A league worth watching
Having once studied this business at close quarters and gained, besides a degree, only an appreciation of mankind’s ingenuity when it comes to compiling vast tracts of bullshit, it is not a task I relish.
But we must; because the League of Ireland — or the SSE Airtricity League, to play ball — has changed its ‘marketing slogan’ ahead of this weekend’s resumption.
Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a good sign. The marketing lads might talk about realigning the brand to keep pace with ever-changing consumer needs and preferences.
But usually they just mean nobody’s buying. And that might be part of the reasoning in this case too.
All the same, you’d like to think of it as something more impressive. That we might be seeing — whisper it — enhanced brand confidence.
In case you missed it; the league’s new slogan is “Powering Live Football.” The old one: “Real Football, Real Fans.”
The old slogan was a succinct encapsulation of the insecurities of a certain contingent of League of Ireland devotee. In the murky old world, they talk reverently of the four Ps of marketing; product, place, price and promotion. In the League of Ireland, this was adapted slightly as pious, patronising, precious and, er, put people off.
“Real Football, Real Fans” was a tagline that turned the selling of the league into a call for vocations. We have seen, in other walks of life, the call for vocations doesn’t tend to do great business any more.
It also chimed neatly with the invective towards unreal football fans of unreal football; the bar stoolers and day-trippers.
And it encouraged the real football fans, at least when they weren’t talking among themselves, to talk about football in a bizarre, sermonising way, in a way the unreal fans didn’t recognise. It was the kind of overzealous talk you might expect from producers of craft beer or artisan marmalade.
But as long ago as 1984, around the time he coined his disparaging, Pat Grace-inspired, sobriquet for the league, Eamon Dunphy pointed out, in Magill magazine, the difficulty with this approach. “The league has what might be described as an image problem. Worse than that, the Chicken League has a reality problem.”
Because when the unreal football fans tried out the league — or asked the barman to turn it on, for the laugh; they invariably dismissed it as rubbish.
Partly because many football matches, in all leagues, are rubbish. Partly because they wanted it to be rubbish; so they could give some back to the real fans.
In many cases, they didn’t need to switch it on at all to dismiss it; just glance at the news of receiverships and points deductions and unpaid wages.
All an unhappy cycle of self-defeating one-upmanship.
But hasn’t there been a perceptible shift? Of course, in all likelihood, the league’s new slogan was born when a marketing genius cottoned onto a way of slipping in a nod to the utility paymaster, before realising that ‘Powering Real Football Fans’ would have sounded weird and not strictly accurate.
But doesn’t it also reflect a league that has grown more comfortable in its skin? And is all the more attractive for that.
This time round, the real fans don’t seem to be fretting as much about the “good of the league”. They are talking about Pat’s’ abundant midfield; or buzzing about Caulfield, or worrying about Sligo’s window, or warming to Roddy, or laughing at Rovers’ customary entitlement. They are talking like unreal football fans.
MNS is gone, which has upset some, but the packaging of league action alongside the international game and the Champions League in RTÉ’s new Soccer Republic show might just dismantle more barriers.
What better way to reflect where so many of the international team began their journeys? Or the homecomings of internationals like Keith Fahey and Stephen McPhail? A blurring of realities.
The league was never going to sell itself as an exclusive club. It can’t force people to care. But this positive energy can only recharge the power of live football in charming places like Richmond Park or The Brandywell or Turner’s Cross.
Might the chicken be set to hatch something modestly beautiful?
It was an odd coincidence to learn, within a week, of the brutality two successful managers suffered as children.
We could have guessed Alex Ferguson had taken six of the best as a boy, if only because that was the accepted way during his schooling.
The bullying Davy Fitzgerald suffered was a different business; rogue, cowardly malevolence. But it is a mark of both men’s strength they consider tough experiences to have contributed to the resolve they showed in sport.
Mind you, it isn’t be the first time that Ferguson must give way to another manager with a perspective wider than his own success. Fergie’s fondness for discredited ideas persuaded him to keep the belt his old teacher beat him with, then bequeathed him, and display it in his study, where his “grandchildren are terrified of it”. A man in thrall to a culture of fear that served him well but, when taken away, seems to have left behind a vacuum of confusion and helplessness.
Davy might also make use, at times, of the hairdryer. But his damning of bullies was commendable and he also spoke movingly about his time at the deathbed of a Clare fan who ended his life happily talking hurling. The message when Davy returned to training his young team: “Why are we worried?”
A sounder message, to youngsters about valuing themselves and their ambitions, in or out of sport, than fear of the belt.
People who don’t know racing will scribble dockets this week. With that in mind, I canvassed racehorse owner, punter and millionaire banker Rich Ricci for some tips. Rich — showing the nous that landed him his dosh — gave me only this: “Don’t play every race. Focus on the races where you have a clear opinion. Concentrate on those. Enjoy the others. And if you are on a losing streak, don’t chase your losses.”
The people who don’t know about racing are the very people Paddy Power was after this week; with that Oscar Pistorius promotion.
In the process, Paddy landed an impressive treble of his own; investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority for “trivialising the issues surrounding a murder trial; the death of a woman and disability”. Then the coup de grace; an outstanding achievement; “damaging the good reputation of the advertising industry”.
With all that in mind, you’d have to tweak Rich’s advice slightly for Paddy: Do play people for fools. Focus on the areas where you can show clear offence. Concentrate on publicity. Enjoy the rewards. And if you find yourself in a race to the bottom; step on the gas.
Told us a couple of weeks ago that the standard of snooker is falling. But, like Dougal at the caravan window, perspective is hard to get right when you’re looking back from a distance.
Looked, on Wednesday night, like a fella thrown in at the deep end away to Lilliput.
Rescuing the young fella was a nice touch, especially as he must be sick of sharing his limelight with a chap even smaller than him.
We have heard what happened to Fergie and Davy. Time to retrace our steps to Pards’ childhood and eradicate whatever happened to him from society.
