Days of Heaven by Declan Lynch Read Free Book Online

his while.
    You could tell he’d been abroad, to be so attuned to the commercial realities of modern sport. That he had left Paddy behind on the Sally Gap in this regard. The Boys In Green, in these
early days, would be drinking all night with journalists, expecting nothing in return expect perhaps the vague prospect that one of them might write his autobiography, or spending the afternoon
singing in Windmill Lane for no great reward except perhaps its knock-on benefit for squad morale. The players singing ‘The Boys In Green’ on the Late Late Show , for all the
world like a bunch of well-meaning lads from the pub down the road who had got this thing together to pay for an operation for a sick child is one of the more poignant images of that time —
but a step up from the night when Gay Byrne announced, ‘I have just been handed a piece of paper here which says that Jack Charlton has been appointed manager of Ireland — whatever that
means’.
    Roche, his jersey plastered with the logos which he insisted be in place before any pictures would be taken, had left us all behind. And we revered him for it, gathering in multitudes in the
centre of Dublin to welcome him home from the Tour de France, where he had stood on the podium on the Champs Élysées with the paws of our Taoiseach all over him, claiming credit where
none was due.
    Again, Roche had performed his miracles despite being Irish, where his sport had had a storied past but no future at the time he emerged from the suburb of Dundrum, radiating class. It was the
French on that occasion who supplied the training and the stage and whatever else you needed to get yourself up the Alpe d’Huez and into the yellow jersey.
    But usually it was Johnny England who made our sporting wishes come true. Whether we liked it or not, the English first division had for decades been regarded as the natural destination of the
most talented Irish ball-players. And support for English football ran deep in the cities of Dublin and Cork and the garrison towns too, and beyond — I grew up in the garrison town of Athlone
in the 1970s, when almost everyone in my school had a natural affinity with Leeds or Liverpool or Man Utd.
    But the country lads weren’t exactly immune to the attractions of association football either. What Jack did, with the results he achieved, was the popularisation of football in Ireland,
beyond this hard core of aficionados which had always existed. And in so doing, with the primitive style which he favoured, he alienated the football men, the people who had always loved the game
and kept it going.
    Jack certainly didn’t bring football to a new level in Ireland, at least not in a good way, but he brought the popularity of football to a level whereby Gaelic matches were cancelled
because they clashed with World Cup matches and English football, as represented by the Premier League, has arguably become our de facto national sport.
    You could suggest that the GAA has obvious merits as a ‘community’ organisation, but equally, on the sporting side, it actually demands a lot less of its
followers than the English game. A Kerryman would get away with not making a trip to Dublin until the All-Ireland final, an extraordinarily light load to bear, when you consider that the same
Kerryman, if he supports Liverpool, would be giving his full attention to at least two games a week from the month of August through to the following May. And then there are the Leinster hurling
finals with Croke Park only one-quarter full, because Kilkenny fans don’t suppose their team will be needing them yet.
    Certainly the GAA provides a few big days out, generally in fine weather, but ‘the ban’ on its members from playing foreign games, a ban that was only lifted
in 1971, showed that sport in itself was not necessarily the GAA ’s main priority, that it was also a political and cultural movement which defined the nation in a
narrow and discriminatory fashion,