“All I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football”,
Whose side are you on?
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Teddy Jamieson, London, Yellow Jersey, 2011 ISBN 9780224082976
Having spent the first 19 years of my life in Northern Ireland in the 1950s and 60s, I enjoyed this book immensely. The author attempts to tell the story of “The Troubles” through the medium of sport. Political and sporting history are interwoven as the author struggles to define “NorthernIrishness”.
There are chapters on George Best, Mary Peters, Willie John McBride, Derry City, Northern Ireland’s World Cup exploits of 1958 and 1982 etc. The effects of the troubles and the religious and political perceptions are applied to each.
The issue of whether Ulster unionists can support an all-Ireland Rugby team is addressed with McBride an example of one who was comfortable playing in Dublin, technically for a foreign country under a foreign flag and anthem.
The 1982 Northern Ireland win over hosts Spain in the World Cup is described in a chapter called ‘Six Catholics and Five Protestants’. Of that game the author writes, “At that moment I felt more Northern Irish than I ever have. In 1982, in Northern Ireland people were dying because of their religion, or because they wore a uniform or because they just happened to turn the wrong corner at the wrong time. There were not many things to be proud of. That night, sport was one of them”.
The chapter on Gaelic sports was very poignant with an account of many decent people who wanted to do nothing more than play the sports they loved being the object of security force harassment and the target of protestant terrorists because they believed the GAA was a front for the IRA.
The rivalry between Northern Ireland’s two snooker World Champions, Alex Higgins and Dennis Taylor is seen as Catholic v Protestant with an account of Taylor’s 1985 final against Steve Davis being watched in the Maze prison with Republican prisoners supporting Taylor, causing the mainly protestant guards to support Davis! Dennis Taylor, incidentally, with Barry McGuigan is portrayed as someone whose acceptance and popularity seemed to transcend sectarian boundaries.
I was interested to read the case study of the recently formed Belfast Giants ice hockey team which established itself as politically neutral: “The club went out of its way to avoid any identifying features that could associate it with one community more than another. No flags were allowed in the arena. The national anthem wasn’t played. It encouraged a family audience”.
In the epilogue – A Northern State of Mind – the author attempts to understand his own ethnicity. He sums his feelings up: “I cling to the idea of Northern Irishness. Not out of antipathy to the Republic; more a sense that southern Ireland is different, in the same way as southern England feels different, perhaps even slightly alien to me. No, for want of an alternative, I remained Northern Irish”. Yet he has not lived in the Province for years.
A good read for anyone with an interest in the sport or politics of Northern Ireland.