Tommy Martin: Kenny’s Ireland takes another step to a more diverse future

Andrew Omobamidele and Chiedozie Ogbene join Gavin Bazunu and Adam Idah as members of the senior squad with Nigerian heritage. Their stories are different but they are all part of a wave that seems certain to reshape and enrich the identity of the national team

Thu, 03 Jun, 2021 - 07:00

Tommy Martin

Talk about the changing face of the Republic of Ireland soccer team and most people will think you mean Stephen Kenny’s tiki-taka revolution.

Some maintain that, like Germans and stand-up comedy, Irish players passing the ball is simply a contradiction in terms. Others applaud the manager for sticking to his guns, despite 11 winless games, though Big Sam might be checking his phone if Andorra aren’t beaten tonight.

Regardless of the direction of our playing style, Ireland’s visit to the Pyrenees marks another stage in a different evolution. By selecting Norwich City’s Andrew Omobamidele and Rotherham United winger Chiedozie Ogbene, Kenny has helped the Republic of Ireland soccer team take another step towards what feels like an inevitably more diverse future.

Omobamidele and Ogbene join Gavin Bazunu and Adam Idah as members of the senior squad with Nigerian heritage. Their stories are different — Bazunu, Idah, and Omobamidele were all born in Ireland of mixed Nigerian and Irish parentage; Ogbene was born in Lagos before moving to Cork as a child — but they are all part of a wave that seems certain to reshape the identity of the national team.

Not that this is a surprise to anyone with even a passing interest in Irish soccer. Over the last decade, high-level schoolboy teams and underage international selections have regularly featured promising players of African heritage. If the biggest increase in immigration from Nigeria and other African countries came in the early years of this century, then it stands to reason that their children would be coming of age about now.

To those already mentioned, add Wexford-born Derby County full-back Festy Ebosele, Watford’s academy player of the year Bosun Lawal, Celtic’s Jonathan Afolabi, and Rotherham striker Joshua Kayode — all part of the current under-21 training camp, all of Nigerian background. Many others can be found down through the age groups.

These players are subject to the same caveats as any youngsters making their way in the game. But it is hard not to imagine a strong African emphasis in the senior team’s fortunes. For so long the archetypal Irish international was pale and freckled-faced — how many of our future heroes will be young, gifted, and black?

This is all quite exhilarating for those of us who see only the positives in broadening the current gene pool, reshaping and enriching the Irish identity. You are put in mind of the recent appearance on The Tommy Tiernan Show by the singer-songwriter Tolü Makay and her friend, the poet FeliSpeaks, an electrifying piece of television that felt like witnessing a supernova of cultural alchemy.

“We were both born in Nigeria and moved here as children. We’re Nigerian born but Ireland formed a lot of our personality,” FeliSpeaks said. “You’re nearly too black to be Irish but you’re too Irish to be Nigerian.” “I feel like we are the first of our own,” Makay added. “We own this space and we should be allowed to own it.”

The subject came up when Chiedozie Ogbene faced the media this week. His call-up was a complicated one, Kenny having to do serious spadework with Fifa over his eligibility, though Ogbene himself has no doubts about his identity.

“Personally I’m very happy that it’s diverse,” he said.

I grew up in Cork, I see myself as an Irishman, but obviously I am Nigerian by birth, I can’t forget that. I said if I could get an opportunity for Ireland, I would definitely take it. My father is hardcore Nigerian but he was grateful when I was recognised. [The squad] all have one goal, to learn football and do well for the nation.”

But it’s not always so straightforward. As Ogbene was settling into the senior squad, Ireland under-21 manager Jim Crawford was being asked about the breakthrough of West Ham attacker Mipo Odubeko, who declined a call-up for the current get-together. The 18-year-old remains sore at the FAI after being cut from the under-17s squad for the 2019 European Championships when Ireland played their games in Tallaght, his home town. The Nigerian FA have let it be known that they will make an approach.

Not that the issue of shifting international eligibility is news either. Certainly not in this country, masters of the granny rule in the past and where the names of Jack Grealish and Declan Rice still draw sneers. The other theme around Irish underage selection of late has been a wider casting of the net to European-born players of Irish parentage — names like Ryan Johansson, Conor Noss, Anselmo Garcia McNulty, and John Joe Patrick Finn Benoa.

All of which reminds us how the Irish soccer team offers a unique window into broader societal trends. Just as the teams of the past provided arguably the greatest formal recognition of the Irish diaspora in Britain, so today’s squads tell a different migrant story.

Thanks to the way soccer reaches into marginalised communities, those who have come into the country are made visible in a way unlike any other sector of society. Those who leave are now more likely to do so as part of a globalised, skilled workforce, less drawn to traditional Irish bridgeheads.

As much as all this will enrich the Irish international team, it will also challenge us to tone down the rhetoric around what it means to play for Ireland. Many of these young players did not grow up listening to drunken uncles wrapping the green flag around them at family gatherings. They will have complex, shifting feelings about their identities, drawn from their own experiences, positive and negative.

When interviewed, many of these players namecheck a guiding influence, like Ogbene talking about Steve Bermingham, his Cork City youths coach. Some will make decisions based on their career prospects. By showing them sympathetic, nuanced understanding, rather than demanding unquestioning fealty to the cause, we will benefit in the long run.

And this is where Stephen Kenny’s ambitions come in. Emeka Onwubiko became the first Nigerian to represent an Irish international team when he lined out for the Under-15s in 2003. He is now a coach in the Bray area.

“Ireland is a very safe country,” he told The42.ie in a recent interview. “Everything we do is quite safe. So if you start acting like you’re ambitious or passionate about something, they start [dissuading you]…This culture, it transfers to the coaches and the players.

“Say with the African community, you’ve got to be able to dance, you’ve got to express yourself, you’ve got to wear colourful stuff. That culture sometimes integrates into football, because you’re free.”

Colour? Dancing? Expressing yourself? Now that would be a revolution.