Death threats make cheese sandwich disputes look stale

"AFTER all that's happened, the Irish captain may never again play for his country."

Now where have we heard that one before? Except this time, the individual under discussion wasn't R*y K****e, it was Neil Lennon, the Celtic player who had to pull out of Wednesday night's friendly against Cyprus in Windsor Park, following a Loyalist death threat.

Suddenly, bumpy training pitches, late-arriving kit and cheese sandwiches don't seem like such a big deal.

One's sympathies go out primarily to Lennon and his family, of course, but also to the unfortunate folk at BBC Northern Ireland who had to proceed with their 'Match Of The Day' highlights package on a night when few could really bring themselves to care about events on the pitch.

To their credit, the Beeb didn't attempt to fudge the issue, topping and tailing their programme with the Lennon story, and keeping analysis of the football itself to a minimum.

It was all intensely gloomy stuff, from the fan interviewed earlier on Sky who tore up his match ticket in front of the camera and vowed never to watch Northern Ireland again, to Billy Hamilton, a man with happier memories of his time in the green shirt, expressing his "shock, frustration and sadness" at the news that sectarianism once again put the boot into football.

Just about the only consoling note was the faint chant of "There's only one Neil Lennon" which the mic picked up at one point during the game.

While those determined to make sport a unifying force in Northern Ireland battle against the odds, you have to wonder how utterly senseless it must seem to them that the manager and captain of the Republic of Ireland can't sort what are, by any comparison, problems of an entirely trivial kind.

A big red card to me for being stupidly naive, I suppose.

While their counterparts north of the border suffered, the other boys in green were enjoying an away day in Helsinki. Ditto the commentary team.

You can always tell it's a friendly international by the carefree tones of George Hamilton and Jim Beglin. George, in particular, sounded like he'd been at the laughing gas. Advised of the correct pronunciation of the Finnish sub Kuqi, he promptly trilled "Coochie coochie coo" before hooting with laughter.

Later, when the camera picked up Shay Given in goal, the Donegal man having surreptitiously replaced Dean Kiely in one of the night's numerous substitutions, George's funny bone was tickled again. "Is he on then? When did he come on?"... "I wondered why you looked at me funny when I mentioned his name," said sidekick Jim. Cue another fit of the giggles.

Then again, there was plenty to smile about as the Irish notched up a comfortable win graced by a brace of splendid goals from the neophytes Healy and Barrett.

Back in the studio, the latter's strike brought out the fatherly instincts in Liam Brady as the Arsenal youth expert paid tribute to a "100% kid" and "a really conscientious boy".

It was one of those nights when good vibes abounded for, as John Giles put it, "if you're going to play a friendly match, you're better off winning it 3-0 than losing it 3-0."

Not even Keano could argue with that.

If I was smiling at 8pm, by 9pm I was in need of urgent medical attention, all vital organs taxed to the max by uncontrollable hysterics. This is what an hour in the company of 'Apres Match' can do to you this is comedy so lethal that it should come with a government health warning.

For those of us lucky enough to have spent the month of June on the Pacific Rim, 'Apres Match World Cup Xtra Time' was a reminder that the World Cup isn't always the best place to be if you want to fully experience the World Cup.

A compilation of their greatest hits from the tournament, interspersed with some wonderfully edited packages of the action itself, 'World Cup Xtra Time provided further confirmation that Murphy, Cooke and Cooper are responsible for some of the most inspired satire and mimicry ever seen on TV in these islands.

So here again were Dunphytown ("40% off all contradictory opinions"); Des and Terry ("You come from Blarney down there, don'tcha, har har?"); Michael Ryan on 'Stationwide' revealing that RTE's blockbuster answer to 'Big Brother' will be cameras trained on a big tank of fish; Murphy's German scourge of the Irish ("Hello, are you all haffing ze incorrectly spelled craic?"); Joe Duffy ("Inflatable hammers and the problems of disposing of them is what we're talking about today"); withering send-ups of media folk Des Cahill, Gerry Ryan, Marian Finucane, Pat Spillane, George Hook, Garth Crooks and the TV3 boys; and, most funny of all, Tommie Gorman's interview with Eamon Dunphy ("I want to analyse for my country").

Oh, paroxysms of mirth here, as George might say.