Forget the naysayers, football’s still worthy fare

"To one’s enemies, I hate myself more than you ever could." — Alain de Botton

For the GAA, it has been a summer filled with self-loathing. ‘Newbridge or Nowhere’ was bad enough but the controversy over the Liam Miller charity match and Páirc Uí Chaoimh has laid bare the love-hate nature which so many have when it comes to a national organisation of which they are members.

Touchy in the extreme when their games of choice are criticised by those who lean towards the association or rugby versions of football, they seem permanently locked in a torment of their own over Gaelic football. Conflicted souls flogging themselves for their sporting sins, like the Opus Dei assassin Silas in the Da Vinci Code.