Is it coz I is black and a footballing millionaire?

A couple of incidents in the stratospheric heights of football recently serve to illustrate the new paradigm of racism today.

Firstly was bananagate, an incident of shocking racism that wasn't, which took place in London at an international friendly between Scotland and Brazil. Brazil won, thanks to two goals from wunderkind Neymar, who, like many Brazilians, is a tanned lad of multiple ethnic backgrounds.

In short, a banana was thrown onto the pitch near him at one point. Obviously, this was a despicable act of racism on the part of dour, sore-losing, pasty-white Scots. We had Neymar, who while still only a teen is already a millionaire and set to become exceptionally rich this summer when he moves to a top European club, pontificate about how offended he was by this appalling act. We had his teammate, the indisputably white Lucas Leiva, rant even more about how such actions were neanderthal and unacceptable in this modern age 'where we are all equal.'

Never mind the small fact that the banana had come from the end holding the Brazilian fans. The Scots, while protesting their innocence, made all the usual statements about stamping out racism. How could they do otherwise, with the ongoing sectarian problems of Celtic and Rangers?

Now it transpires that, in fact, it was thrown by a German tourist who was sat in the Brazilian end. This teen has been interviewed by the Metropolitan police for, effectively, just littering. The police are happy he had no racist intent and was just being stupid.

Will Neymar and Leiva now apologise for maligning the entire nation of Scotland? Don't hold your breath. Racism doesn't flow in that direction, as we well know.

The second issue was the publication of a report detailing the apparent lack of black managers in football. There were only 2 out of 92 in the whole English league. This, apparently, amounts to racism among the clubs, and the report noted that since fans had no problem with black managers, it was institutionalised within the industry of football at the top level.

Until you look at a couple of statistics, that is. The black population of England is around 2%. So basically, that's spot on the ratio of black managers in soccer. Another interesting statistic is that around a quarter of players are black, some ten or twelve times their prevalence in the general population.

So when the demographically proportionate number of managers are black, it's apparently insufficient and evidence of racism, but when ten times the proportion of players are black, that's not. It's just evidence of superior skills.

No one thought to look at the superior skills argument as it relates to the black managers. Two of the most high profile ones - John Barnes and Paul Ince - have been largely rubbish, in Barnes's case, spectacularly so. Gullit and Hughton have performed much better. The evidence points to black managers being just as likely to be rubbish as white managers.

Incidentally, the report didn't even refer to the astounding dearth of players or managers of Asian sub-continental origin. Perhaps sense prevailed at this point and they realised that those kids all gravitate to cricket instead.

Here is the modern race paradigm. It's still racism even when the proportion of black people in a given environment reflects exactly the population as a whole. Fair isn't fair. More than fair is the new fair. But it isn't racism when the proportion of black people in that environment exceeds tenfold the proportion in the population at large. That's not unfair. That's just greater ability.

And this paradigm cannot ever be queried, because anything and everything will be twisted into an allegation of racism, even when the complainants are multi-millionaires proclaimed globally, and even when the incident is something as daft and innocuous as a German teenager throwing away a banana he didn't want to eat while enjoying a soccer game on a trip abroad.

No comment required

Chelsea 0 - 1 Liverpool FC

Whine Rooney

At the Euro 2004 Championships, the sports journalists used to take the piss out of Sven-Goran Eriksson's accent.

Before each press conference, they would disseminate 'bingo cards'. Each had a well-used phrase from the Swede's hackneyed and accented vocabulary on it.

Some would get 'My bee, my bee not', Sven's favourite answer when asked if a particular player would be in the first eleven for the next game.

The winning bingo card was invariably the 'Whine Rooney' card, which wasn't surprising given Rooney's central role for England in that tournament.

Tonight, Rooney finally lived up to Sven's mispronunciation. The despicable underperformer had the shocking audacity to berate the England fans who booed his misfiring team on camera. Here's the footage if you missed it:



This pulchritudinally challenged, ill-educated chav has been made a multi-millionaire by the very people he attacked. Without them, he'd be stacking shelves in Toxteth or drawing the dole.

They paid thousands of pounds to travel to South Africa to support their country in the World Cup. They have every right to boo a performance as abject and pathetic as England's was against the Algerians.

Rather than mouthing off like a lout, he should be on his knees apologising to them profusely. They made him what he is. He owes them, not the other way around.

Worst World Cup ever?

Certainly shaping up that way so far.

Why is this World Cup crap? Let us count the ways:

1. The vuvuzela drone. Apart from being profoundly annoying, it also drowns out fan singing, players can't communicate with each other, and it's so loud people are suffering from temporary deafness, and likely long-term hearing loss.
Furthermore, the argument that it is somehow integral to South African sport is pure horseshit. The vuvuzela was invented only a few years ago, and is already banned at cricket and rugby games in South Africa.

2. No goals. Or rather, far fewer than one might have expected. You could attribute this to the 'concede nothing' defensive mentality rife in the modern game. But I'm more inclined to blame...

3. The Jabulani ball. Seemingly lighter than a beach ball, this balloon has eradicated the possibility of scoring from set pieces. Once it's lofted into the air, it seems to go into orbit. Merely tapping it lightly is enough to send it into row Z at lightspeed.

4. Empty stadiums. This is what happens when FIFA insists that a 3rd world country spend money it can't afford building a plethora of soccer temples destined to fall into disrepair just like all those nice Olympic stadia in Athens have already.
Inevitably, the country tries to retrieve some money by pricing accordingly for the rich affluent Western fans who will come. Except they won't come, because this World Cup is being held in a 3rd world country with a global reputation for stratospheric rape and murder rates.
Result? Last minute ticket giveaways, and yet the stadia STILL aren't remotely close to full.

5. Unrest and danger. I like South Africa, but there's no way I was ever going to attend this tournament. The risks are simply too high. When the stadium stewards are causing riots rather than preventing them, a tragedy is inevitable.

6. No one has crippled that cheating thief Thierry Henry yet.

7. And now FIFA are getting the South African police to arrest women for wearing orange skirts in the stadium.

Roll on Brazil 2014. It can't come soon enough.

Cliftonville FC 3 Glasgow Celtic 0

No, that's not a typo. It really happened.

North Belfast part-timers Cliftonville wallopped mighty Glasgow Celtic 3-0 last night and it could actually have been easily 6.

Few things on Earth are likely to unite the loyalist denizens of Ibrox and the Irish republicans of Ardoyne. But this astonishing victory by Ireland's oldest club over the famous Glasgow Celtic just might.

Fair enough, it wasn't quite Celtic's first XI. But there were numerous players on display for the Scots whose individual alleged values far exceeds that of Cliftonville's entire team, and Solitude stadium too.

My suggestion? Celtic should ditch the lot of them, because they were terrible, and buy Cliftonville's entire squad instead.

Incidentally, Cliftonville made about six substitutions, including their keeper, and Celtic still couldn't score.

It's fair to say that by the end of the game, when Cliftonville were utterly embarrassing their guests by playing Barcelona-style one-touch possession passing around them, it was actually Cliftonville's reserves outplaying Celtic's second string.

It's a far cry from the last time Celtic came to Solitude, when the friendly was interrupted by the RUC who decided for no good reason to shoot plastic bullets into the crowd in an appalling sectarian attack by the security forces, and thankfully so.

How times have changed in the intervening quarter century. Solitude has a gleaming new stand, the team hammered their prestigious guests and no one was hospitalised by police brutality.

For those who missed out on a night when Ireland's oldest club (don't listen to the LIES of Bohemians) made yet more history, here's some highlights:



And some more!

Poison Pens Five: HOLD THE FRONT PAGE!!!!

'Journalist asks question at press conference shocker!'

Seriously, I'm not making this up. About four national newspapers have all covered this non-story.

A journalist went to a press conference, plucked up the courage to ask a question, got an answer, then left.

I mean, OMG!!! All those scary old dudes there, asking about, like football and stuff. No wonder plucky Lisa has her hand totally to her chest in shock at what she's done (while posing for a photo, natch.) She, like, TOTALLY asked a question at a press conference?

I know! Like, who knew journalists did that? She should get a medal or something. Probably Fianna Fail are already tapping her up to run in the next general election.

Let's remind ourselves - this chick went to university. She trained as a journalist. Her daddy was a journalist before her. So she's seen her dad do this, she's educated and trained to do it. Why is it so shocking that she went as a journalist to a press conference and asked a question? It's her JOB to do that!

What so-fucking-what yawnathon will the Irish media treat us to next? 'Man rose early and drove electric cart to deliver milk'? 'Sun expected to rise in the East tomorrow morning'? 'Moon disappointingly not made of cream cheese'?

The media rightly get it in the neck sometimes for their sense of whats worthy of reporting and what isn't. People see endless tabloid headlines about Jade Goody, or Jordan, or David Beckham, and despair.

But this article is a spectacular classic of an even more debased genre - journalists puffing themselves and each other.

People do their jobs everyday without expectation of public acknowledgement, and many people do a damn sight more important work than asking Cristiano Ronaldo about his shorts.

Where are their articles?

People who perform surgery, fly airplanes, teach children or cure cancer, take note. Here's what a REALLY difficult job is like:

"It was mortifying from my point of view," said Lisa Cannon, "but at the end of the day that's what I was sent there to do."

Well done for spotting that, love. Yes, you went to a press conference and did your job. Congrats. Do we have to read about it in the paper everytime you do your job properly?

"It was a pretty difficult interview because I couldn't ask him any of the questions I really wanted to but I'm glad I did it," she continued.

Oh, hold on a minute. She didn't ask any of the questions she wanted to? Why not? Isn't asking some questions the sum total of her task? What stopped her? Did someone overpower her and clamp a chloroform cloth over her mouth before she could get the words out?

Perhaps she didn't do her job so well after all, if she couldn't ask questions at a press conference when your job is to do exactly that.

I don't mean to knock the girl - she's probably very nice and might well be generally excellent at her job, which I understand involves talking about clothes and make-up a lot on TV3. And it wasn't her decision to put this tripe into the national press.

My only questions remain for the national press themselves:

Why should the public give a fuck about this?

What is it doing in a newspaper?

How many 'Journalist did their job' stories do you reckon you could print before gangs of brain surgeons, airline pilots, firemen, nurses, teachers and other actually relevant people storm your newsroom and gag the lot of you with chloroform cloths?

How corrupt is UEFA?

I'm now officially suspicious about UEFA.

Normally, when people refer to corruption in football, they mean attempts to fix matches by dodgy Far Eastern gangs. The discussions focus on whether players 'threw' games, whether they might have taken a 'bung', whether the betting patterns reveal a coup.

But I'm beginning to wonder about UEFA's role in a couple of very odd incidents.

The first relates to whether they have been rigging the draw for the Champions' League in order to manipulate the big box-office matches that they want. Last year, the quarter final draw was revealed to a Liverpool fans website two hours before it was made.

Now, that's either a 104-1 lucky guess, or else it is overt corruption. According to UEFA, it was just a lucky guess. They then refused to say anything further on the matter.

However, the original post which revealed the draw suggested that not only was the draw a pre-decided issue, but that the details had come from a disgusted UEFA employee and that bookies had ceased to take bets on the matter, which they indeed had.

But things got even stranger on Wednesday night. My sympathies go out to Chelsea, who were effectively robbed of a second successive Champions' League final appearance by the extremely erratic, if not downright bogus, behaviour of the referee, who is now in hiding after he denied Chelsea at least two legitimate penalties.

Feeling hard done by, one Chelsea player chased the ref about the pitch yelling in his face, while another roared his disgust at the TV cameras, and a third has since come out stating that he believes the ref was 'under orders.'

Sour grapes? Perhaps. Until, that is, you hear that the UEFA website posted the result of the game HOURS before it even kicked off!

The 'test' post was supposedly a dummy run. But it had the correct score and even named the players who were booked!

Chelsea's manager, one of the most respected and experienced names in football, has openly speculated that the referee was under orders not to allow Chelsea to proceed to a second final against Manchester United, because UEFA thought a second all-English final looked bad.

Of course, UEFA have dismissed suggestions of a fix. But they also ordered the match referee to go into hiding and not to talk to the press.

Books such as the excellent 'The Ball is Round' have examined the corporate corruption of UEFA, and its parent body FIFA, and revealed how football administration at the very top is run by some extremely dodgy people.

I'm now wondering just how dodgy they are. Dodgy enough to rig a draw? Dodgy enough to rig a game? Dodgy enough to pick and choose who should play in the world's biggest club football game - the Champions' League final?

Perhaps they are.

All credit to the Rafa

Manchester United 1 - 4 Liverpool FC


Nuff said!

Football without the bollocks

Football without the divas.

Football without the multimillionaire brats smashing up Ferraris and getting arrested in nightclubs.

Football without the Beckham soap opera.

Football without the expensive flight abroad, mandatory overpriced two nights in craphole hotel and dreadful seats so high in the stadium you'd get a nosebleed.

Football without the fawning commentary from bitter ex-pros with vapid insights who missed out on the lottery cheque paydays.

Football without the mind-numbingly bland autobiographies, ghostwritten by anonymous sports hacks who don't get credited, that invariably feature a chapter on kicking a ball against a wall as a kid, a chapter on cleaning someone's boots, and a chapter on their debut game, but entirely gloss over the teen roastings, coke snortings, attacks on people in nightclubs, rows with t he trophy WAG in the mansion and six figure gambling debts.

Football without the bribed refs, fixed matches and corruption scandals.

Football without the Sky Sports network dictating the kick-off time.

But...

Football with the passion, the skill, the talent, the excitement, the drama.

Football played by ordinary guys in your local area at a reasonable ticket price where you can get right up close to the pitch without remortgaging your house.

Football with heart, with soul, with community.

Football as it used to be and ought to be.

Welcome back, the League of Ireland. Go watch your local team this season.

Your boys took a helluva beating...

Yes, that really is a man in South Ossetia riding a tricycle through a war zone wearing a Tyrone GAA jersey.

No, the picture is not photoshopped. It was taken by an Associated Press photographer and was published on the Guardian website last Wednesday.

I can only assume that while the lad is somewhat unhappy about Russia invading his country and looting and destroying it, he might be just a little pleased to hear that his adopted Gaelic football county slaughtered the Dubs at Croker today.

Okay, maybe 'slaughtered' isn't quite the most appropriate word.

Sorry!

New sponsor for Rangers

Apologies to genuine fans, but seriously, if you can't beat Lithuanians, you shouldn't be in the tournament.

Some people aren't taking the news too well, apparently:

Ronaldo's Downfall

Following on from the evilly funny viral hit 'Cowen's Downfall' on Youtube (hat-tip to Richard), here comes the inevitable Cristiano Ronaldo version.

Enjoy:

The other World Cup

No, not the egg-chasers World Cup.

Not the Women's World Cup.

Not the 'homeless' World Cup either.

(Which is a total swizz, because of course all the people playing in it have a roof over their heads. It should be called the 'Formerly Homeless' World Cup. But if they called it that, then I could enter. After all, I spent a night in a skip once. But that's another story.)


This is the World Cup for countries that FIFA refuse to recognise.

Now, let's be honest here. FIFA's concept of what constitutes a sovereign nation is odd enough to begin with. According to FIFA, Northern Ireland is a nation. According to FIFA, Kazakhstan is a European country. According to FIFA, so is Israel, although they used to be an Australasian country.

The 22 nations that take part in the Non-Fifa World Cup include some places whose secessions and right to autonomy have been denied by ongoing colonial powers, such as Chechnya, West Papua, Somaliland and Tibet.

It also includes less morally justifiable concepts of nations like Padania (North Italy), Monaco and North Cyprus. And some long lost national entities like Wallonia, Occitania and Zanzibar. And a completely cerebral idea of a diaspora nation - the Roma peoples of Europe.

Anyhow, the game was between Tibet and Padania, and Tibet lost 14-2 to the quasi-Italians, who won the Trophy for the Freedom of the Peoples.

I'm sure it was a good day out for all concerned. I hope all of the peoples win their freedoms soon.

P.S. Good luck to Trap and his team in their first game against Serbia tonight. I'll be there. Don't let me down, now.

Roaming the blogosphere

As a prelude to sitting down and properly looking over the many excellent Irish blogs to be found on the long lists for the Irish Blog Awards, I thought I'd share with you some of the more unusual, but interesting non-Irish blogs I've come across recently.

For Girls Who Can't Do Football - A bit of untruth in advertising here. The splendidly monikered Georgina Best strides that fine, previously unknown, line between gurly life rambling blog (second biggest blog category in the whole 'sphere apart from cat blogs) and footie fanatic blog. Quality result! The girl done well.

Chatsoccer - Not strictly a blog, though it has group blog-like qualities. I mentioned them a little while ago, when they were still all new and pink with that lovely baby smell. Now they're already toasting the mainstream media on all things Irish footie-related. Spare yourself the euro and ignore what you read on the red-tops' backpage. Chances are, if it's true they probably nicked it from Chatsoccer.

What Does John Know? - Everything, actually, if what you want to know about is whiskey. John publishes a glossy expensive magazine purely about whiskey - the sort of mag you find in the rack in suites of five star hotels. But go to his blog, and for the price of the internet connection, you get the full inside track on whiskey, whisky, bourbon, rye and that muck that Japanese, New Zealanders and for all I know Martians also claim to be the water of life.

Tattooblog - Does exactly what it says on the skin, sorry, tin. It's not the usual insider 'body adornment' mong banging on about how 'tribal' his studio in some San Diego basement is. Though there is a serious appreciation of skin art expressed herein.
Nope, this blog strikes the tone of a celeb mag, with plenty of pics of new celeb tats and fresh pics of what's hot in tatworld (and not in the half-dressed biker chick kind of way). Wanna see tattoos of Darth Vader crossed with Hello Kitty, or read about braille tattoos for blind people? Or just find out what Amy Winehouse or Jordan's new tattoos are? This is where to go.

Weird Meat - Michael from Weird Meat is the inevitable result of the fetishisation of food and cuisine in modern culture. But writes it all up so well, you have to forgive him his penchant for chowing down on worm fungus, live shrimp and lizard soup in various unsignposted backstreet eateries in Asia.
This is what happens when you cross the food pornography of a Nigella or a Jamie with the backpacker spirit of eating local from a dodgy street stall even when your brain and tummy tell you not to. The lad has balls (sheep's balls, and he ate them in Shanghai).
For proper dodgy meat, however, he really needs to get out of Asia and over to Iceland, where rotten shark, whalemeat and singed sheep heads are traditional fare (I've had one of them and it was fantastic - not saying which one, though!)

There are more, but those are my current faves out there. And yes, I need to get out more, so I'm going to try doing that next week.

Chat Soccer

A big shout out to the lads behind www.chatsoccer.eu, a new online news service and chat forum for everyone with an interest in Irish soccer, from the Eircom league to Keano's Sund-Ireland, from the FAI's shenanigans to the grass roots junior game.

If footie's your thing, then this site is going to be of interest, I reckon.

Already chatsoccer has shown its credentials by beating the mainstream media pack to the developments on the international manager story, so clearly 'going forward' (as some might say!) it's the site to check out for the insider knowledge on all things Irish football related.

Now, if only they can organise a sub-section on the Irish League, my life will be complete!

Bye Bye, Stan

Steven Staunton (pictured right in his Aston Villa pomp) is going to be sacked as Ireland manager today for being rubbish! Hurrah!

However, apparently the FAI are skint and can't afford a decent manager, so they're going to give the job to David O'Leary instead. Boo!

Can't we just give Irish football to someone who could manage it properly, like the GAA or the nuns?

These bollixes just keep breaking my heart.

On a more positive note, if you google 'Steve Staunton', my now legendary post 'What is Steve Staunton?' is the second from top result after Stan's wiki page.

Please link now to 'What is Steve Staunton?' and let's make it number one!

Return of the Home Internationals

Looks like there might be a return of the late, lamented Home Nations Championship.

The football competition, which was suspended in the early Eighties because England got fed up being beaten by Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, is set for a much welcome return on a biennial knock-out competition basis, rather than the previous league format.

And like the cherry on top of the cake, since England don't want to take part and no one else wants England to take part, the Republic of Ireland have been invited to join discussions.

The result: hopefully a vibrant Celtic Cup international tournament beginning in two years time.

I can't wait. If only Lawrie could have stayed on...

Man United - violence's common denominator?

Anyone who can work out what I might have been doing in Istanbul in May 2005 will quickly realise that I'm no fan of Manchester United.

The team that Fergie built always annoyed me. Not their successes. Every trophy gets won by someone each season. But the fact that the authorities always seemed to side with them. Jammy decisions, long minutes of extra time when they are losing, no away penalties at Old Trafford...

It all added up to a genuine annoyance factor.

But now there's a new reason to be concerned about Manchester United. Let's rewind briefly to the Eighties to explain this fully.

In the late Seventies and early Eighties, English teams dominated European football. In only a few seasons, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa all claimed the European Cup. Other teams like Ipswich and Tottenham claimed the UEFA Cup.

Even Everton and Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen won the Cup Winners Cup. Europe simply couldn't compete with the British footballing juggernaut. The only rivals they had were each other.

Then came Heysel. The facts of Heysel, despite a number of different investigations, remain unclear. But what is certain is that UEFA approved a delapidated and dangerous stadium for the 1985 European Cup final.

Then local police, who swiftly lost control of the Juventus and Liverpool fans flooding to the game, allowed overcrowding to develop to dangerous levels in some parts of the ground. An hour before the game, trouble began between the two sets of fans.

It is believed by a number of eye-witnesses that members of the infamous Chelsea Headhunter gang were responsible for initiating the violence from within the Liverpool crowd. Whether this is true or not, the trouble began in the Liverpool end.

Then the wall collapsed, and in the aftermath, 39 people died, mostly Juventus fans but including one Irishman Patrick Radcliffe. UEFA made sure the game continued despite the deaths, but once the game was over, they made Heysel - which was in part their own fault for choosing a deathtrap for a European final - the excuse to throw all English teams out of Europe.

It was a popular decision with clubs from other countries. They felt they might stand a chance of winning something again. English clubs were banned from European competition for five years, and Liverpool six.

While occasional trouble still marred the terraces in Britain in the Nineties, it was nowhere near as bad as the hooliganism had been only a few years before. Sporadic, occasional terrace or post-match scraps would occur, but nothing remotely like on the scale it had previously.

But following a series of studies, the removal of terracing and the creation of the Premiership, soccer violence became extremely rare in Britain by the time that English clubs were permitted back into European competition.

And so to this season, and why we should be concerned about Manchester United. Last night, in Rome, Manchester United fans fought with Italian police in and out of the ground. No doubt, the London press will highlight harassment of fans, claim the police were heavy-handed, point out how local 'ultra' Roma fans attacked and targetted the poor English.

I'm sure this will occur, because that's exactly what happened the last time that Manchester United fans were involved in trouble abroad. When was that, you may ask? Less than two months ago, actually, when again Manchester United fans were involved with clashes with police, in France on this occasion.

Now, once again British teams are becoming dominant in European competition. Liverpool winning the Champions League, Arsenal making last season's final, Chelsea perennially in the semis. Even clubs like Middlesborough and Celtic reaching the UEFA Cup final.

As the Guardian's Paul Doyle has astutely pointed out, such is the financial dominance of English teams that, more even than during the early Eighties, English football dominance in Europe is set to become the norm.

So, when Man United's fans get into trouble on the terraces with police in two different countries in two months, I start wondering what the common denominator is. And the answer is, of course, Man United's fans.

And then I think back to how Heysel was used as an excuse to break English dominance of European football competitions, and I wonder how many more terrace rampages from United's band of travelling thugs it will take before UEFA decides to ban English teams in Europe once again?

Update, Friday 6th: And now we have Spurs fans rioting in Seville in Spain, and it has emerged that UEFA chief Michel Platini wrote to every FA in Europe last month in strong terms warning about violence being the poison that is killing football. How long before English clubs get banned? One more incident? Two?

Divided loyalties

In these days of erratic international football results either side of the border, who is a good Northern Nationalist to support?

On the one hand, we have Stan the Man's merry brigade of wasters, scraping past the mighty Wales and San Marino with all the aplomb and grace of a hippo on ice.

Nary a Northerner among them of course. Which might indeed be the problem.

On the other, there's always Lawrie Sanchez's green and white army, casually wallopping four past the oppo, stuffing teams like England and Spain for fun.

But could a good Nationalist truly consider supporting a partitionist team, even if their football association is the original one on the island, given the crazed Loyalist backing the team gets at that bastion of mutual understanding, Windsor Park?

The answer to this question is, as it is to so many of life's questions, Cliftonville FC. The oldest soccer team in Ireland, and one which despite its non-sectarian origins, claims the hearts of most Northern Nationalists, given the long-lamented departure of Belfast Celtic to the annals of history and Derry City to an even more distant and fabled location, the League of Ireland.

So in honour of the Red Army, I give you this recent team talk from before their successful County Antrim Shield victory this season. Special thanks to Missing Neighbour for smuggling the video camera into Solitude.

What is Steve Staunton?

A spanner is a handy technical implement used for tightening up loose connections and to keep moving parts in good working order.

Steve Staunton is therefore not a spanner.

A muppet is one of an ensemble of entertainers who brought delight and joy to people the world over with their wonderful performances over a number of decades.

Steve Staunton is clearly not a muppet.

The gaffer is the person responsible for overseeing the lighting arrangements on the set of a movie, ensuring that illumination is shed both behind the scenes and on the performance that is broadcast to an audience of millions. The gaffer is often responsible for providing a steady source of power during the performance.

By no stretch of the imagination is Steve Staunton the gaffer.

Steve Staunton has presided over a national embarrassment, squandering national assets and demonstrating a hitherto unknown level of incompetence.

He has shown an utter lack of leadership, has failed to come up with even the simplest forward planning and relies on preposterous excuses to remain in his job, despite huge public unhappiness with his complete lack of achievement.

Obviously, Steve Staunton is actually a cabinet minister.