Sky doesn’t give the GAA a sporting chance

I very much enjoyed Michael Moynihan’s recent piece (Monday Sport, Jul 29) regarding the all-pervasiveness of Sky Sports and the English Premiership.

It is depressing to witness a pub full of people staring goggle-eyed over pints, and carvery lunches, at Wigan Athletic and Stoke City, or some other such, battling out a 0-0 draw. It is all the more disheartening when this takes place within walking distance of Irish sports grounds, of all codes, where the same people could watch sport rather than this tiresome soap opera. The Sky Sports coverage is complete with ‘canned’ crowd noises to create a sense of drama that does not exist unless, of course, you are an actual rather than a virtual citizen of whichever English city happens to be playing. Raymond Williams was correct in identifying how the hoi polloi can be persuaded that they have some emotional investment in trivialities.

Matt Treacy