Stephen Ireland to Return

61

[quote=“Bandage”]Appendage, you’ve posted about my football favourites before and it seems to bother you. What’s this ‘Bandage possibly had an interest in Celtic as many of us did’ all about? I never knew you had an interest in Celtic. You might like to attend a game with me sometime? Fool.

Like many Irish youngsters, I liked an English team and Celtic growing up. I guess that was the effect of wall-to-wall coverage of English football in Ireland but I grew older and don’t like the game in England much anymore.

Things change Appendage, as well you know. For example, you were trying to bang a girl when you were 16 before you failed and moved onto another target. The latter is now your wife and the former is one of your wife’s best friends. As I said Appendage, things change.

Maybe if Wexford Youths FC were in existence when I was kid then I would have been big into them. As it is, I go to their games when I’m home. But I think LOI football is local and community based, or at least it should be, and I had no appetite to follow Waterford. I think if you grew up in Inchicore or Drogheda or Sligo or somewhere and liked football then there’s a fair chance you’d be well into your local team. But I don’t think Roscommon people en masse will follow their closest LOI club be it Longford Town or whoever and the same goes for other counties with no LOI presence.

People are naturally going to be impressionable as kids and take an English club fuelled by the media bombardment. Then some people grow out of it as they grow older whereas many others don’t. Of course, I’ve mentioned before about not having internet access growing up and no access to BBC Scotland and so access to Celtic was limited. I recall waiting for Ceefax to update for the result of the 1994 League Cup Final penalty shoot-out for example. These are things we didn’t talk about Appendage because I didn’t rely on you for football conversation in my formative years as you are/were a bogger with GAA as your main interest. And I was more sophisticated being from Wexford town, which hosts a world renowned opera festival.

I listened to that Martin O’Neill lecture on the RTE website over the weekend and I agree with his points about Celtic’s deep rooted Irishness and how supporting Celtic isn’t merely supporting Celtic but it’s also about being Irish. People can follow whoever they like but I copped that I didn’t have an affinity with Manchester or the people who who support them and it wasn’t for me. But I do have an affinity with Celtic, it’s history, it’s present and hopefully it’s future.

For me, you can enjoy films, music or whatever from anywhere in the world but to really support and enjoy and get the most out of following a team then you have to feel like you belong to it, understand their culture and be a living and breathing part of that. I get that with Celtic, AS Roma*, Wexford Youths, Philadelphia Eagles, India cricket team, Ireland cricket team, Wexford hurling and football teams, Faythe Harriers hurling club, Sarsfields GFC, and the European Mosconi Cup pool team.

So fook you Appendage.

  • I started supporting AS Roma in late November 2008 and I’m now a poassionate advocate of theirs.[/quote]

Fairly ambivalent about your ground football allegiances poundage, merely amused by your recent “Celticness” and of how anyone could put a PLC in a foreign country higher up the scale of attachment than their own national team.

Interesting that LOI should local and community based while Scottish football is not.

You were also a staunch England and Wales cricket supporter too by the way.

You are a clown.

62

[quote=“farmerinthecity”]I am going to butt in here.

I don’t understand provincial loyalty. I don’t see how two people, one from Clare and the other from Waterford, would get together and have some sort of rapport over the province that their county has been put into.

It could just be me but I don’t understand it.

Imagine me and a Rossie standing arm and arm over a Connacht victory? It will never happen. Provinces mean nothing.[/quote]

You’re right there big man, expecially with regard to all those bandwagon clowns that have turned up in recent years.

Munster means nothing except shekels for the stakeholders.

63

But I think LOI football is local and community based, or at least it should be, and I had no appetite to follow Waterford. I think if you grew up in Inchicore or Drogheda or Sligo or somewhere and liked football then there’s a fair chance you’d be well into your local team. But I don’t think Roscommon people en masse will follow their closest LOI club be it Longford Town or whoever and the same goes for other counties with no LOI presence

Good explanation above, I might use it in the future when people piss and moan about the lack of attendance at AIL matches. Why the fook should i have an affinity to Cork Con because they are the closest AIL club to me.

64

[quote=“Appendage”]You’re right there big man, expecially with regard to all those bandwagon clowns that have turned up in recent years.

Munster means nothing except shekels for the stakeholders.[/quote]

All those bandwagon clowns as you call them are pumping money into Irish rugby which is being used to develop the game form the ground up.

So as a lifelong club member I have no objection whatsoever to the bandwagon. There is room for as many as what want as well lads if ye are looking for a bit of craic.

65

[quote=“Gaillimharais”]Bollix.

Could just as easily counter argue that while 2 club teams might hate each other in the county championship, but their players/supporters can get on when watching the county team.[/quote]

Absolutely, but i don’t think Farmer thinks these things through sometimes.
i certainly have more in common with Limerick, Clare, Waterford, Kerry and especially Tipp people than i would with a Dub or someone from Armagh.

66

[quote=“caoimhaoin”]Absolutely, but i don’t think Farmer thinks these things through sometimes.
i certainly have more in common with Limerick, Clare, Waterford, Kerry and especially Tipp people than i would with a Dub or someone from Armagh.[/quote]

does someone from north louth have more in common with someone from south Down or someone from south wexford?

67

Probably not, but maybe thats the problem with Leinster.

68

Can the same not be said of people from North Clare/South Galway and East Waterford

69

You see - this is the Munster breed.

A county has an identity. A country has an identity. A province does not.

How many Munster fans out there would be supporting their ‘province’ had there not being such a thing as the Heineken Cup?

How many people out there said ‘Jaysus I am from Kerry, therefore Munster, so let’s follow this thing that is popular now - what is it called - rugby? Munster are apparently doing well in that’

Jesus there are even people from D4 supporting Munster rugby? What kind of a joke of a province is it? It is a media creation and anyone who buys into the ‘loyalty’ is an idiot.

Of course there are also Munster fans who complain when you, as a non Munster person but an Irish person, don’t support them and cheer when they lose. If the province is distinct tehn why t’fuck would you want someone from Leinster supporting you?

The reason I don’t support is not because I recognise the province structure and could not bring myself to support a province other than my own but I find both the Munster fans and Munster team to be a shower of arseholes.

70

the question should be, does someone from south wexford (or south kerry or connemara for that matter) have more in common with someone from north louth, or with someone from glasgow?

71

[quote=“farmerinthecity”]You see - this is the Munster breed.

A county has an identity. A country has an identity. A province does not.

How many Munster fans out there would be supporting their ‘province’ had there not being such a thing as the Heineken Cup?

How many people out there said ‘Jaysus I am from Kerry, therefore Munster, so let’s follow this thing that is popular now - what is it called - rugby? Munster are apparently doing well in that’

Jesus there are even people from D4 supporting Munster rugby? What kind of a joke of a province is it? It is a media creation and anyone who buys into the ‘loyalty’ is an idiot.

Of course there are also Munster fans who complain when you, as a non Munster person but an Irish person, don’t support them and cheer when they lose. If the province is distinct tehn why t’fuck would you want someone from Leinster supporting you?

The reason I don’t support is not because I recognise the province structure and could not bring myself to support a province other than my own but I find both the Munster fans and Munster team to be a shower of arseholes.[/quote]

Hey farmer Tony Ward says there’s a little bit of Munster in all of us so maybe you should soften your stance on this.

72

Tom McGuirk says that no matter where you go in the world if you say you are from Munster then you automatically get respect.

73

[quote=“farmerinthecity”]You see - this is the Munster breed.

A county has an identity. A country has an identity. A province does not.
[/quote]

They’d argue that one with you in Spain.

74

[quote=“Bandage”]Appendage, you’ve posted about my football favourites before and it seems to bother you. What’s this ‘Bandage possibly had an interest in Celtic as many of us did’ all about? I never knew you had an interest in Celtic. You might like to attend a game with me sometime? Fool.

Like many Irish youngsters, I liked an English team and Celtic growing up. I guess that was the effect of wall-to-wall coverage of English football in Ireland but I grew older and don’t like the game in England much anymore.

Things change Appendage, as well you know. For example, you were trying to bang a girl when you were 16 before you failed and moved onto another target. The latter is now your wife and the former is one of your wife’s best friends. As I said Appendage, things change.

Maybe if Wexford Youths FC were in existence when I was kid then I would have been big into them. As it is, I go to their games when I’m home. But I think LOI football is local and community based, or at least it should be, and I had no appetite to follow Waterford. I think if you grew up in Inchicore or Drogheda or Sligo or somewhere and liked football then there’s a fair chance you’d be well into your local team. But I don’t think Roscommon people en masse will follow their closest LOI club be it Longford Town or whoever and the same goes for other counties with no LOI presence.

People are naturally going to be impressionable as kids and take an English club fuelled by the media bombardment. Then some people grow out of it as they grow older whereas many others don’t. Of course, I’ve mentioned before about not having internet access growing up and no access to BBC Scotland and so access to Celtic was limited. I recall waiting for Ceefax to update for the result of the 1994 League Cup Final penalty shoot-out for example. These are things we didn’t talk about Appendage because I didn’t rely on you for football conversation in my formative years as you are/were a bogger with GAA as your main interest. And I was more sophisticated being from Wexford town, which hosts a world renowned opera festival.

I listened to that Martin O’Neill lecture on the RTE website over the weekend and I agree with his points about Celtic’s deep rooted Irishness and how supporting Celtic isn’t merely supporting Celtic but it’s also about being Irish. People can follow whoever they like but I copped that I didn’t have an affinity with Manchester or the people who who support them and it wasn’t for me. But I do have an affinity with Celtic, it’s history, it’s present and hopefully it’s future.

For me, you can enjoy films, music or whatever from anywhere in the world but to really support and enjoy and get the most out of following a team then you have to feel like you belong to it, understand their culture and be a living and breathing part of that. I get that with Celtic, AS Roma*, Wexford Youths, Philadelphia Eagles, India cricket team, Ireland cricket team, Wexford hurling and football teams, Faythe Harriers hurling club, Sarsfields GFC, and the European Mosconi Cup pool team.

So fook you Appendage.

  • I started supporting AS Roma in late November 2008 and I’m now a poassionate advocate of theirs.[/quote]

A chance lunchtime meeting with Cesc4 confirms your lack of Celticness during your school and college days. He went so far as to say you used to go to the 51 to watch City, and then suddenly it stopped.

And presumably Cesc4 was a person with whom you did discuss ground football.

Fool.

75

Ever so slightly different situation though MBB.

Sky didn’t generate the Basque brand.

76

Still provinces, still means something to the people in them, irregardless of their origins.

77

Munster are for all intents and purposes a professional Rugby Club, provinces mean nothing now in the landscape of Irish Rugby, the Munster brand was generated by the Irish Media although it is now being taken to a new level by Sky.
Didn’t see too many Munster fans at the Railway Cup Finals last year.

78

[quote=“Mullach Ide”]Munster are for all intents and purposes a professional Rugby Club, provinces mean nothing now in the landscape of Irish Rugby, the Munster brand was generated by the Irish Media although it is now being taken to a new level by Sky.
Didn’t see too many Munster fans at the Railway Cup Finals last year.[/quote]

Dont get me started on the inter-pro’s, tis a fucking joke how they’ve been marginalised. Saying that, godo point, well made.

79

I don’t know. I guess it depends on the people involved. Getting back to my original post which Appendage quoted earlier today, I would certainly see myself as having more in common with Celtic supporters than many of the Croke Park attending Irish football supporters. It’s getting back to Martin O’Neill’s point about the deeprooted Irishness of Celtic, whereas there’s seemingly loads of Irish football followers who ridicule and laugh at that mindset. They may be Irish but they’ve a different sense of Irishness than me.

I don’t necessarily have anything in common with the lads who sit in the Canal End with their tri-colour emblazoned with ‘Chelsea FC’ for example. If you read boards.ie or somewhere of that ilk, you’ll see loads of lads taking the piss out of Irish Celtic supporters while being oblivious to the club’s history. They’ll generally snigger at what they perceive as the faux Irishness of the club without realising Celtic and Ireland are interlinked.

The people I meet at Celtic matches tend to be Irish or of Irish ancestry. I imagine many of the Scottish born supporters would have the same sense of Irishness as Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy. Who are we to argue that the diaspora have less of a right to call themselves Irish as someone born here? But getting back to the point, I’d definitely have more in common with these people than a randomer from somewhere in Ireland who gets giddy at the sight of Scholesy and Cristiano and goes to Ireland games for a day out.

As I’ve said before, don’t mistake my relative lack of interest in the 26-county football team for a lack of interest in Ireland generally.

80

But how many leinster, ulster and connacht lads were at the railway cup games…Despite having a financial backer who wants to get the railway cup up and going again the GAA wants to consign it to the scrap heep…20 or 30 years ago a Railway cup medal was only second to an All Ireland medal