Setanta final wrongly fails to grab the headlines
Credit:
Congratulations to Shamrock Rovers on winning the Setanta Cup last week. I watched the game and
have to say that they fully deserved their victory. Last year’s Premier Division champions are flying
this season and look unstoppable in their quest to dominate this year. They’ve got the fanbase,
they’ve got the stadium, they’ve got the squad and now they’ve got their hands on their first cup of
the year.
I picked up one of the daily national newspapers the next day expecting to see a headline about Rovers’ cup victory on the back page. I couldn’t see any. Yes, there were football headlines dedicated to the English Premier League and a headline regarding the Scottish league but nothing regarding the current Irish champions’ victory in the cross-border Setanta Cup. I flicked through the back pages in search of it but yet again I couldn’t find a single word regarding it.
Ah, a middle section dedicated to football. It must be at the front of that I thought. No headline at the front of that, just another reminder of how the English games faired over the weekend once again. 25 pages in, yes 25 pages in, I finally find it, a two page piece on the Setanta Cup final. Now, if I was flicking through the paper, as most people do over a coffee break, I could have blinked and I would have missed it.
How the hell is the current Irish soccer champions’ victory in the Setanta Cup final not worth at least a small headline on the back page of our Irish national newspapers? And you wonder why football in Ireland struggles so much and fails to get the respect it deserves.
Headlines are what people remember mostly as a lot of people simply glance through newspapers looking at the headlines and unless there is something terribly wrong occurring in the league here, like the financial problems seen over the last while in the league, Irish newspapers don’t want to know. I know a lot of the county newspapers dedicate their back pages to their local football and GAA teams but for the moment I am talking solely about our national newspapers.
I hate constantly bringing up the analogy of football in Norway with football here but from my experience we can learn so much from the game there in so many ways. As already mentioned before, the standard of football over there is by no means extensively superior to football here. Norwegians also love the English game just as much as we do here. However, when I was living and playing football over there, the football headlines in both the national newspapers and national television stations were dedicated to Norwegian football with the English Premiership playing a supporting role.
They love their domestic game and they publicise it every day and that alone helps generate enough buzz and atmosphere and interest in the game there. Newspaper reporters are at training grounds, every week there are games televised. The highs and lows of the Norwegian football league are published daily for all to see. It gets people interested and that makes more people support their own. They have made average footballers and managers celebrities and role models over there. It’s not all about the standard on display and the Norwegian model proves it.
Why can’t the newspapers here dedicate their back pages and headlines to Irish sport including our domestic football league? It won’t stop people buying the newspaper. We simply just do not support our own here and would prefer to support the English game than our own Irish game. Sad but it’s true.
Moving on but not entirely off topic, Conan Byrne wrote an article a few weeks ago regarding Sky television and the possible opportunity that exists over the summer months when the English and Spanish season is over. With the sadly much preferred English, Scottish and Spanish seasons coming to a close, football fans will be starved of football during the summer months and I just want to reiterate this and plead with the F.A.I to take full advantage of this prime opportunity. Open your creative minds please and try promote the domestic game and bring it to the forefront over the summer months. Televised games on Sky are one idea but surely you can think of more. Do not let this opening go to waste!
I picked up one of the daily national newspapers the next day expecting to see a headline about Rovers’ cup victory on the back page. I couldn’t see any. Yes, there were football headlines dedicated to the English Premier League and a headline regarding the Scottish league but nothing regarding the current Irish champions’ victory in the cross-border Setanta Cup. I flicked through the back pages in search of it but yet again I couldn’t find a single word regarding it.
Ah, a middle section dedicated to football. It must be at the front of that I thought. No headline at the front of that, just another reminder of how the English games faired over the weekend once again. 25 pages in, yes 25 pages in, I finally find it, a two page piece on the Setanta Cup final. Now, if I was flicking through the paper, as most people do over a coffee break, I could have blinked and I would have missed it.
How the hell is the current Irish soccer champions’ victory in the Setanta Cup final not worth at least a small headline on the back page of our Irish national newspapers? And you wonder why football in Ireland struggles so much and fails to get the respect it deserves.
Headlines are what people remember mostly as a lot of people simply glance through newspapers looking at the headlines and unless there is something terribly wrong occurring in the league here, like the financial problems seen over the last while in the league, Irish newspapers don’t want to know. I know a lot of the county newspapers dedicate their back pages to their local football and GAA teams but for the moment I am talking solely about our national newspapers.
I hate constantly bringing up the analogy of football in Norway with football here but from my experience we can learn so much from the game there in so many ways. As already mentioned before, the standard of football over there is by no means extensively superior to football here. Norwegians also love the English game just as much as we do here. However, when I was living and playing football over there, the football headlines in both the national newspapers and national television stations were dedicated to Norwegian football with the English Premiership playing a supporting role.
They love their domestic game and they publicise it every day and that alone helps generate enough buzz and atmosphere and interest in the game there. Newspaper reporters are at training grounds, every week there are games televised. The highs and lows of the Norwegian football league are published daily for all to see. It gets people interested and that makes more people support their own. They have made average footballers and managers celebrities and role models over there. It’s not all about the standard on display and the Norwegian model proves it.
Why can’t the newspapers here dedicate their back pages and headlines to Irish sport including our domestic football league? It won’t stop people buying the newspaper. We simply just do not support our own here and would prefer to support the English game than our own Irish game. Sad but it’s true.
Moving on but not entirely off topic, Conan Byrne wrote an article a few weeks ago regarding Sky television and the possible opportunity that exists over the summer months when the English and Spanish season is over. With the sadly much preferred English, Scottish and Spanish seasons coming to a close, football fans will be starved of football during the summer months and I just want to reiterate this and plead with the F.A.I to take full advantage of this prime opportunity. Open your creative minds please and try promote the domestic game and bring it to the forefront over the summer months. Televised games on Sky are one idea but surely you can think of more. Do not let this opening go to waste!
