An Irishman's Diary

IT’S NOT JUST the FAI that needs to have a review of Euro 2012. When the dust settles on the tournament, Irish fans might also reflect on their performance – generally judged a triumph – and ask whether anything could have been done differently or better.

One area where I can see room for reform is the Fields of Athenry. If I don’t hear that song again for a year, it will still be too soon. But gut reactions aside, I do seriously worry that the fields are being overgrazed at present and that we need to consider alternative uses.

Getting them rezoned for residential purposes is probably not a runner in current circumstances. So maybe the best thing would be just to let them lie fallow for a while. This would allow the soil to regenerate while also perhaps encouraging a local revival of the corncrake population.

It’s not that I don’t understand the song’s importance to the Irish psyche. It evokes transcendence over a long history of suffering, and as such is the perfect accompaniment to a wet November night in Thomond Park or indeed a 4-0 drubbing in Poznan.

But I’d like to see The Rocks of Bawn being given a run-out in Kazahkstan in September. It can perform a very similar role, after all: playing “in the hole” (the one left by the abject lack of competence from the team we’re supporting).

And indeed, as a measure of the challenge facing us in the World Cup qualifiers, ploughing the Rocks of Bawn is arguably a more apt metaphor than anything to do with the pastureland of East Galway.

Another area that needs looking at, I believe, is the chant “Come on you Boys in Green”. I have no issue with the lyrics. It’s the music – borrowed from “Those were the days, my friends” – that’s the problem.

There are only so many times you can hear 20,000 male voices slaughtering the high note of a song before you appeal to the musical equivalent of Amnesty International – if there is one – to intervene.

Barring that, maybe fans might consider going down an octave. Singing lessons are a possibility too.

As for another veteran chant – “You’ll never beat the Irish” – there’s probably nothing that now needs to be said. I knew it should never have started against Spain. At most it should have been on the bench, for use – after about 93 minutes – in the miraculous event of the game still being scoreless.

But I took no pleasure in seeing it limp off the pitch in the fourth minute, already humiliated. The only time I subsequently heard it sung at the tournament was – bizarrely – by Polish fans, on they night their team was knocked out.

In any case, the chant has been a good servant to Ireland: at its best during those many famous 1-1 victories of the Charlton and McCarthy eras. It should have retired after the 2002 World Cup. Now that it finally has – surely – I wish it well.

Those are particular issues for the fans’ performance review, all easily addressed. A more worrying aspect of Euro 2012 was a notion haunting me throughout the Italy game: that somehow the whole wonderful-Irish-fans phenomenon had descended into self-parody.

It was one thing to sing through the Spanish debacle. That was kind-of heroic: it made the TV news in Germany, as many people there told me on the way back. Against Italy, though, it had begun to look like we were wallowing in defeat.

Then again, what were people to do? These were unprecedented circumstances. Never in any previous tournament had the team been eliminated so early, with so little to cheer. In fact, as an accompaniment to the on-field action – which is what they’re supposed to be – supporters really had nothing to work with from the moment Croatia went 3-1 up.

It was like a team having to play without the ball. Except, actually, that’s what Trapattoni’s Ireland does most of the time, so maybe it’s not a good simile. But anyway, it was an entirely new situation fans found themselves in.

I found it oddly refreshing, therefore, when Irish supporters booed the referee off the pitch at half time against Italy. It was as if we were being bad losers. Which of course we’re not. The booers were faking it, I’m sure. Even so, it made a welcome break from the singing.

Similarly, I don’t think Irish fans received enough credit from Roy Keane and other critics for a crunching late tackle on the Spaniards during the closing minutes of that game.

It happened when the main group of Spanish supporters tried to launch a Mexican wave. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t have anything like the critical mass necessary for such an operation. And making the point that our singing didn’t equate with happiness about the football, Irish fans sat on their dignity and refused to join in. In moral terms, we were already 3-0 nil up at the time. The wave veto completed the rout.

Maybe that’s the main point Roy Keane missed. There came a stage in the tournament when the fans’ performance had nothing to do with the team any more. On the contrary: supporters had decided that what was happening on the pitch couldn’t be allowed to define Ireland 2012. The message of the singing was that viewers should look elsewhere in the stadium for who and what we are.