If you’ve seen my original article for A Love Supreme, now is the time to read the opposing view. I repeat Salut! Sunderland‘s offer to grant Tommy Coates, the letter writer, reasonable right of reply on these pages……..but this is what he had to say in his letter to ALS
Having read Colin Randall’s article SundIreland in ALS 159, I felt I had to write a few lines in response.
As a supporter for nearly 40 years, 22 of them whilst living in Scotland, I am not a big fan of this Paddification of my team, club and town and I also disagree with Mr Randall’s view that people who feel this way are members of the “Far Right No Surrender” brigade.
It would appear that Mr Randall’s answer to reasoned argument is the same as other left wing/commie pinko journalists. Throw in the phrase racist/bigot/homophobe etc and hope we go away.
Whilst I welcome the support of the Drumaville consortium and the appointment of Mr Keane we all know how quickly the Irish support would disappear if Keano moves on to a smaller club, say Manchester United.
ALS is a football fanzine and not the place to be discussing the past 400 years of political and religious history of Ireland, but it would be fair to say that england and the English do not hold a particular soft spot in an Irish Catholic’s heart and to think that we are all now one big happy family is a little naive onm Mr Randall’s part.
While I agree that there is, without doubt, some bandwagon jumping in the influx of new Irish fans to Sundireland (when the national squad sucks, and the rugby squad is looking sucky, and the cricket squad sucks apart from one big win, and the golfers are doing nothing, we’d leap on anything that looks like its in with a shout at a trophy) I have to take issue with this comment: “it would be fair to say that england and the English do not hold a particular soft spot in an Irish Catholic’s heart and to think that we are all now one big happy family is a little naive onm Mr Randall’s part.”
First of all, let’s dispense with the Catholic thing. The island of Saints and Scholars is long gone. We no longer go to Church in Sunday, we go to the shopping centre.
More importantly though, while it might be fair to say that England doesn’t command a particularly soft spot in most Irish hearts, unlike the Scots, we are atleast able to distinguish between the country and the people. The English, as a people, generally receive a warm welcome over here (not as warm as the cottage-burning Welsh – it’s night on ninety years since we last burnt Brits out of this country), whatever the long and complicated history of our relationship with England.
Furthermore, Irish football history needs to be looked at to see how assinine this statement was. Just look at St Jack – he’s an honourary Irish man, even with the accent he has. And didn’t half the international squad have to be coached in the words to the Irish national anthem, as it’s rare that it’s taught in the British schools they grew up going to? Sometimes, the Irish can be more English than the English themselves.
One final point re the Paddyfication of Sundireland, and it’s an important point, and one too many seem to overlook when caught in the glare of the lights surrounding Keano: St Niall is of as much importance in this issue as Keano, probably even more importance. This country is still divided by which side you took in the Battle of Saipan, and Keano gets a fair bit of stick, even still, for what happened there. Clearly, not all the Irish fans are flying in just for Keano.
The real question is how long is St Niall planning on sticking around. And how deep is he sowing the seeds of a lasting link between Irish business people and Sundireland – not just the Drumavale people, but the new fans he’s enticing to adopt Sundireland as their second team.