The other day my former class-mate Eamonn McCann was on Talkback, I think it was, and typically provided a new insight into the topic under discussion. The topic was Derryman James McClean and his refusal to wear the poppy on his football shirt. Eamonn pointed out that this practice of wearing a poppy on football shirts originated only a few years ago, and mentioned how a stiff and upright soldier had marched onto the field before a Premier League game recently and laid a wreath in the centre circle McCann’s view was that this was a deliberate weaving of militarism into soccer, which had nothing to do with any war.