AS I WAS SAYING...
Professional football is now a glamour game. It attracts huge audiences worldwide. It is also a huge industry, attracting billions of pounds in sponsorship, investment and endorsements. Top players command weekly wages of £10,000. The elite few can top £50,000. And that's only the 'bread-and-butter' stuff. The cream comes with endorsements. The elite few have wealth beyond measure. Even the moderate are comfortable.
But it was not always so. Johnny Giles was the finest Irish professional footballer of the last generation. From a Dublin working class background, Giles's prodigious talents were recognised early on. As a young teenager, he was whisked away to England to become the property of Leeds United Football Club. His every need was catered for: financial, educational, emotional, spiritual. (Yes, indeed, spiritual! Sunday Mass was compulsory for Catholics under a particular manager at Leeds in the 1960s.)
Giles had great talent, iron discipline, and, most of all, a keen entrepreneurial instinct. He would have been more 'financially alert' than the great majority of his contemporaries. Giles maintains that, throughout the 50s and 60s, the wages of the players were almost 'index-linked': the top players were paid about four times the common industrial wage of the day. If the average industrial worker in the 60s received a weekly wage of £50, the above average footballer could expect no more than £200. In this way a sense of proportion and perspective was retained. Footballers rarely lost touch with their working-class roots. Again, Giles is a good example. He was in his day Ireland's most-capped player; he was Ireland's most prolific goal-scorer. Subsequently, his wealth would come from his shrewd business enterprises around Dublin's city centre. Yet, despite his celebrity status and his great wealth, Giles strolls around Meath Street and Thomas Street on most Saturday mornings, scrutinising the contents of the dealers's stalls, trading good-humoured banter with the 'auld wans', obviously very much at home with his own people. This, you say to yourself, is how it should be!
But this is not how it is now, obviously. With England's World Cup victory in 1966, football in these parts changed. Henceforth, football and TV would feed off each other. Football (and footballers) would become consumer products. Ironically, as we saw so clearly during the week, the real victims are the footballers themselves, (or at least the vulnerable ones). One Harry Cleary, in a letter to The Irish Times, summed up the scene for the rest of us:
"Roy Keane has done a service....to leaders and parents everywhere...a team is just a team. I have a 16-month-old boy who indulges in the same level of professionalism as Mr Keane to get what he wants. I urge all leaders not to capitulate to the petulance of prima donnas."We all know that football is only a game, that there are no lives at stake here. Yet capitulation would be a major mistake. Because Mr Cleary's 16-month-old son is watching. That's the problem. If Senior Keane got his way, Junior Cleary's deep suspicions would be finally confirmed: it pays to throw the rattle out of the pram. Then bouncers would replace baby-sitters as toddlers turned terrorists. No parent would be safe!
-Dick Lyng.
EVENTS THIS WEEK
- CHURCH RENOVATIONS 'THINK IN': We are holding a 'think-in' in the Priory today in connection with finalising our plans for the renovation of the Church. This is the final step in the 'local' section of the process. Our next step then is to present our plans to the Árd Cómhairle in Dublin for final ratification. So the 'Renovation Group' will meet today between 3.00pm and 6.00pm
- GOBÁN SAOR MATTERS: Casting and Costing for this elaborate production will continue (unabated) in the Priory dining room tomorrow night at 8.00pm. Some important róles were filled at our meeting on Monday night last. For example, Eamon, solitary son of the Gobán, was provided with a wife in his absence. But yet more important ones remain to be filled. We would also welcome stage-hands, gofers, prompters, a myriad of 'hands' that are so central to local productions. Our production deadline is the last week of July, 2002.
- SUMMER FESTIVAL LITURGY: A meeting will be held in connection with the above on Tuesday night next in the Priory at 8.00pm. We already have in place the core of a Liturgy Group. They keep things ticking over during the year, by drawing up rotas, preparing special Masses, and generally ensuring that matters liturgical are afforded the attention they deserve. However, extra people are essential for the preparation of the Mid Summer Festival Liturgy. It really is a major undertaking and it is quite unfair to leave all the spade work to the few willing horses (if you will pardon my hopelessly mixed metaphor!). Knowledge of liturgy is not a requirement at all. All you need bring to the meeting is a willingness to help out!
- THE SACRED HEART: You will notice that the Sacred Heart statue was restored to its original location during the week. Well, almost, but not quite! The statue now stands to the left hand side of the altar, as you view the altar from the body of the Church. Is this option feasible as a new location?
ENO
To be a sumo wrestler
it pays to be fat,
'Nonsense,' said Eno,
'I don't believe that.'
So he took his skinny
little frame
to Tokyo
in search of fame.
But even with God on
his side
Eno got trod on
and died.
-Roger McGough.
CATHEDRAL PILGRIMAGE
For perfectly understandable reasons, there is a certain urgency about the following venture! The priests of the Cathedral Parish are organising a pilgrimage to Lourdes and the Shrines of France from July 1st to July 10th . This is in conjunction with the annual Galway Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes. This pilgrimage will include two days of sightseeing and (spare me!) shopping in Paris. (Cost: €750) If you are interested, look at the poster on display in the Church porch and contact Seán O'Flaherty.
Memorable Quotes
- "Professional football is no longer a game. It's a war. And it brings out the same primitive instincts that go back thousands of years." -Malcolm Allison, England football Manager, 1973.
- I will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles to agitate a windbag." -Andrew Dixon White (1832-1918) -on on his refusal to allow the Cornell American Football team to visit Michigan for a game.
- "Football causeth much fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel picking, murder, homicide and great effusion of blood, as daily experience teacheth." -Philip Stubbes in Anatomie of Abuses, 1583.
Stands up to keep the goal."
-A.E Housman (1859-1936)
Roy Keane, sent off by his own manager before he could even collect his first yellow card, has been sent back home to Ireland.... He was supposed to be captain, setting an example to the rest of the team; instead he completely lost his reason, as if demons were playing penalty shoot-outs inside his head.
It would not be right to elevate this shabby incident above its worth...the reality is that his ego was simply too big and his temper too short for the noble role assigned to him. Ireland should go for it, leave their former captain to watch it on TV at his Cheshire home. At least he cannot be sent home from there.
The Guardian editorial, Saturday, May 25, 2002.