Big boys do best to live up to spin

IT was in Dublin and there was a cup at the end of it but only the most impressionable would describe it as super.

Ireland’s new pre-season club tournament, the Dublin Super Cup, was not short of glamour names but it still failed to set the public imagination alight. Had Celtic not attracted their usual committed Irish following, the Aviva Stadium would have played host to even more empty seats than it did. As it was, the official attendances supplied by the PR representatives of organisers Endemol — 22,000 yesterday and 20,000 on Saturday — struck many of the media people present as being decidedly on the generous side.

Yesterday, after Celtic had brushed aside the Airtricity League 5-0 helped by goals from the Glasgow Irish contingent of Anthony Stokes (two) and Daryl Murphy (one) — it looked like the interval act, Dublin soul belter Mary Byrne, would be as close as we would come to getting a little X Factor out of the tournament.