Wanting Ireland to Lose
When I was growing up in Dublin West, which is like West Dublin only wilder, I didn’t know anybody who played rugby, and I never saw any rugby pitches. Until I went to secondary school.
A few miles from home, one of the pitches there was supposedly a rugby pitch. It looked like a gaa pitch except there was never anyone on it. One of the dozens of teachers in the school played rugby. Or so I was told. And I heard that one of the 120 pupils in our year played the strange game, but I never heard it from him.
Rugby in Dublin was played by people with funny accents deep into the southside, a people as foreign to me as English people.
When you’re a kid you just hate people for the craic, without a reason. So a different accent, a different sport, and coming from a different part of town are more than enough reasons to hate people.
Consequently watching rugby in Ireland through childhood - and by that I mean until I was 29 - I always wanted Ireland to lose. And most people I knew couldn’t care less either.
Anyway, eventually I grew up, matured, and actually met many people from the dark lands of Dublin’s southside. As you’d expect they were as bad as I thought they would be so then I wanted Ireland to lose even more.
But then I met other people who played rugby. And they were from Munster. And they were very different from the rugby players and fans in Leinster.
This isn’t just me you know.
Meanwhile the Welsh flair that had been thrilling to watch through my childhood began to wane. And England didn’t just stop losing, they started winning Grand Slams. So it became more fun wanting England to lose. But then I moved to the US.
So now I don’t care anymore. I can get excited watching Ireland play as my stomach growls “C’mon Ireland”, and I can enjoy anybody winning the World Cup, even England.
And when Ireland play their first game of rugby in gaa headquarters Croke Park, I can revel in it, and I did yesterday morning watching Ireland against France live online. And in the last moments, immediately after Ireland have made their victory seemingly safe, when France run straight back up the other end to score a game-winning dream-destroying try, the child in me can smile and stick the kettle on.
But in Irish soccer, I’m still fuming that Staunton and Delaney have their jobs.
See Also:
• Irish Lose: O Dear, O-dear O-dear O-dear
• Finding Money: An Irish Sports Story
• Beckham in Kansas City in September
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
There’s an old Irish-American joke: What’s the definition of an Irish Alzheimer? Somebody who forgets everything except their grudges … As you get older you’ll relearn your grudges an you’ll be even more colourful!