What you will NOT miss in 2020: the debate on an all-ireland football team

Rising above the ridiculous... what the big talking points in sport are really about

WHAT do you think of the new-look Good Morning Ulster? I say ‘look’ but it’s really a new ‘sound’ brought to listeners by Chris Buckler and Sarah Brett.

Both are consummate professionals with considerable national network experience and Radio Ulster’s flagship morning show is clearly in safe hands.

It’s taken a while, however, to acclimatise to a ‘GMU’ where neither presenter has a Northern Ireland accent.

Sarah, a former colleague in the Belfast Telegraph, is English-born while Chris, although originally from Co Down, sounds more Jacob Rees-mogg than Helen’s Bay.

That minor caveat aside, I think they’re both doing a terrific job in extremely trying circumstances unenvisaged when they signing up for this gig. Good luck to them.

The pandemic has, of course, prevented Chris Bucklah on Radio Ulstah (that’s enough – Ed) chairing a debate on whether or not there should be an all-ireland football team.

Normally you could set your watch by it; heroic failure to qualify for a major tournament followed by this hoary old chestnut.

We were spared it in 2016 when both Northern Ireland and the Republic qualified for the Euros but it returned with a vengeance a couple of years ago after both managerial O’neills, Michael and Martin, were licking their wounds post-world Cup qualifying campaigns.

No doubt it will resurface later this year, although there’s still a fighting chance either or both sets of boys in green can do the business. Here’s hoping.

For those who have mercifully missed this ‘debate’ in the past, allow me to advise that it only takes place on broadcast media; newspapers never bring it up. Oh, and only after a disappointing result; never a win over, say, Spain, England, Russia or Germany.

I’ve participated in these debates many times down the years and my response is always the same: the football associations north and south don’t want it, and neither do politicians, fans, the general public or the governing bodies, Uefa and Fifa.

End of, you might say.

Yet, ironically, there has never been closer co-operation between ‘the two Irelands’ (and I’m not, in any way, talking politics here) than at present.

Their common goals, if you excuse the pun, were brought into sharp focus during the seemingly interminable discussions on Brexit over the past three years.

And now, a more formidable challenge has come calling.

As a breathless national television reporter informed us the other night: “we’re dealing with a coronavirus that does not recognise borders”.

Thankfully, the respective health services don’t either.

Indeed, they’ve been quietly reciprocal for decades, allowing for unhindered cross-border movement of ambulances, patients and healthcare professionals.

The potential Brexit problem has been shoved to one side with a ‘memorandum of understanding’, signed by both departments of health, underlining an ‘all-ireland’ commitment to tacking this deadly disease.

With regard to sport, there was rarely any political interference in the likes of rugby, hockey, boxing, and golf — which are ‘all Ireland’ governed — while GAA’S rules 21 and 42 are now consigned to the history books.

A republican tattoo on your leg won’t affect your chances of getting dedicated specialist surgery at the ‘Ulster’ should you be unfortunate enough to rupture your ACL; ditto when a true-blue ‘Son of Ulster’ requires career-saving surgery at Dublin’s renowned Sports Surgery Clinic.

More topically, last weekend the Irish golf unions published the protocol for sport’s safe return in Northern Ireland.

When all this is over, however, I suspect the Irish FA and Football Association of Ireland will still be as far apart as ever. (See recent reports on the all-ireland league proposals).

The FAI’S Good Friday Agreement-inspired harvesting of young Northern Irish (but seemingly Catholic-only) talent, which infuriated Michael O’neill and his predecessors, has entrenched the tribalism and is unlikely to end in a bout of chief executives’ bonhomie similar to that shown by respective health ministers Robin Swann and Simon Harris.

Sadly, neither will it end the ‘debates’ on local radio about an all-ireland football team.