LEAGUE APART
Ground level look at life as a professional footballer in Ireland makes for superb viewing
TIMING is everything. A few hours before Craig Speer’s camera focused on a group of nervous footballers in the Home Farm dressing-room, the then Minister for Sport Shane Ross had given a typically theatrical performance to the Oireachtas Committee on Sport concerning the financial woes of the FAI.
When Ross was asked about where the League of Ireland stands, his flippant reply encapsulated years of neglect and disregard for the game’s chief domestic competition. ‘My guess is if the FAI goes, the League of Ireland goes,’ Ross stated.
Speer used those words to soundtrack the moment that a bunch of out-of-contract League of Ireland footballers were going on to the pitch for what might have been their last chance to salvage their careers.
It is one of the more jarring scenes in Out of Their League, which was broadcast on Eir Sport last Monday, a compelling look at the harsh reality of trying to make it as a professional footballer in this country.
The documentary was viewed through the prism of knowing the league was once again being neglected. As of last Monday evening, nobody knew when or if the League of Ireland season would resume. Clarity over the league’s resumption has since been established, but a lot of clubs remain none-too-pleased.
This has always been the way in the domestic game where most clubs, and indeed players, live a hardscrabble existence, just striving to survive. That’s underlined in the documentary when Limerick FC go into liquidation.
No matter how successful Ireland’s own version of Project Restart is when it kicks off on July 31, there’s likely to be more than 80 per cent of players who will be out of contract by the end of it. Many of them will find another club but plenty will slip through the cracks and some might even drift out of the game.
Speer pulls back the veil and shines a light on this hidden side of being a footballer in Ireland.
The documentary-maker is forging a reputation for telling stories from the margins of Irish sporting life.
His first feature, Beyond the Baseline (also broadcast by Eir) was a fascinating examination of life on the ATP satellite tour for
Sam Barry, who at the time was Ireland’s top-ranked tennis player.
Out of Their League hits home even harder, maybe because it was screened at a time when the league was feeling particularly unloved.
Over a six-week period, Speer followed a number of unattached players as they prepared for a training camp organised by the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland, effectively a final shop window for some players.
The players range from veterans such as Conan Byrne, who had just won the First Division title with Shelbourne, to young stars such as Sean Boyd, who has just been released by Shamrock Rovers.
Boyd has an old head on his 21-year-old shoulders and even sourced shift work in An Post as he attempts to revive his sporting career. ‘When I first got into the Rovers team, I thought I’d be there forever… but then you realise football’s not like that,’ Boyd shrugs.
Boyd secures a place in the PFAI training camp but in their first friendly, playing English League One outfit Rochdale, he jars his knee and completely ruptures his cruciate.
The sight of him being airlifted to hospital as the friendly goes on is an arresting sight.
It makes the touching scene as Boyd and his father go through a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings all the more poignant.
Speer was given remarkable access to families and it makes the documentary all the more powerful.
Ryan Masterson, the former Bohs striker, speaks lovingly of how his mother supported his football, as she prepares lunch for him, while Evan White’s father Gerry admits it’s a tough industry, but is certain that his son has the credentials to make it.
White is one of the few who impress against Home Farm and fortune shines on him as he secures a contract with Athlone Town.
If you missed it last Monday, it’s worth keeping an eye out for a repeat on Eir. It might only be a snapshot of the reality of life in the League of Ireland, but it makes you think that, perhaps, we should be giving the domestic game more care and attention.