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| England’s friendly with the Republic of Ireland is pointless and a mistake | England’s friendly with the Republic of Ireland is pointless and a mistake |
| (about 21 hours later) | |
| On the face of it there are plenty of good footballing reasons to take an interest in England’s dog days friendly against the Republic of Ireland next month in Dublin. Roy Hodgson’s squad, announced on Thursday with three potential new caps to add to 29 awarded to date, confirmed his catholic selection tastes. Here is a national team manager who has made it quite clear that on his watch there are certain basic, non‑negotiable qualities required before a player can expect to be fitted for a first international cap, mainly (a) Englishness; and (b) possession of a head. | On the face of it there are plenty of good footballing reasons to take an interest in England’s dog days friendly against the Republic of Ireland next month in Dublin. Roy Hodgson’s squad, announced on Thursday with three potential new caps to add to 29 awarded to date, confirmed his catholic selection tastes. Here is a national team manager who has made it quite clear that on his watch there are certain basic, non‑negotiable qualities required before a player can expect to be fitted for a first international cap, mainly (a) Englishness; and (b) possession of a head. |
| The selection of Jamie Vardy is a bold move, reward for hard work, great competitive spirit and Vardy’s own endearing habit of scurrying wildly about the pitch, veins bursting, eyes boggled, apparently convinced that if he stops running at any stage the floodlights will be switched off, the crowd ushered out and the whole glorious experience of being allowed to play football for a living abruptly cancelled. | The selection of Jamie Vardy is a bold move, reward for hard work, great competitive spirit and Vardy’s own endearing habit of scurrying wildly about the pitch, veins bursting, eyes boggled, apparently convinced that if he stops running at any stage the floodlights will be switched off, the crowd ushered out and the whole glorious experience of being allowed to play football for a living abruptly cancelled. |
| Beyond this the Ireland game stands alone as an oddity, a false note and quite possibly a terrible mistake. The question here is not so much why is this happening. The answer to which is clear enough. A decision has been taken that it would be politically and commercially expedient for England to play in Ireland again. The real issue is why have the Football Association, the police and anybody with any interest in the outcome agreed that this might be a good idea. | Beyond this the Ireland game stands alone as an oddity, a false note and quite possibly a terrible mistake. The question here is not so much why is this happening. The answer to which is clear enough. A decision has been taken that it would be politically and commercially expedient for England to play in Ireland again. The real issue is why have the Football Association, the police and anybody with any interest in the outcome agreed that this might be a good idea. |
| As dead-air friendlies go it is hard to imagine a more pointlessly provocative choice of fixture, an occasion that basically boils down to a game of chicken with the more unpredictable elements of the away support. Already there have been well-meaning pleas not to engage in the kind of behaviour England’s volatile travelling minority shouldn’t have been given the chance to engage in in the first place. Not to mention another doomed campaign to stop people singing “Fuck the IRA!” – suggested alternative lyrics: “Follow England away!” – through the entire self-hobbling exercise. | As dead-air friendlies go it is hard to imagine a more pointlessly provocative choice of fixture, an occasion that basically boils down to a game of chicken with the more unpredictable elements of the away support. Already there have been well-meaning pleas not to engage in the kind of behaviour England’s volatile travelling minority shouldn’t have been given the chance to engage in in the first place. Not to mention another doomed campaign to stop people singing “Fuck the IRA!” – suggested alternative lyrics: “Follow England away!” – through the entire self-hobbling exercise. |
| Why is this happening? This has been an unlovely fixture for as long as anyone cares to remember. Hardly surprising given England and Ireland have been in a state of almost continuous hostility, from the first Norman invasion, through the settlements under Henry VIII and a period of suppression and famine that led Jonathan Swift to propose the Irish might be better off selling their children as food to the English nobility, even going so far as to suggest a few recipes. | Why is this happening? This has been an unlovely fixture for as long as anyone cares to remember. Hardly surprising given England and Ireland have been in a state of almost continuous hostility, from the first Norman invasion, through the settlements under Henry VIII and a period of suppression and famine that led Jonathan Swift to propose the Irish might be better off selling their children as food to the English nobility, even going so far as to suggest a few recipes. |
| Football has been an intermittent builder of bridges. The early professional era brought an influx of Irish players and, in their wake, Irish support. For a while Everton were the English Irish club. Then it was Manchester United, a relationship consummated after the first trophy of the Busby era when Johnny Carey took the FA Cup to be paraded through the streets of Dublin. | Football has been an intermittent builder of bridges. The early professional era brought an influx of Irish players and, in their wake, Irish support. For a while Everton were the English Irish club. Then it was Manchester United, a relationship consummated after the first trophy of the Busby era when Johnny Carey took the FA Cup to be paraded through the streets of Dublin. |
| Things began to fall apart from the mid-1960s – the Balaclava Years – during which England didn’t play a non-compulsory fixture in Ireland for three decades. | Things began to fall apart from the mid-1960s – the Balaclava Years – during which England didn’t play a non-compulsory fixture in Ireland for three decades. |
| Understanding of the nuances of colony and partition may have remained a little confused on the English side. In his first autobiography Roy Keane recalls Andy Townsend captaining Ireland against Northern Ireland at Windsor Park and being stunned - yes, stunned - to find the crowd a seething pit of sectarian hate. “Roy, what’s all this about?” Townsend asked as they walked out. But on the travelling terraces not surrendering to the IRA became entrenched as a key feature of chest-beating nationalism, anti-Irishness a statement of ultra-Englishness. | |
| Then came 1995, the Riot of Lansdowne Road, Combat 18 and all that. Followed by 20 years of tactful distance. Followed by this. The notion it is now a good idea to play in Dublin again is clearly tied in some way to the wider recent political process of reconciliation. Prince Charles has been doing his bit, travelling to meet the political elite of a country where, even last week, police were foiling a dissident plot to murder him. The Queen has had that nice Martin McGuinness to dinner. It is, those who decide have decided, a good moment to build some bridges. | Then came 1995, the Riot of Lansdowne Road, Combat 18 and all that. Followed by 20 years of tactful distance. Followed by this. The notion it is now a good idea to play in Dublin again is clearly tied in some way to the wider recent political process of reconciliation. Prince Charles has been doing his bit, travelling to meet the political elite of a country where, even last week, police were foiling a dissident plot to murder him. The Queen has had that nice Martin McGuinness to dinner. It is, those who decide have decided, a good moment to build some bridges. |
| Except, for football it’s not a good moment at all. For whatever reason – hard times, political shifts, cyclical boredom – there has been a degree of renewed toxic intensity among those who follow England abroad. The FA has been warned by Fifa over fans’ behaviour, some (disputed) racist chants and the old insistence on banging on about the now-defunct Irish Republican Army. The song itself is not really anything to do with Ireland now, but is instead a generalised anthem of decay and trapped rage and taken up separately by the English Defence League (how long before we hear a remixed “No Surrender to the Isis?”). | Except, for football it’s not a good moment at all. For whatever reason – hard times, political shifts, cyclical boredom – there has been a degree of renewed toxic intensity among those who follow England abroad. The FA has been warned by Fifa over fans’ behaviour, some (disputed) racist chants and the old insistence on banging on about the now-defunct Irish Republican Army. The song itself is not really anything to do with Ireland now, but is instead a generalised anthem of decay and trapped rage and taken up separately by the English Defence League (how long before we hear a remixed “No Surrender to the Isis?”). |
| The song will be heard again in Dublin, as it was at Celtic Park last November when England played Scotland. And despite the fact none of this really matters in isolation – it is after all just a song, as are God save the Queen, Amhrán na bhFiann and Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton – there will be the usual entrenching of positions, possibly even a step along the road to being banned from some future tournament if Fifa’s reported threats are to be believed. | |
| Football is a fool to itself on these occasions. This is a sport that was more or less cut loose by successive governments in the 1980s, left to fester in its decaying corrugated infrastructure, abandoned to its disasters. But here it is again, snapped to attention and dragging everyone off to Dublin for a self-inflicted farrago-in-the-making. At the end of which this does at least promise to be a genuinely fascinating ill-advised mid-summer friendly. Even if the most obvious note of tension is the issue of why it’s happening in the first place. | Football is a fool to itself on these occasions. This is a sport that was more or less cut loose by successive governments in the 1980s, left to fester in its decaying corrugated infrastructure, abandoned to its disasters. But here it is again, snapped to attention and dragging everyone off to Dublin for a self-inflicted farrago-in-the-making. At the end of which this does at least promise to be a genuinely fascinating ill-advised mid-summer friendly. Even if the most obvious note of tension is the issue of why it’s happening in the first place. |