We’re not Brasil we’re Tuaisceart Éireann

More on  the future.

(In September, a 13 y.o. lad called Christopher Athertton made a substitute appearance for Glenavon's senior team in a Cup match. Naturally this attracted a lot of attention in the media, including a long article in The Athletic. Behind a paywall, here is an extract. CA's dad Stephen is a Celtic-supporting Scot who met CA's mum when he moved to NI, btw).

Meet Christopher Atherton, 13, the United Kingdom’s youngest ever senior footballer

(By Greg O'Keeffe, Sep 25, 2022)

“[Glenavon is] a cross-community club,” [Stephen] explains. “Christopher is from the Catholic tradition in Northern Ireland. There are separate schools, so he wouldn’t get to mix with many people from the other side, but Glenavon does a great job of bringing boys from all sides of the community together. It’s crucial in a post-conflict society.

“Some of his best friends now are Protestants and he wouldn’t have had that life experience if it wasn’t for this soccer club.”

Like Everton captain Seamus Coleman, Christopher has also grown up playing Gaelic football, shining as a full forward for his team Maghery. It is a sport that demands a robust approach.

“Gaelic cultivates bravery and character and he’s played that since four or five as well,” says Stephen. “He’s been knocked out twice playing that. It’s parish versus parish and it can be very parochial. Some games are like a bear-pit and the refs are worse than soccer refs.

“But this summer he had to make a decision and decided to concentrate on soccer.”

Clonmore, where the Atherton family live, does not have a soccer pitch. There is a chapel, a school, a small housing estate and a Gaelic football field. No pub, no shops.

Stephen told his son that he must practise every day, always using both feet, if he wanted to become a soccer player, so Christopher would diligently head for the only available pitch.

It is a sign of the times that the neighbours were nothing but supportive. In previous decades, it would have been frowned upon for a boy to play soccer, labelled a “garrison game” by Irish nationalists because of its popularity in towns where British soldiers were based, on a Gaelic field.

The past lends a poignant family symmetry to Christopher’s story. His maternal grandfather Eddie Moore was also a gifted Gaelic footballer and soccer player. He was considered to be a rising star at Glenavon in the 1960s, but his career at Mourneview Park ground to a premature halt, though, when he was subject to the infamous ban imposed by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) that forbade players from taking part in sports such a soccer and rugby.

“Given what happened to Christopher’s Granda when he was a young player, the story of last Tuesday night is one of hope,” says Stephen. “It’s about as-yet-unrealised potential, not only of my son’s footballing dreams and ambitions but of Northern Ireland as a society itself.”

This summer, Christopher had to make the difficult choice to forgo Gaelic football to play for Glenavon with his peers in the under-14s at the Super Cup (formerly known as the Milk Cup, a renowned international youth tournament that has featured a young Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney among others).

His goals helped Glenavon reach the final, where they were narrowly defeated by Charlton Athletic. Then, in August, he played in a friendly for a Northern Ireland development squad against a Chelsea side in August, creating three goals in a 5-3 win.

His step up in age group at international level will involve travelling with the under-16s for a tournament in Finland next month.

Northern Ireland’s gain may turn out to be the Republic’s loss. Christopher, who has an Irish passport, was on the pathway to represent the Republic of Ireland and impressed during Dublin trials in 2021, but the Northern Irish FA’s head of elite youth performance, Andy Waterworth, intervened and persuaded Stephen to bring Christopher to them.

Stephen speaks glowingly of Waterworth and his staff, who he says have helped develop Christopher at training in Belfast over the past year.

Not sure if it was that one or this one I was outside.  Was there one near Shaftsbury Sq?

GSTQ is not your national anthem whilst Amhrán na bhFiann has always been ours, so quite a big difference and the reality is that WP is a cold house for Nationalists - always has been and always will be.

They all must have said they were called billy and lived near the boyne!

What anthem was used before the split?