October, 2008. Tralee Tigers’ defence of their Super League title isn’t going well. And that’s being kind. 

Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of George M. Cohan’s renowned ditty which, legend has it, was penned on a train journey from New Rochelle to New York shortly after the United States had declared war on Germany.

Whether virtuous or vicious, it’s called an Olympic cycle for a reason.

As work trips go, it was up there with the more memorable.

Were Fionnuala McCormack a footballer she would stand with that clichéd cohort of players who ‘let their boots do the talking’ so it was some shock to wake up yesterday to the spiky sights and sounds of the Irish long-distance runner dropping an f-bomb and calling out the nationality rules in athletics as “a joke”.

The Irish may have been lauded for their knack of sweeping whole cities off their feet with that rum mix of charm and alcohol, but the Euro party to which this country contributed so handsomely hasn’t missed a beat in our absence as all but a few die-hards returned home to life on Civvy Street and a watching brief, writes Brendan O'Brien.

Lille’s Stade Pierre-Mauroy, like so many of the stadia hosting games at these European Championships, is an architectural delight but it earns the appreciation of drivers on the adjacent motorway far more often than the city’s denizens thanks to its location miles out from the ‘centre ville’, writes Brendan O’Brien