Spolitics - a strange mix
Republicans took plenty of stick in recent weeks for raising the
thorny issue of sport and politics when they called for the
cancellation of the Donegal Celtic v RUC soccer match.
The Irish News went hysterically over the top, raising it as an
issue on which Sinn Fein contravened the Mitchell Principles.
Ronnie Flanagan didn't say the club had been intimidated (what he
said was that ``people will inevitably assume'' that they had,
which was his way of putting the notion into the public domain
without any evidence to back it up).
Unionists all became DC supporters, with John Taylor saying it
was a shame that Donegal Celtic weren't allowed to ``play a full
part'' in local soccer, which is mightily ironic given the Irish
League's repeated refusal to give the West Belfast club senior
status.
All the usual suspects piped up, together with a few unusual
ones. The IRSP, to their shame, couldn't see why sport and
politics should mix. It was crass opportunism from a party which
never has to test its arguments with voters. Perhaps their
spokesperson could avail of An Phoblacht's letters page to
explain their position.
Of course, while all this was going on, sport and politics were
busy mixing like the old buddies they are. Take the Cliftonville
v Linfield match last Saturday, the first match between the sides
at Cliftonville's Solitude stadium since 1970. This was hailed as
the return of normality.
Not that normality has ever gone away, you know. Normality - or
at least its ugly twin, the appearance of normality - has been a
cornerstone of British policy in the Six Counties since before
the IRSP was a twinkle in a revolutionary's eye. And sport has
been a large part of it.
Who can forget the NIO's frantic efforts over the years to
attract big sporting events? And the tear in Mary Peters' eye
when they didn't happen?
Today's equivalent is more parochial. Cliftonville v Linfield
looked the picture of cross-community harmony on the screens of
Sky TV. But the whole thing was unreal - abnormal, even.
Kick-off was 11.00am, the crowd was restricted to 1500 and it
took hundreds of RUC men to escort 300 Linfield fans into the
ground singing that they were up to their necks in Fenian blood
(the fans were singing that, not the RUC, though it's an easy
mistake to make).
It was a PR exercise which will be very difficult to repeat
without hundreds of RUC men clad in riot gear. This is not a
normal place.
That said, there are plenty of people who say it is a normal
place and that Republicans have a vested interest in making it
appear not to be normal. Now we are into the world of Alice in
Wonderland. Think it hard enough and say it often enough and it
will be. This is a ``new era'', they cry. Well, it isn't. In the
imperfect language of Sinn Fein-speak, it has the potential to be
a new era. When we have a new policing service and all-Ireland
bodies and all the rest, come back and we'll talk about new eras.
Sport and politics have also been mixing at Newry Town FC where
the club chairman, businessman Joe Rice, was given half a page in
the local paper to tell Newry fans not to shout sectarian slogans
nor slag off the RUC.
At the same club an official has been giving some young
supporters a hard time. It is their habit to hold up a
twenty-foot long banner at home games. It reads `Iur Cinn Tra',
the Irish for Newry, and this has drawn the wrath of the official
who stomps up and down the touchline shouting at them. When he
was challenged by an older supporter, the mystery was solved. He
said he was outraged that anyone would bring in a banner that
read: `Iur Cinn IRA'.
By Brian Campbell
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