Holly was fired in which he was asked if Holly broke the law. âI donât know whether Iâd say illegal,â was his response. âI donât know, thatâs a subjective viewpoint, if you like, depending on who is asking. Iâll plead the fifth, Iâll take the attorney line on that.â Now, almost two years later, supporters wanted to know how they could take anything he said in good faith, given that was his response when the situation was at its most serious.
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âIt was a car crash,â he admitted during the meeting. âI am a human being and that was a mistake.â Being Irish, OâConnor claimed to be unaware that to âplead the fifthâ wasnât just a turn of phrase, that it was a legal term referring to the American constitutional right to not answer a question on the grounds you might incriminate yourself.
âIf I could go back and change that interview, believe me, I absolutely would. I was dealing with something I had never dealt with before. I made a mistake and I got caught by the questions. If I say âyes, it is illegalâ it [would have] caused a furore â the player at the time wanted everything to go away. She was incredibly frightened.â
Learn more
As it was, all parties signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of Hollyâs termination. Holly walked away with a âŹ14,000 pay-off that allowed him to avoid questions about an alleged sexual assault. Erin Simon stayed another season at Louisville before moving to England to sign for Leicester City last summer. Racing Louisville appointed an interim coach before launching an open process of finding a new one full-time, eventually hiring Swedish coach Kim BjĂśrkegren.
âLike we did the other night, you need to come out and try to be as transparent as we can,â OâConnor told The Irish Times after the town hall meeting in March. âWe are trying to move forward. All these events happened in 2021.â
Erin Simon in action for Racing Louisville FC in May, 2021. Photograph: Lewis Gettier/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Two reports
âOn April 21, 2021, the head coach of Racing Louisville, Christy Holly, requested that a player, Erin Simon, attend a game film session with him alone. She knew what to expect. When she arrived, she recalls Holly opened his laptop and began the game film. He told her he was going to touch her âfor every pass [she] f***ed upâ. He did.
âSimon reports that he pushed his hands down her pants and up her shirt. She tried to tightly cross her legs and push him away, laughing to avoid angering him. The video ended, and she left. When her team-mate picked her up to drive home, Simon broke down crying.
âHolly is not the only coach to have abused an NWSL [National Womenâs Soccer League] player, and Erin Simon is not the only NWSL player to have been abused.â
â Report of the independent investigation to the US Soccer Federation concerning allegations of abusive behaviour and sexual misconduct in womenâs professional soccer, by Sally Q Yates, October 3rd, 2022
âOn one occasion, Holly took [Erin Simon] upstairs and began showing her film and discussing soccer, but then he searched for and showed her pornography. Holly then pulled down his pants and began masturbating in front of her.
âHolly grabbed Simonâs wrist and forced her to touch his penis. Simon told Holly she was uncomfortable and did her best to get out of the house, but she did not want to anger Holly because she was scared. Simon described feeling helpless and like she could not escape.
âShe recalled trying to leave Hollyâs house, but as she rounded a corner to go downstairs to leave, Holly grabbed her arm. Simon felt scared and physically intimidated.â
Report of the NWSL and NWSL Players Association joint investigative team, December 14th, 2022
Who is Christy Holly?
Christy Holly first landed in New Jersey in 1995, aged 10, with the City of Derry swim team. He described the trip as âa reward for swimmers who were trapped in the conflictâ. He returned to the US every summer for the next decade, eventually moving full-time in 2007.
âGrowing up in Ireland, trust me, I saw some interesting stuff,â he told the Leadership Louisville podcast with Aaron Miller in August 2020. âIt was a very violent, hateful place at the time. You saw people get very badly hurt.â
From Culmore Point in Derry, Holly was born into a GAA family with ties to St Galls in Belfast, where his father Brian played, and the Eoghan Rua club in Coleraine. His brother Niall Holly and cousins Barry and Sean Leo McGoldrick were Derry senior footballers.
In 2007, after getting a degree in Sports Psychology from John Moores University in Liverpool, he moved to the US, working for Global Premier Soccer (GPS), a company founded by Derry brothers Joe and Peter Bradley. GPS ran youth soccer camps and Holly coached girls in them. The camps have since closed down â a US Department of Justice investigation into GPS for visa fraud forced its demise in 2020.
Racing Louisville FC head coach Christy Holly during a game between Racing Louisville and NJ/NY Gotham City at Red Bull Arena on August 15, 2021 in Harrison, New Jersey. Photograph: Howard Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Sky Blue FC
In the mid-2010s, GPS supplied coaches to a New Jersey club in the NWSL called Sky Blue. Holly would later tell the Boston Globe that he was âthe mutual connectionâ between GPS and Sky Blue, which is where his career in professional football gathered momentum.
âThe womenâs clubs over here lose money,â says Stephen Griffin, the former CEO of GPS parent company Legacy Global Sports. âSo it is easy for a guy to slot in and say, âIâll be an assistant coach, Iâll volunteer.â One thing led to another, there was a turnover of coaches and he ended up becoming Sky Blue head coach.â
When Holly was coming through the ranks at Sky Blue, he had a reputation for being well liked by everyone. He began as a volunteer coach in the underage ranks in 2013 and worked his way into the orbit of the senior and reserve teams within a couple of years, becoming head coach in January 2016.
The fact that he never had a coaching licence was no barrier to his advancement â neither during his time with Sky Blue nor later with US Soccer or Racing Louisville. Partly this was down to the often ad hoc nature of the sport at the time; partly it was because the force of his personality carried him a long way.
[ Derry man Christy Holly among four coaches to receive lifetime ban from NWSL ]
âHolly was friends with lots of the team,â says one player from the Sky Blue squad around that time. âHe was fairly normal. When he got the head coach role, we thought it was going to be great. We liked him. Nobody had any red flags. Everyone liked him.
âWe were a bit confused because all we knew him as was a volunteer assistant coach. Like, how does somebody go from that to being a head coach? But because we all liked him, because he had charisma, it was fine. We thought he was going to be good.â
For Holly, it was a huge achievement. The NWSL was accepted by all as the best league of its kind in the world at the time. It was the first iteration of a pro soccer league in the US to survive past three seasons and, at just 31, Holly was the youngest head coach of any of the 10 teams.
Sky Blue had serious talent in the squad as well â 10 of the 22 players had featured in the previous summerâs World Cup. They had the best goalscorer in the league in Australian striker Sam Kerr, as well as serial Olympic and World Cup winners in Kelley OâHara and Christie Pearce Rampone. Megastars.
Christie Pearce Rampone, who was a player with Sky Blue when Christy Holly was coaching the team. Holly began an affair with the married mother of two. Photograph: Aurora Rose/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images
But it soon became clear that Holly wasnât up to the job. Sky Blue could only manage three wins in their first 11 games in the 2016 league and, behind the scenes, he struggled to convince the players that he could improve the situation.
âThe problem was, he sucked as a coach,â says a Sky Blue player contacted by The Irish Times. âIâve had the worst of the worst and the best of the best coaches in my career and he was very close to the worst. He couldnât solve problems. It was always our fault.
âHe would spend video sessions just narrating what was happening on the screen. You can get away with that at college level but do that with professional players and they work out very quickly that you donât have any solutions. On the training field, his sessions were repetitive. If we asked questions, he yelled at us and told us to figure it out.â
Ultimately, though, there was another factor at play in Hollyâs demise at Sky Blue: he began an affair with one of his players, Christie Pearce Rampone. The defender was one of the best-known players in the game and had just finished a glittering international career during which sheâd earned 311 caps for the US national team and captained them to enormous success. She was married with two kids.
âHe is not in that position very long and he ends up having an affair with Christie Pearce Rampone,â says Stephen Griffin. âNow he is inside the organisation. He is the coach and his mistress is one of the most famous American players of all time. He now has cover, he has credibility. He is with her.â
While relationships between coaches and players were generally frowned upon because of the power imbalance, Holly and Pearce Rampone didnât break any league rules by starting a relationship. But it did cause growing tension within the Sky Blue dressing room, creating a clear rift between the pair and the rest of the squad.
Hollyâs behaviour became increasingly erratic. Players complained of verbal and emotional abuse. Pearce Rampone, who by now was in her early 40s and clearly on the wane, nonetheless played every minute in the 2016 season and was still a fixture in 2017.
Eventually the atmosphere in the dressing room became so toxic and disruptive that it led to Holly being fired in August 2017, midway through his second season as head coach. Sky Blue made no mention of the turmoil as Holly was let go, instead saying that they âwish him nothing but the greatest of successes in whatever he chooses to do going forwardâ.
Christie Pearce Rampone retired two days later.
How did Holly get a job at US Soccer?
In July 2019, the US womenâs soccer team won their fourth World Cup. Christy Holly was an opposition analyst for the US squad during the tournament in France and holds a World Cup winnerâs medal as a result. That same year, according to the two investigations, his alleged sexual misconduct towards Erin Simon began.
Simon first encountered Holly in 2016 when she was 22. She had just graduated from Syracuse University when he offered her a contract at Sky Blue. She was released in 2018 â after Holly and Pearce Rampone had left the club â joining West Ham United in the English Womenâs Super League. In the NWSL investigation, Simon credited the move âin large part to Hollyâs help and connectionsâ.
As she made her way through the early part of her career, Simon saw Holly and Pearce Rampone as mentor figures. She spent time with them away from the game and called to them when she came home to New Jersey for the summer of 2019. On one particular visit, she claims Holly grabbed her breasts when Pearce Rampone was present but had her back turned.
[ Lisa Fallon: Report on abuse in US womenâs soccer points to the need for root and branch reform ]
Twelve months after leaving Sky Blue, Holly began a âlimited per diemâ arrangement with the US Soccer Federation (USSF). The Yates report states that he was paid âless than $10,000âł in 2018 and 2019 for work which included opposition scouting for the senior squad, talent identification and assistant coaching at under-17 and under-23 training camps.
It has never been made clear how Holly came by this job. In an interview with the BBC not long after the World Cup final in Lyon, he spoke about travelling to 10 different countries in the previous six months. âI managed a lot of the national teamâs players at [Sky Blue] so I had a good relationship with head coach Jill Ellis.â
Ellis managed the US team from 2014 to 2019 and Holly has described her as a mentor in interviews. The NWSL report states that while Ellis âultimately made the decisionâ to hire him, âshe did not undertake any due diligence, background checks, or reference checksâ.
It also branded his recruitment as ârelationship-basedâ while Ellis recalled that BJ Snow, who oversaw the US scouting network, recommended Holly. But Snow did not assist either investigation and efforts by The Irish Times to interview him proved unsuccessful. Last year he launched a youth soccer camp with his wife, Lindsay Tarpley, the 125-cap US international and two-time Olympic gold medallist, out of the Portage club in Michigan.
In August 2019 Holly informed Simon that she had been called up to the US under-23s. She was ânervousâ about his presence as an assistant coach, claiming that he ârepeatedlyâ invited her to his room during the camp. Though she declined, Simon could not shake the feeling that she owed him. Later that year, when she got an offer out of the blue to join Houston Dash, Holly told her that he âmay have talked to some people behind the scenesâ.
Racing Louisville FC
When Holly signed Simon for a second time, to Racing Louisville in November 2020, she texted him to say all advances must cease ânow youâre my bossâ. Holly texted back: âIâve got until January 1st.â That was the date she would join Louisville, when he would officially become her coach again.
According to Simon, his advances only escalated. On one occasion Holly and Pearce Rampone were in Simonâs parentsâ house for dinner and while Pearce Rampone was getting a tour, Simon said that he grabbed her buttocks. She moved away and told him he was insane.
Before the season started, Holly invited Simon over to Pearce Ramponeâs home for video analysis sessions, saying his partner would also be present. She was not. Simon said that Holly touched her, pulled up pornography on screen, pulled down his pants and masturbated in front of her. She claims Holly grabbed her wrist and forced her to touch his penis. She said nothing because she feared for her safety and believed he could ruin her career.
And yet, when Racing Louisville appointed Holly, James OâConnor described the Derry man as a âwell-rounded individualâ. Racingâs then-president Brad Estes said: âHis character and values will fit perfectly within our organisation.â
OâConnor was promoted in 2022, replacing Estes as club president. The 43-year-old Dubliner had a solid playing career in England, mostly in the Championship. He made 454 appearances in 12 seasons for Stoke, West Brom, Burnley and Sheffield Wednesday before finishing his career at Orlando City. He coached for five seasons in Orlando and Louisville before moving into an executive role at Soccer Holdings, Racingâs parent company.
âWe had a profile in mind for head coach,â OâConnor told The Irish Times of the decision to hire Holly. âWe wanted league experience and someone who had an understanding of the best young players coming through the American system. There was his experience of working with the youth national teams and his experience of scouting international opponents. So, when we looked at him, there was a number of factors, like the degree in psychology, that we felt confident in giving him the opportunity.â
Within the NWSL report, Sky Blue claimed to have given OâConnor a clear warning about Hollyâs conduct. US national coach Vlatko Andonovski even recommended âdue diligenceâ be carried out by Louisville before the hire was completed as âthere is obviously a reason why he got fired from Sky Blueâ. OâConnor was also aware of Hollyâs relationship with Christie Pearce Rampone.
Racing Louisville FC head coach Christy Holly gathers with his players following a win against the Houston Dash at Lynn Family Stadium on June 20th, 2021. Photograph: Joe Robbins/ISI Photos/Getty Images
One Sky Blue co-owner asked club executive Mary Smoot âto convey that Holly did not eave due to job performance reasonsâ. Smoot recalled telling OâConnor and Estes that âthe players did not have a positive experienceâ with Holly.
She noted that neither man asked any follow-up questions. âTo me, it sounded like they [had] made their minds up. It wasnât a long conversation. They didnât ask me if I would hire him.â Soon after, OâConnor informed the media that the Sky Blue ownership had given Holly a âglowing recommendationâ. Smoot categorically denies this.
Before the alleged sexual assault of Simon, three Louisville players complained to OâConnor about the head coachâs methods, with at least one player feeling betrayed when management brought Holly into the discussions as it âcreated a fear of retaliationâ. OâConnorâs stance on this now is that four months into a newly formed team, addressing complaints about Hollyâs management style was âbest served by bringing everybody togetherâ.
âThere was one particular player that was not pleased with how Christy had been speaking to her,â said OâConnor. âThat was addressed privately with Christy. The player felt there was a discrepancy in how he would shout at her, or shout at younger players versus older players. You would speak to the older players, and they just felt the younger players needed to be a little bit tougher.â
The NWSL disagreed, subsequently fining Racing Louisville $200,000 for the handling of his recruitment, time at the club and circumstances around his dismissal.
Aftermath
Over the course of the past eight months, The Irish Times has repeatedly asked Holly and Pearce Rampone to comment on the accusations made against him. They have not responded.
After being fired by Racing Louisville, Holly returned to New Jersey, where he currently lives with Pearce Rampone and her two daughters. He worked at a restaurant in Spring Lake until the Yates report came out last October. Currently, he is believed to be employed in construction.
In May 2022, Christie Pearce Rampone was inducted into the US National Soccer Hall of Fame, in recognition of a phenomenal international career, serving as captain on 113 occasions. She has never made any public comment on the end of her time at Sky Blue or on the allegations surrounding Holly, who has referred to her as his fiancee in media interviews.
Chris Rampone is Christie Pearce Ramponeâs ex-husband. âThe most important thing is my kids,â he told The Irish Times. âIt is an ongoing nightmare.
âWe got divorced towards the end of her career. The marriage was really rough. As captain of the [US] team for nine years, we were travelling all over the world, 200 nights a year, with the kids. So it wasnât easy on us. We needed some distance at the end.
âChristy Holly moved into the house immediately and with the children they saw him as a family friend. I donât know what kind of man would do that. You would give it some time and let the children breathe a little bit. The girls are relying on their mother to make good decisions. She has him in the house. I cannot imagine a worse situation.â
Erin Simonâs most recent appearance for Leicester City was against Manchester City in February. âThis has not been an easy journey by any means,â she posted on Instagram last October when the Yates report came out. âHowever, the outpouring of love and support I have received from so many people has given me more strength, hope, and motivation to continue moving forward towards making a change. Let us be the voices who turn this sport back to a safe place we all deserve.â
In January, Holly was one of four coaches to receive a lifetime ban from coaching in the NWSL. Since then, US Soccer has placed him on a ârisk management list.â Any attempt by him to coach soccer at any level in the US will be reported to the US Center for SafeSport
Decent article for a paper.