Uncomfortable bedfellows, but politics and sport do mix

POLITICS and sport, eh? They just don’t mix. Only they do, as you can see elsewhere in the newspaper today.

Whether it’s Waterford hurlers Ken McGrath and Michael Brick Walsh supporting calls to upgrade Waterford IT to university status, or India soccer captain Bhaichung Bhutia refusing to carry the Olympic torch as a protest against Chinese activity in Tibet, sports and politics have always mixed. Maybe as uneasy bedfellows, or even as squabbling bedfellows, each trying to hog the duvet, but they’ve been rambling around in the same four-poster for a long time.

Your correspondent in fact, once sat on the headboard of this particular piece of bedroom furniture (note: bed metaphor comes to an abrupt end here). In a previous life this column worked in Leinster House, where sport and politics got entangled together many a time.