When did we just become another era in history ?

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

It wasn’t so much that the English Heritage Council conferred a Grade II listing on a concrete skateboard park last week – it was the corollary that 1978 is now officially ancient history.

Because that’s when the Rom in east London, the first skatepark in Europe to get listed status, was developed.

So if it is now a protected structure because of its historical value, it is fair to assume that 1978 – the year that gave us Grease, Meat Loaf, Argentina winning the World Cup; a year after Teenage Kicks – is now just a footnote in history as well.

Before 1978, we had only one television channel – and then RTE2 arrived in a blaze of glory and with a line-up of stars that included Terry Wogan, Val Doonican, Gemma Craven and Maureen Potter, Ronnie Barker and Liberace.

Back in 1978, the Pope didn’t even know where Ballybrit was – not least because the Pope at the start of 1978 was Paul VI and the next fellow, John Paul I, lasted just 33 days, which is around the same length now as a Leeds United manager.

Admittedly when you write it down, it can seem like a while ago for sure – but you don’t want to see your most memorable years boxed off into the dim and distant past.

It was bad enough dozing off in the middle of the news and waking up halfway through Reeling in the Years and now knowing they’d changed the programme.

But now your yesterdays – your prime, your halcyon days, your seminal moments – are officially confined to the history books.

And of course deep down we knew this already – we know it when we look at Johnny Giles, for one.

We remember the midfield general with the curly hair, who could turn on a sixpence; and now when he’s analysing a World Cup match he looks like he should have a blanket for his knees before he doses off.

And as we explain to the kids that he used to be able to turn on a sixpence, we also have to tell them what a sixpence was.

But we still see him and Chippy Brady in those green jerseys before sponsorship, playing at Dalymount Park before they moved to a ground named after an insurance company.

We could name the Argentina team that won that World Cup – Kempes, Passarella, Ardiles, Luque, Tarantini and Jimmy Magee’s favourite, Daniel Bertoni – but we couldn’t tell you two of them now after Messi and de Maria.

We know we’re still clinging to the wreckage when our new albums for Christmas are all remasters of bands from the eighties – Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, AC/DC, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and the Who, to name but a few.

And then, again – to further underline the generation gap – we probably have to explain what an album is.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.