Faraway green hills: Where football's Irish Rovers find home

Tranmere Rovers is in the shadow of Liverpool’s two Premier League giants but the club is one of the great survivors of English football. Maurice Brosnan visited the club and spoke to a quartet of Irish footballers who have made the place home.

MERSEY PARADISE: A detailed view of a mural, created by Artist Paul Curtis, is seen outside Prenton Park

LISTEN to this. During the Covid lockdown, two Irish men were out storming the beaches on the Wirral Peninsula. The programme was hill sprints and there they were, carving out parallel trenches and wondering how much of their working lives consisted of a desperate struggle to avoid being washed away.

Eventually they removed headphones, turned to each other and made introductions.