Some Irish fans may be starting to get worried that football actually will come home this summer.
The heatwave Ireland is currently experiencing is surely just a distraction, a way to get us out of the house and away from the television. A consolation prize to ease the pain of Gareth Southgate’s young lions lifting the World Cup on July 15.
For an Irish football fan, it is a curious feeling, one not experienced even when they had world-class players in the past such as Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen or Steven Gerrard. The draw has never opened up like this for England. If they beat Sweden, who finished below the Republic of Ireland at Euro 2016, they will play Russia or Croatia for a place in the World Cup final.
This is surely the best chance football will ever have to come home, even if the favourite for the final will come from the other side of the draw. Even the more experienced Irish football fan, who has witnessed the England hype train derail at countless tournaments over the years, may now be worried. However, there are some who reckon Irish football fans are wrong to be worried and, in some cases, wrong to not support them.
They argue that the same people who were cheering for Colombia on Tuesday night will be wearing Manchester United and Liverpool jerseys in August when the Premier League returns and therefore, they should support England at an international tournament. Yet, the argument is flawed for a couple of reasons and misses the point anyway.
Firstly, the Premier League is a global football division based in England, rather than an English league. It features elements synonymous with English football, such as open attacking games, packed stadiums with spectators sitting right on the edge of the pitch and clubs steeped in tradition and history. But two-thirds of the players aren’t English and the teams have long since passed into foreign hands. Clubs are owned by American venture capitalists, Russian billionaires and oil-rich Middle-East countries.
United and Liverpool, two of the most popular English clubs in Ireland, are both owned by Americans and their best players are South American, African and European, rather than from the cities they represent. The biggest and most popular clubs are now essentially international brands based in England.
Just because you support these teams based in England doesn’t mean you should support the English national team at the World Cup. The Premier League is watched by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. It’s highly unlikely that American Premier League supporters are cheering on the Three Lions in Russia because the United States didn’t qualify.
Secondly, Irish football fans don’t support Premier League teams because they are English clubs. Irish support for English clubs goes back decades, long before the Premier League was a global league watched by hundreds of millions and before even the advent of television. Irish support for these clubs is linked with the success of Irish players across the water.
John Giles recounts in his autobiography about how he listened to a radio broadcast of United’s 1948 FA Cup final victory when he was eight years old. United were his favourite team and Johnny Carey was the team’s captain. Carey, like Giles, was a Dubliner and he was his favourite player.
There was always an interest for young Irish footballers to “get away” to play professionally in England and, by extension, an interest in watching football in the country. In 1957, over 46,000 people were in Dalymount Park to see Shamrock Rovers lose 6-0 to United in the first round of the European Cup. A few months later, an Irish newspaper report on the Munich air crash, in which eight of United’s team died, including Dubliner Liam Whelan, refers to them as “the most popular of all cross-channel clubs” in Ireland.
"The rush for players to ‘get away’ to England has harmed Irish football and at this point it no longer makes any sense to persist with it as the primary goal, as English clubs are discarding Irish talent" – @RobRedmond10 https://t.co/Cyc7WlCeYH
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 27, 2017
This signifies that Irish interest in English clubs is deeply embedded and was originally linked to the fortunes of Irish players. It isn’t a coincidence that teams which featured brilliant Irish players in this period, such as Man United, Arsenal, Everton, Leeds United and later Liverpool, are still the most popular English clubs in Ireland. The Irish link was, along with the success experienced by this teams, the original hook for fans in the country.
The tradition was passed on as the habits of Irish supporters changed over time. The League of Ireland regularly attracted large crowds of over 20,000 at games. But the league stood still and was bypassed at a time when it became easier to consume English football through television and the print media and travel to games.
I'm back on @thesefootytimes for this piece on why crowds declined at League of Ireland games. https://t.co/rBul53w6cf
— Robert Redmond (@RobRedmond10) February 13, 2016
At no point did Irish support for an English club extend to supporting the English national team. Why would it? One of the main parts of football fandom is the brief, petty joy that comes with watching a rival lose. It’s not personal. It’s just how it is and always should be. If you didn’t laugh when Iceland beat England at Euro 2016 then you’ve either no sense of humour or football isn’t for you.
If you’re not actively supporting the English team that doesn’t mean you automatically hope that they will lose. The high-profile cheerleaders and some elements of their support make it difficult for an Irish fan to actively support the England team. But there’s nothing wrong with wishing the current team well and most Irish fans do. Southgate seems like a decent person and he deserves credit for picking the squad on merit and discarding the dead wood from the previous era.
A lot of the players also seem likeable and it is an interesting sight to see an England team play with tactics and pass the ball along the ground. Maybe one day Ireland will do the same.
The day after England won the World Cup in 1966, the headline on The Sunday Independent read, “Magnificent England” above an image of Bobby Moore lifting the trophy.
If England the tournament in Russia this summer, Harry Kane holding the World Cup aloft in Russia will be the lead image of every media outlet in Ireland. It’s inevitable, the interest will always be there.
A month later, Irish football fans who follow the Premier League will put back on their Liverpool and United jerseys. But that doesn’t mean they should actively support the English national team, nor should it. The two things aren’t the same and never have been.
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