[ Irish KC ]
Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

Speaking of football, former Kansas City Wizard, Scotland’s Mo Johnston, was sacked as coach of the New York Red Bulls last Tuesday.

Having watched Johnston play for Celtic and Everton FC, as well as the Wizards (I never saw him play for Rangers, also of Glasgow) I have a soft spot for Mo-Jo and was disappointed to read this news.

Celtic Football Club of Glasgow has a long history of association with Ireland and the Irish, and if the Irish diaspora wants a club to follow in Europe (outside of Ireland itself), Celtic is the team to pick, not Manchester United or Liverpool or any other team whose relative success makes them a convenient option.

Although I’ve seen Johnston score for the Wizards in Kansas City and for Everton in England, my favourite goal I saw Super Mo score was for Celtic in an extraordinary game in Dublin. As well as being called the Bhoys, Celtic are also known as the Hoops - because they play in green and white horizontal stripes.

The most successful club in Irish football history, Shamrock Rovers, are also known as The Hoops - because they also play in green and white hoizontal stripes. More than that, Shamrock Rovers fans have a tendency to be followers of Celtic - two countries means two different leagues so there’s no conflict unless they are drawn together in European competition. Well one evening in 1986 in the European Cup, they were.

The Irish fans applauded both teams, and Celtic fans went on the pitch presenting Irish political banners to where most Rovers fans were congregated. It was all one great big bizarre love-in. Until late in the game, and against the run of play, Mo Johnston scored a tremendous goal.

This just didn’t seem fair so the Irish crowd decided they didn’t like Celtic or their fans any more (just for this fixture you understand). Two weeks later in the second leg in Scotland Celtic won two-nil, eliminating Rovers with an aggregate score of three-nil.

Since then Celtic, the first British club, and only Scottish club, to win the European Cup, have have had one of their more successful periods, particularly when under Irish manager Martin O’Neill. Shamrock Rovers however, have struggled to even stay in existence, with their stadium being demolished and developed for housing in Dublin.

If you’ve been following the World Cup, you may have noticed one Henrik Larsson playing for Sweden. Larsson is one of Celtic’s acknowledged greatest ever players, one of the top three goalscorers in the club’s history, and he scored the very late equalizer in the two-all draw with England.

Being fired seems rather rough on Mo Johnston as he came on board late last season, took the Red Bulls to the play-offs and has only lost three out of twelve games so far this season. However declaring themselves ‘results-driven’, the Red Bulls have said that having only two wins out of those 12 games is unacceptable.

Despite scoring first in seven of 12 games, New York only won one of those games. Two of the 12 games finished in scoreless ties. Of the three games in which they’ve fallen behind, the Red Bulls rallied once to win.

For what it’s worth, the rest of the soccer-playing world cares not an iota for statistics such as these. And obviously while not perfect, the seven draws the Red Bulls achieved are not necessarily seen as such a bad thing outside of the MLS.

Perhaps the clue in our different perspectives on drawn games is in the notation for how we write records of results. The rest of the soccer world writes results in Win-Drew-Lost order, whereas the MLS writes Win-Lost-Drew. This is way more confusing than driving on the other side of the road.

But then so is the idea of re-branding a franchise, so that you change the name, colors, and logo of a team. The MetroStars in New Jersey had begun a history; the New York Red Bulls is a crass piece of commercialism.

I once met Johnston’s wife when he was in Kansas City, and she proclaimed that, My Maurice makes me tea in bed in the morning.

Mo, Mo, Super Mo.

See Also:
   • The World Cup in Kansas City
   • Oh Baby Let The Free Bird Fly
   • Former KC Wizard Joins Irish Legend

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 2nd, 2006 at 4:30 pm and is filed under 1-eolai, Nostalgia, Scotland, Sport. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.