Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
It’s time to bench that anti-English rhetoric...
THE football match during the 1914 Christmas truce has become one of the most famous and mythologised moments of the First World War.
As legend has it, late on Christmas Eve 1914, the British and German troops entrenched on the Western Front exchanged messages across enemy lines and called a halt to hostilities. The following day the opposing forces met in No Man’s Land, exchanged gifts, took photographs and buried their dead. And as history has it, a friendly game of football was played. Historians have since debated if The Game of Truce was fact or fiction.
Whether or not the match was ever played is irrelevant. The magic of The Truce Match lies in the myth. The timeless retelling of a legend.
Today, as then, the Euros Final is one of the most momentous football games ever to be played. While tonight’s victor will go down in sporting annals the match itself will be immortalised in history books. That the game is kicking off at all is a cause for global glory.
Every country has endured a painful 18 months, no nation unscathed, no cause for celebration. So football making it to the final is a win for all.
Unlike any other sport, football crosses borders, transcends ideologies and has an unrivalled capacity to unite.
And like it or not, this England squad are most special, not just in soccer but in their individual striving for social justice.
Led by an inherently ‘decent guy’, coach Gareth Southgate has summoned a team spirit of community and camaraderie that has captured imaginations on and off the pitch.
Individually the 22-man squad are outstanding. Beyond their football boots there is much to admire in
Southgate’s young men. Like the Three Lions on their shirts they have shown courage in raising awareness about equality, inclusivity and racial injustice. Wherever your allegiance lies, these guys are relatable to the masses, their values universal.
Raheem Sterling is a beacon for racial justice. Marcus Rashford has taken the fight for poor youngsters all the way to Downing Street and Jordan Henderson is an Anfield icon and an NHS hero to boot.
Captained by Harry Kane they are the sporting definition of what the many can achieve working together towards one goal.
So unless country fealty applies, this is one game where anti-English rhetoric ought to be benched.
Mount’s gesture just pitch perfect
ANOTHER memorable Euro 2020 moment happened off the pitch. When the final whistle blew after the semi-final against Denmark, England player Mason Mount walked off the pitch and made his way to the stands where hehanded his shirt to a shocked supporter. While Mount’s eye was on the ball for 90 or so minutes, his post-match act of kindness involved a flame-haired fan who captured his attention as he caught sight of her. Ten-year old Belle McNally’s tear-stained face clutching the sweaty jersey will surely encourage other little girls to get their boots on and get out and kick, throw, hit or bash a ball around a field with the best of the boys.
Belle’s Mason moment will imprint a lifetime love affair with the beautiful game and hopefully be a game-changer for girls everywhere and show they are not gender-restricted in any way at all.
I just cannot stanza Bailey’s grandiosity
IAN BAILEY’S notoriety has undergone a significant resurgence with both Netflix and Sky releasing documentaries about the infamous killing of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Bailey, a former chief suspect for the brutal murder of French mumof-one Sophie, says that being thrust back into the media glare has disturbed his breakfast.
A self-styled poet and general blabbermouth, Bailey revealed he was just about to tuck in to a plate of Gubbeen rashers, scrambled eggs, brown toast and black coffee in his favourite café in Schull when the owner said other customers had been making comments about him being there.
Apparently oblivious that the chatter about him centred on Cork’s most infamous crime, Bailey responded: ‘I think it might have something to do with poetry, I’m not sure.’
He may have a point as the documentaries have proved beyond all reasonable doubt that a wizard with words he most certainly is not.
Newly single Bailey has also been besieged with messages from ‘big bosomed’ female admirers after he admitted to joining a dating site. ‘I put up posts and went from zero to 100 in 60 seconds,’ he said humbly.
By all accounts being a selfconfessed suspect in a brutal murder hasn’t dampened the desires of a brigade of Baileybunnies. But perhaps his persistent prattling on with what he passes off as poetry will pour cold water over the ladies’ burning lust for him As the old saying goes, every old sock gets a shoe.
Price is wrong with her over-injecting
THE latest photos of Katie Price this week are a shocking example of a jab too far. Katie has ruined her looks by over-injecting.
Now I readily admit I get a bit of Botox. In fact I’ve been having a jab here and there since my midtwenties. But the secret to a linefree face is less is best. I am talking from experience.
One time I had my lips done but being blessed to have been born with plump lips my fillers saw me endure a few months where I was lippy in both looks and nature.
So, speaking from experience resistance to ageing is futile. Doing nothing is, for the majority, not an option. But a little makes for a lot more pretty.
I’m not Bacik crazy as it’s more of same
TO paraphrase Bertie Ahern, the success of Ivana Bacik in the Dublin Bay South by-election has not only ‘upset the apple tart’ it has toppled the whole political trolley.
It speaks volumes that the voters there would prefer a representative others have roundly rejected for the past 12 years than any of the candidates of the same ol’ political ilk that have been on the ballot since the days when apples were actually sold off the back of carts. As the saying goes ‘we get the politicians we deserve’.