A Different View
Ever-changing football fashions in the wacky world of sport
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
There was a time when togging out for football wearing different colour boots would have been a sign of abject poverty – or at the very least an indelible source of embarrassment.
You might as well wear your underpants instead of football togs, because this would represent no greater mortification.
And yet if you enjoyed the World Cup – and some of us are still suffering withdrawal symptoms – you’ll know that the notion of footballers wearing two boots of different colours is now the coolest thing on earth.
The difference, of course, is that they came that way – not that your mother went looking in the seconds section of some sports shop to find two matching size eights in any style and colour you’d care to imagine.
Indeed there were superstars wearing what could only be described as knitted boots in Brazil – very sophisticated crochet, by all accounts, but knitting nonetheless.
Back in the day, knitted boots were something your maiden aunt made for your new-born baby – but then again Alice bands were for Irish dancers and pony tails were for girls.
Most of us in middle-age can remember the jaw-dropping amazement that greeted Gerry McInerney’s return from an American sojourn with a pair of white boots, which he went on to wear with such distinction in Croke Park in that half-back line of all half-back lines alongside Keady and Finnerty.
It was just as well that the Kinvara man was one of the outstanding hurlers of his generation, because he also matched the white boots with a brown tan and swashbuckling style that wouldn’t have looked out of place if he was playing for Brazil.
He may well have inspired a generation to turn their backs on black boots. And that’s where the problems started.
Because it’s fine to be different if you’re very good but if you stand out because you’re rubbish, it’s not a good idea to underline your incompetence by dressing differently as well.
I can recall that deadliest – in every sense – of full-forwards, Colm O’Rourke of Meath, when he had retired and was dabbling in the world of broadcasting for the first time.
He saw Mayo’s giant midfielder Liam McHale take the field at Croke Park wearing another pair of white boots and Colm – being of older stock – wouldn’t have been more exasperated if this giant had come out wearing a dress.
“Back in my day,” he exclaimed, “you’d love if a fella came out to mark you and he was wearing white boots….”
He didn’t have to say much more, but the clear insinuation was that he was fair game if he was so stupid.
Colm didn’t quite come from the era when boots came over your ankle and looked more like something a miner would wear into the pits with metal studs attached to get you a grip on the grass.
But he might as well have.
Not that the changing fashions of sport stop there either; why, for example, do players wear short sleeved jerseys with body warmers underneath – why not just wear long sleeved shirts from the start?
And then, after a goal, you are treated to sight of a multi-millionaire footballer pulling up his jersey to reveal an off-white vest with a message written in marker by men who could afford to hire the monks who did the calligraphy for the Book of Kells – what’s that all about?
They proclaim in marker that they love their wives, and yet a week later there’s a tabloid tale of them with some glamour model in a hotel room, armed with a phone to provide the photographic evidence, both that they mightn’t love their wives so much after all and they don’t wear vests in real life either.
If we’d known back in the day that the height of football fashion would one day be wearing different coloured boots and vests covered in ink, we’d have been more cutting edge that we’d ever imagined.
Except we’d never earn two hundred grand a week for it.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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