Steeler cuts into Dublin

Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Greg Lloyd is a very private man. Up until last week it had been nearly two years since he had agreed to talk to any member of the press. Then he came to Dublin.

Lloyd, it seems, was not much taken with us on his recent visit as part of the Steelers team that beat the Chicago Bears in the American Bowl at Croke Park. In fact, the player, who earns nearly $2.5 million a year, broke his long silence after the trip to tell his local paper of a rude nation of rip-off artists who treat their visitors with contempt. Worse than that - calm yourselves before continuing dear reader - the man insulted our Guinness!

"They are a bunch of rude people," said Lloyd in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review "It's like they are having a joke at your expense. You ask for something and people look at you like you asked for a million bucks, like you asked for the world."

Having rediscovered his taste for interviews there was clearly little stopping Lloyd, whose more specific targets, once he had moved on from general assessments of our national character, included taxi drivers - "you get in a cab and you see the fare and people turn around and say (the fare is) something else" - hotel staff - "ordering room service, they bring you the wrong thing and they look at you like, `Eat it anyway, sucker"' - and autograph hunters - "they don't know who they are getting an autograph from or for what reason, you can sign anything and they don't care".

The food, he says, is "horrible", the city of Dublin dull - "grey buildings, grey skies" - while the Guinness is, er, nondescript - "you have to drink it, but it's just beer. Beer is just beer."

Despite clearly being appalled by our capital city and its inhabitants, Lloyd, who gave Barcelona a good going over after the Steelers played there four years ago, is considering making a permanent move here when he hangs up his shoulder pads. "I might want to move here, then," he concludes "because nobody knows who I am and that's just great." Can't wait to have back then, Greg, just can't wait!