Makes me sick

Diarmaid, I refer to your recent pieces in the Tribune regarding Leeds United.  I probably would’ve enjoyed the pieces more had you not let yourself down with your anti-League of Ireland diatribe which appeared in the follow-up piece (why are sequels so often a total let-down?)

I suppose I wouldn’t reckon you’re a fair-weather fan really, somebody who buys season tickets and spends so much money on Leeds over the years deserves a bit more respect than that, but when you love a club, you love it warts and all, bad Chairmen, Directors, Managers, Players, Substitutes, Supporters, Pies, the works.  You love your club unconditionally,  win, lose or draw, jammy win with rubbish scoreless draws  with glorious and unjust defeat (your European Cup Final defeat to Bayern stands alone in that regard to be fair).

So get to the point I hear you say………Well my point Diarmuid is that I am a League of Ireland fan, I’m a Rovers fan.  Some may reckon I’m a fair-weather fan in that I pretty much stopped going to Rovers games between 1996 and 2002 as the club lurched from crisis to near death in the post-Milltown meanderings.  I boycotted Tolka Park in 1987 until the Kilcoynes (bad Directors as stated above) were driven out because I love my club as I have done since 1979 when I first became a Hoop.   As the club re-claimed the Championship unexpectedly in 1994 with the RDS as its then “home” ground, I rejoiced that my club was back.  But we weren’t back.  We’d still no place to call home.  But I still loved my club.  Other commitments saw my attendance at matches wain between 1996 and 2002, but still I loved Rovers, longed for Tallaght Stadium to be finished to escape the barren and dreadful surroundings of the Morton Stadium and a 6-4 defeat to Bohs in a remarkable game.   Then the money dried up for Tallaght, inferior players came and went, decent players came and went and the Rovers, unthinkably, ingloriously, got relegated.  But still I loved my club.

While in the First Division I became a member of Shamrock Rovers when the club was saved by the Rovers fans from dying.  Yes it was that close, the most successful club in Ireland almost died.  But I became a member and continue to be a member and will continue to be until the day I die because, that phrase again, I love my club.  And thousands (or maybe tens of thousands) of like-minded people love their League of Ireland club, Bohs fans, Pats fans, Cork City and Drogheda fans (look what they’ve been put through the past 12 months), Derry City fans, hell even UCD fans and Sporting Fingal fans, few though they are, they love their club and have more “romance” and “sense” among them than you will ever have.  If you had romance you’d love Leeds, warts and all, 3-0 defeats to Swindon and all, blowing promotion and all.   If you had sense, you’d know that.  It’s nothing to with “dumb patriotism” (what a dreadful, condescending term to use), it has, like you espouse, everything to do with fatalism and optimism that characterise not only Leeds United, but every club that a fan loves, be it Rovers, Linfield, Ross County or Caernarfon Town.  Jaysus Diarmuid, Rovers fans probably have the patent for fatalism and blind optimism, even if we now finally (and deservedly in my opinion) have a decent place to call home.

Your abandoning of Leeds is ill-advised, your dismissing of League of Ireland fans as being “without an ounce of romance or sense”  even more so.  Fans love their clubs, unconditionally, totally and eternally, whatever League they support.

Regards.

Diarmuid’s reply:

Hi Phelim,

You’re dead right, of course. I spent 10 years watching Kilkenny City in all of their home matches, and a few away, before they decided to call it a day.  My best friend is a Rovers fan like yourself, so it wasn’t the likes of him, or you, that I was referring to. Anybody who supports a football team knows what sort of a commitment it is, and how the team doesn’t let you go once it’s got its claws into you.

The people I was referring to when I mentioned “dumb patriotism” were those League of Ireland fans who insist that if you are Irish you have to support an Irish team. They allow no exceptions to this. This argument has never made any sense to me and is always guaranteed to get a rise out of me because it’s based on no sound argument whatsoever. We’re all free spirits and should be allowed to support who we want without some headcase with green tinted spectacles laying down rules and telling us what we can and can’t do.

From your email, I can clearly see that you are not one of those and I’m genuinely sorry if you thought my comments were directed at all League Of Ireland fans. They weren’t – just at those few who believe that you’re betraying your country because you had the good fortune (or misfortune, if you’re a Leeds fan) to have latched onto a team from another country when you were young.

Hope that clears things up a bit. Many thanks for the email, and sorry again if you thought I was putting the boot in where it wasn’t deserved.

Best wishes,

Diarmuid