Same old story can be avoided by rewriting script
It’s a good yarn well told and one that has broken multiple box office records by placing the spotlight on familiar characters from an unusual perspective but it won’t be the first show to tinker with preconceived notions when it lands at the Bord Gáis Theatre.
Brian Peters beat them to that punch with his boxing programme down by the Grand Canal Dock last Sunday evening when he rigged a ring on the main stage and had Katie Taylor and others strut their stuff in a building where actions had never before spoken so much more loudly than words.
It was a bold move by the boxing promoter. Opinion was divided beforehand on whether the idea would work but work it did and you have to applaud the Meath man for his willingness to think outside the box and his ability to promote an Olympic champion who would otherwise be all but invisible to us. Peters has been dragging the sport of boxing out of the shadows in this country for a while now with his glitzy promotions, most notably through his use of the O2, but his fights of fancy at the Bord Gáis are by no means the first example of how a sport has challenged our preconceptions.
In the last decade or so, we have seen basketball games played on aircraft carriers and on the stage of New York’s Radio City Music Hall. We’ve witnessed Roger Federer and Andre Agassi hitting out on the Burj Al Arab’s helipad in Dubai and beach volleyball on Horse Guards Parade.
All that’s just a taster.
What all that surely proves is that there is always another way, that just because something has been done one way for decades or more doesn’t mean it is a blueprint that has to be dusted off year after year and especially if it hasn’t exactly been one to deliver success.
Which brings us on nicely to today’s annual launch of the Airtricity League at the Aviva Stadium.
The old League of Ireland hasn’t been without its heart-warming stories of late, whether it be the rebirth of Shamrock Rovers on and off the pitch or the re-emergence of Sligo Rovers, but the overall picture remains one of stasis, at best, due to a lack of funds and fans.
It’s a deep-rooted problem but hardly a unique one and it was interesting to watch action on TV during the week from another league that has managed to reinvent itself after a lengthy period of decline and one which any number of format tweaks and a switch to summer football had originally failed to arrest.
In Australia, their domestic product was hampered even further by a long list of more popular and traditional Aussie pastimes as well as the ethnic associations which led to frequent violence among supporters of clubs whose identity was founded on links to the old countries such as Croatia, Greece and Italy.
That all changed in 2005 with the advent of the A-League. After 27 years of rot, change was railroaded through from above. New league, new name, new format, all but four new teams and the result, while not perfect, has been a significant improvement on the old days when mainstream sports fans looked away in disgust or with disinterest at a game ghettoised by its migrant image.
The average crowds that first season eight years back were a healthy 11,627. By last year they had crept up by just less than a thousand. Licensing problems, as in Ireland, haven’t been unknown. Some have been revoked but others have stepped in and kept the momentum ticking along.
Marquee names — Alessandro Del Piero, Fred and, er, Emile Heskey among them — have added a touch of stardust but the core remains local. Most players, captains and coaches are Aussies born and bred and the next generation is led along by rules dedicating a minimum of squad places for teenagers.
None of that is to say that it should be used as a template for the FAI but what it does prove is that it can pay to think outside the box and, with opportunities for Irish players dwindling in the cosmopolitan English game, there has never been a greater need for a vibrant domestic league here.
It was Albert Einstein who said that the definition of insanity was to perform the same acts time and again and expect different results and you don’t need to be a genius to know that the League of Ireland is a concept that needs some new and enlightened thinking if it is to ever truly prosper.
Email: brendan.obrien@examiner.ie Twitter: @Rackob
