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It’s not always naive to believe
By Ronan Early
 THE FLAG that
caught the eye most at Wembley wasn’t the biggest one. Hanging off
the top tier, deep in Tottenham territory, it had the obligatory YIDS
scrawled next to whatever London satellite the owners had travelled from.
Beneath read: We still believe.
Sunday was one of those days that makes you think there’s still
a point to modern professional football — that it’s still
worth believing in your game and your club.
A culmination of little things rather than the great big delight of Spurs
reasserting themselves as London’s pride enforced this belief.
The richest team didn’t win. The smarter side, who tried harder
and looked like they cared more, prevailed. The side with the more passionate
support prevailed; the whole Spurs end gave magnificent backing for the
whole game, not so in the blue half.
One can only feel sorry for the genuine Chelsea supporters who have been
swamped by mute glory-hunters. Whatever their reputation for an occasional
propensity for fisticuffs and right-wing views, Chelsea was once a proper
football club with loyal fans who followed them everywhere — over
land and sea and Leicester and all that — no matter how abject they
were. And boy were they dire at times.
Now they are best described by their rivals’ riff on one of their
favourite anthems.
“Carefree wherever we may be, We are the nouveau CFC, We’ve
been coming here since 2003, So can you sit down so my wife can see?”
Us Spurs fans have been partly blessed. It’s been tough to watch
at times but because we’ve been so poor for nearly all the post-1990
football boom, we’ve repelled all these bandwagon hoppers. Now perhaps
they’ll see the Lilywhites as a more attractive prospect —
although one journey to N17 will probably have them longing for the slightly
more pastoral environs of Fulham or Islington.
World Cup wins have been celebrated with less fervour than Sunday’s
explosion of pent-up pride and emotion. Say it’s a second-rate tournament
but for a group of followers who have kept the faith when all around were
glad to laugh at their misguided notions of still being a relevant sporting
institution it feels like a rebirth.
Supporters weren’t the only ones in a higher state of ecstasy at
the final whistle. The picture of Robbie Keane, detached from the main
group in the immediate aftermath, unsure whether to laugh or bawl or jump
around like an idiot and in the end doing a mixture of the three should
be enough to quieten a few of his many critics.
The tasteless fallacy that he is interested in money first and football
second was exposed. Do you think he worked himself into this state because
of a win bonus? He reacted the way he did because after a lengthy career
where, sure, he’s earned millions, he’d just earned his first
medal. He’d achieved what he dreamed of when he started kicking
a football.
Much as money has corrupted an awful lot of people in football we should
never forget that no player — not even a prat like Pascal Chimbonda
who sulked off down the tunnel and refused to shake hands with his sub
only to return later to lead the celebrations — ever began playing
because of the money.
How many of us could say the same, that we got into our career for the
love of it, sacrificed pretty much everything else even though the chances
of making it were at best remote?
Take Robbie Keane. Ok, from an early age he was prodigious with a ball
at his feet but the same could have been said of 100 kids his age when
growing up in Tallaght. And for every Robbie Keane there’s 99 others
who left school prematurely to chase the dream only to find there’s
no safety net in the real world.
They’ve spent the last decade doing FÁS courses, maybe going
back to do the Leaving Cert and go to college or drift from low-paid job
to low-paid job. So easily, despite all his talent, that could have been
Robbie Keane.
Talent alone is never enough. You need discipline and a remarkable strength
of character; the ability to shrug off all the distractions and those
who doubt you have what it takes to be somebody in the game.
Like the 30,000 Spurs fans on the other side of the wire and going every
bit as mental as one of the day’s heroes, he believed when the prudent
thing would have been to walk away. If there is a point to football it’s
that everything doesn’t always make perfect sense. Individuals,
teams, supporters, they all have the ability to challenge their fate.
As it says on the shirt: To dare is to do. Dare and every once in a while
the oft cruel Gods will smile on the true believers. |
