AROUND THE TURN of the century, I found myself in a handy number working behind the counter of an Irish Bar in Covent Garden in London’s west end.
It being the very heart of Theatre-Land, the punters were mainly office boys and girls, banker, tourists and cultural buffs. The few homesick regulars we had were cherished, reaching for copies of the Indo and Irish Times kept at the end of the bar, convincing themselves that I could pour creamy stout just like home (They weren’t. They were manky).
I had free reign of the stereo (yes kids, stereo; Google it) and kept it mainly to The Clash, The Pogues, The Doors, The Beatles, The Stone Roses, The The, all the The’s, really. And Captain Beefheart.
It was a bijou little spot. Probably an ego trip for the owner who could slap his name up there outside a pub that held a capacity of 50 people, while the 800 or so wretched souls in a coffin ship of a basement nightclub and (manky) restaurant reached into the tourists’ pockets and grabbed as much as it could.
It got hairy a few times. A group of Tottenham Hotspur lads started used it as a hitching post on their way to crosstown, ahem, engagements against Charlton, Crystal Palace and Chelsea.
Their tipple to a man/lad was a triple vodka with a teeny-tiny splash of orange juice. If you were colouring it, there was too much juice.
The atmosphere could feel febrile. Once they went on their way, always leaving the toilet mirrors broken – bless – as a personal gesture, you could breathe more easily.
I’ll come back to those boys, but I’ve been fascinated with the machismo and madness of crowds ever since. It’s genuinely incredible and unfortunately, we get to see a lot of this type of dysfunction in modern soccer.
Make way for the Gaelic Games ogre muscling out of his lane here, but I’ve been to enough soccer games at various levels to be familiar with the culture and the tastes. And I still can’t get my head around it.
Watching the box on Friday, there was a fairly ugly confrontation when a hero of the Shamrock Rovers support leaned into Galway United’s Ed McCarthy and poured verbal battery acid into his ear as he prepared to take a throw-in.
The same night, a child ‘supporting’ St Patrick’s Athletic, allegedly made a racist remark at Shelbourne’s Strength and Conditioning coach Mauro Martins.
As the weekend rolled on, we had the sight of some Manchester United and Liverpool fans taunting each other over tragedies involving both clubs.
On the television broadcasts, these incidents are barely mentioned. Not good television? Can’t clip a few gifs of that with Roy raising his eyebrows and Micah invading some personal space? So we end up with a blithe acceptance that we have to live with the depressing truth of tragedy taunting.
The great pity is that right now, Irish domestic soccer is in a healthy and interesting place. Crowds are up. Interest is high. New teams are sprouting up in every direction.
With that comes more new fans. Think of the culture they are entering.
The terms of engagement, how they relate to the fellow and opposition supporters, is all learned behaviour.
Why do we accept it?
This is not to bash soccer. Until you have stood on a sideline coaching in Tyrone adult club Gaelic football, you will forever wonder just how low people can go. And incidents of spectators on players, and rival fans on Hill 16 last summer are adding up to a shift in spectator behaviour.
And you’d believe that unless you knew your history and recognised that the odd slap has been dealt at matches since Michael Cusack merely had designer stubble.
By and large though, if you take the number of games played, it isn’t a definite, regular problem.
Crowds police themselves. The system works. That doesn’t stop spectators having a cut off each other and the occasional mouthful of bad language crops up.
Though let’s get real. Groups of young men don’t spend the game calling each other dickheads, because they don’t belong to their tribe or might come from 30 miles down the road.
Most soccer fans love the tribal nature of their game. They have their own songs and means of entertaining themselves.
The culture of Gaelic Games leaves them cold. The culture of rugby fandom is several fathoms removed altogether. They seek something more visceral.
But there’s a fair bit of copping on to be done here. Growing up, too.
The Irish mentality is not suited to this tribalism. It’s a construct. An imported culture.
Not all segregation is bad. The sight of Bohs fans on the Lansdowne Road end and Pats at the Havelock Square end in last year’s FAI Cup final was every bit as joyous as Cork supporters at the town end and Tipp at the Killinan end of Semple Stadium.
But as followers of cross-channel soccer teams have swelled their ranks of proper, genuine bone-fide idiots, patterns need checking.
Which is why the League of Ireland should announce that on a few selected dates throughout the rest of the season, fans of both teams will be fully integrated through the stands.
Some segregation needs to be retained.
But the integration project should have the full co-operation of supporter’s liaison bodies in each club. There should be clear messaging that the prevailing culture is harmful and there will be proper, serious sanction for those who cannot behave.
Because, what’s the alternative?
Keeping going as we are? So who becomes the next Stephen Bradley who has to listen to people taunting him over his sick child?
Can we not do better than this?
Back to that tiny pub in London, and there I was one sweaty Saturday, busy making sure the Cockney lads got every drop of the measure (they kept a tight eye on such matters) when who should walk in, only two dozen Millwall fans.
Well now, you can imagine.
And the odd thing is, both sets of supporters of rival fans were, for an hour and a half or so, perfectly civilised. Some joined tables of rival fans for the chats and traded ribaldry. Get this – they took turns at singing songs.
It felt like a special chemistry was at play. One single slap could have transformed the scene and chibs, pint glasses and claret may have flowed freely. But the very real threat of that prospect kept the peace.
If Millwall and Spurs fans can call an uneasy truce over some watered-down Tesco vodka, then surely lads from League of Ireland clubs can manage the same.
