The forecast we went with , 3-1 against this Free State team , was not entirely accurate but , in our own defence (....could make a pun there but won't !) our 'guesstimate' that there would be a two-goal difference proved correct : we would have won but they scored twice and 'we' didn't score at all !
But you wouldn't know that that was the case from the relief being expressed here in this part of Dublin as the majority of supporters seem genuinely grateful that their team didn't actually loose by more than 'just' two goals - a pyrrhic victory , obviously , but one that seems to offer some 'hope' for the footballing future of this State team. Myself and another girl were in one of our local pubs , taking advantage of the soccer crowd -whom we know from the area - by selling RSF raffle tickets for the July 2012 monthly raffle (between the two of us , we sold almost 50 tickets , so no complaints there !) and the fact that their team lost by 'only' two goals was apparently seen as a 'sign' that the potential is there to build on this team and its management structures and turn it into something better (or something useful , as we put it, and even on that we remain doubtful!) but what the two of us really noticed is how desperate those soccer-supporting members of 'The Fighting Irish' are to grasp at straws in the hope (belief ?) that they can convince each other that things are not really as bad as they 'seem'.
And , unfortunately , that is the attitude amongst the majority of people in this State in relation to the economic butchery that is being imposed on them by Leinster House and their leaders in the IMF and Brussels : an expectation to accept that the pyrrhic 'victory' obtained by voting out Fianna Fail and the Greens and replacing them with Fine Gael and the State Labour Party is 'as good as it gets'. That sad mentality - an acceptance of hopelessness and uselessness - would have upset and mentally and morally scared both of us had we not got a strong Irish Republican 'family' to return to. This Free State soccer team will be feted as 'heroes' on their return and he or she who points out that the emperor has no clothes will be treated like a leper and shunned. But that never stopped me before..... !
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
