Beautiful game turns off Yanks

THE uniformed official at immigration in JFK recorded my fingerprints, snapped my photo, studied my visa and then, with a look of puzzlement, slowly took in my appearance which, after the rigours of a long-haul flight, was only slightly more dishevelled and unimpressive than usual — all scuffed shoes, jeans, t-shirt, scraggy hair, bulging lap-top bag with broken zip and, to top it all off, the haunted, not to say desperate, look of a helpless addict who hasn’t had a smoke in ten hours and would very much like to indulge his foul habit right here, right now, if not sooner, please.

Beautiful game turns off Yanks

But you don’t mess with US immigration and so I stood by patiently and offered a nervous smile as he checked my passport again, checked me out again.

“You a doctor of some kind?” he finally asked, in a what-the-hell-is-the-world-coming-to tone of voice.

“Eh, no, not a doctor,” I answered truthfully.

“But you work in medicine or something, right?” he insisted.

“Medicine?” was all I could repeat by way of reply.

“Yeah, medicine,” he snapped impatiently, “it says it right here on your visa — it says you an Irish examiner.”

And so it does: “Liam Mackey. Irish Examiner.”

An explanation was clearly in order and it has to be said that my man seemed hugely

relieved when I told him that the Irish Examiner was a newspaper, not a job description, and that I was, in fact, a sports journalist.

Of course, if I’d said that I actually wrote about “sawker” for a living he’d probably have refused me entry anyway, and most likely on medical grounds. For all I know, there may be millions of people in America who love and understand the beautiful game but you’d struggle to find them among the many millions more who reckon that a sport in which the ball is headed can do nothing but leave you soft in the head.

A crowd of just over 20,000 turned up at Giants Stadium for Ireland’s game against Ecuador on Wednesday, most of them clad in the bright yellow shirts of the South Americans. But it was a fine game, nonetheless and fascinating from the point of view of students of Irish football who now have a whole new slew of names and faces and stats to ponder.

The local press, however, were not entirely bowled over. For the record, complete with headline, here is the sum total of the coverage of the night’s footie action exactly as it appeared on page 72 of the trusty New York Daily Post the following morning: “SOCCER: BIG WIN FOR AC MILAN. AC Milan won the Champions’ League final defeating Liverpool 2-1 in Athens yesterday behind two goals by Filippo Inzaghi for its seventh European cup title … Kevin Doyle scored a minute before half time and Ireland drew 1-1 with Ecuador in an exhibition match last night before 20,823 fans at Giants Stadium.”

And, er, that’s it. Or to put it another way: a game of international football right on their doorstep commanded less space in New York’s best-selling tabloid than did a story about how Viagra might be used to fight jet-lag.

According to the report (because I know you’ll want to know): “Hamsters with jet-lag were treated with Viagra and recovered 50% more quickly than hamsters who weren’t given the impotence drug.”

Okay, I know we’re going off message here, but I’m sure, like me, you must be wondering: how the hell do you give hamsters jet-lag in the first place? Fly them non-stop around the world? And then keep them waiting at immigration with weird questions? (“You a buffalo, right?”). And, hey, I wonder did the hamster that the other hamsters call ‘Keano’ insist that they fly first class?

But I digress. We’re in Boston now and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of attendance they get at the Gillette Arena later today for Ireland v Bolivia. In fairness to the folk at the local events guide, they’re certainly doing their bit to try to drum up interest. The latest edition of ‘Panorama’, the official guide to Boston, breathlessly urges its readers not to miss “this rare chance to see two international titans — the Republic of Ireland and Bolivia — playing head to head on US soil.”

Awright! And if that’s not enough to set the pulses racing, when the titans leave the arena they will be replaced by local MLS side New England Revolution who are up against the Kansas City Wizards. Awright! Needless to say, I’ll be looking into all this on your behalf, dear readers, and reporting my findings in due course. Because, let’s not forget, I am the Irish examiner and I take my work seriously.

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