There’s an insufferable quality to the sporting snob

A Connemara bar on an Easter Sunday afternoon — pints and fish-and- chips and plenty of fun. There are locals and blow-ins, tourists, day-trippers and weekenders. By 5pm, the place is full. 

It’s not exactly the last days of Rome, but as afternoon turns to evening the laughter and the flow of English and Irish and French and Polish rises and gathers in a lovely warm hum.

There’s a match on the TV — Chelsea v Manchester United in the English Premier League. When it starts, people are watching it and not watching it.