League of Ireland supporters are dwarfed in this country by Premier league fans. Thousands will travel every season across the water by flight or ferry to watch their heroes play. It’s something neither we, nor even GAA fans can stop. Outfought on every level it may seem, but the fact you can watch your local club play a game free of avarice, ignorance and newspaper headlines about our players the next morning is a good thing. The trappings of the game in England have made villains of some players, mainly of their own doing. And with John Terry around it shows little sign of stopping.
Terry seems to epitomize all that’s wrong with the game at Premiership level. Though it’s unfair to tar every professional footballer, he appears one in a long list of people whose ego is matched in size only by his wage packet. Who doesn’t live in the real world, who exists in another dimension where the rules are that there are none. Do as you please, as often as you want, never fearing reprisal, and should there come a day your past catches up with you – silence a paper, pay someone off, whatever it takes. It’s that simple.
It would never happen here, though probably due to the fact that our clubs are simply not in the same ball-park as our English counterparts when it comes to payments or being stalked by the paparazzi!
But that's fine. Nobody expects to measure up to the No.1 professional sport in England, but with that power comes a certain sense of responsibility which is sadly lacking in many English players’ cases. All you need is an ego and some money to become famous for being infamous.
Don’t get me wrong, John Terry is a gifted footballer and has been a stalwart at Stamford Bridge over the last ten years which has seen Chelsea emerge from decades of underachievement to title and Cup winning sides, yet most people seem to associate him with his off the field activities these days. Yes it’s not his fault a Russian billionaire (who had first fancied buying Spurs before choosing Stamford Bridge over White Hart Lane) pays him £100,000 a week but it is his role when captain of his club to embody everything good and wholesome at Chelsea Football Club - where he is sadly lacking. Either Terry has a repetitive case of amnesia, likes newspaper headlines, or just doesn’t care what you or I think. From allegations of extra-martial affairs, to shouting abuse at American tourists about the decimation of the World Trade Centre the day after the attacks, most people with a relatively operational moral compass have probably worked out what kind of a person he is by now.
And for a player like Terry who had everything going for him , that's sad.
What’s propelled the Chelsea captain to a higher level of fairytale existence however must surely be the Champions League Finale v Bayern which, for the first time in the competition (and possibly the entire history of the game) a man who single-handedly almost cost Chelsea their final spot strips off his suit, gets into his kit, collects a trophy in a game he didn’t play in and walks away with a medal! Watching him on the field along with Chelsea CLUB OFFICIALS with CHAMPIONS LEAGUE MEDALS around their necks, you just had to laugh. Never kick a ball in your entire life, use a pen from 9-5, but stand on the field with your medal no different to Drogba or Lampard.
That I won’t blame on Mr Terry. That’s just the way the game has gone. Want to know how many corporate tickets were used at the Allianz Arena for the 2012 final? Just count the empty seats at the start of the second half kick off! Prawn sandwiches, back-slapping and tabs behind the bar will always take precedence over getting back into your seat to watch the game.
The fact that our game and fans here aren’t morally corrupt in many ways makes it more gratifying. And if the ‘barstooler’ next to you in the pub laughs and tells you an Irish side would never win a Champions League, Europa League or even the Johnstones Paint Trophy, you can at least hold your head high at the fact you’ve probably supported your League of Ireland club from birth (not bought into them when millionaires invested), felt part of the fabric of your club and not just a consumer, and that saw you being able to watch your heroes play week-in-week-out, without great expense.
Sure there are problems within our game; and most of them centre on those overused two words “financial difficulty”. For various reasons recently a couple of clubs have been forced yet again to rely on the ground troops to come up with a myriad of ways to keep afloat. The difference between them and a Premiership side is that there’s rather more chance of their players helping out at every function to keep the club alive than being done for drunk-driving - the badge of honour of Premiership bad boys. You’re not getting those column inches in the English tabloids, boys, unless you’ve got one of those on your rap sheet!
Footballers aren’t the brightest. I remember one at Exeter City who after a training session put his socks in a microwave and burned down half the building. Stupidity is one thing, ignorance is another. Do you really think ‘JT’ would have been absolutely crushed if Chelsea hadn’t won? Methinks staying in a suit watching Frank Lampard collecting the trophy and receiving no medal would have hurt a whole lot more. For the good of the game that should have happened. Mind you, if it did, you could just see Terry going to the networks and newspapers and saying “Don’t show that on TV or write about it tomorrow… it doesn’t involve me!”
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