Colin Sheridan: Hope never turned to hopelessness so quickly as during Euro 2020 final at Wembley

We should all count ourselves lucky that my beloved Mayo do not react to reaching major finals in the same manner as the revellers in Trafalgar Square did last Sunday evening

An England fan waves a smoke bomb in front of a line of police officers monitoring England supporters standing on the edge of Trafalgar Square during a live screening of the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy in central London.

Sun, 18 Jul, 2021 - 19:34

Colin Sheridan

Colin Sheridan is a writer and columnist. A former officer in the Irish Defence Forces he has extensive deployment experience as a peacekeeper with the United Nations, having lived and worked in the former Yugoslavia, West Africa, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine.

If grief is the thing with feathers, then hope is a firecracker up your arse. In England at any rate.

We should all count ourselves lucky that my beloved Mayo do not react to reaching major finals in the same manner as the revellers in Trafalgar Square did last Sunday evening. There’d be more backsides from Ballyhaunis orbiting the earth than Chinese satellites. The Gresham would be ground zero, the Big Tree a bloodied morass, as distant cousins from Foxford and Fingal go toe to toe, armed to the gills with broken pint glasses and no trousers. There but for the grace of God go all of us.