For the last number of weeks I have been trying to get to the bottom of The Great Anthem Debate. For those in the dark, what follows is a short description of the dilemma sweeping stands up and down the country this Summer. There was a time when the anthem meant a great deal. It was an expression of culture and identity, hearing it on the television before Kerry gave some Ulster county an unmerciful hiding during the 70s and 80s. Or maybe you attended your own county final and the County Board wheeled out a dozen oul fellows from the area, stuck kilts on them and told them to splutter and wheeze their way though Amhrán na bhFiann on the pipes. It may have been impossible to make it out but you were all in it together and sure there was no one recording it to play it back and embarrass the lads. It was a novelty back then and we appreciated its value.
Although it’s not a popular view to promote, someone has to call a stop to what the pre-match rendition has become in the 21st century. The current run of things is this: the players go through their elaborate warm up routines as the crowds slowly stagger in from the local hostelries about fifteen minutes before the ball is thrown in. The players then make their way behind St Michael’s band or some other collection of talent musicians as they parade three-quarters of the field as supporters let out yelps of encouragement for their heroes. The atmosphere is now as close to electric as it can be. Hush descends over the ground as we prepare for the National Anthem, hopefully whipping the Gael into a manic frenzy. Within fifteen seconds, all that energy that the occasion has created over the preceding hour has disintegrated, sapped by the modern ‘done thing’.
More often than not it’s some young female teenager who has a great chanter. She has probably cleaned up at the Scór na nÓg and sings at the chapel every Sunday. That’s why it’s frowned upon to comment on this phenomenon. You don’t want to hurt the young vocalist’s feelings. After all it is not her fault. She has been asked to do it by some eejit on the provincial council who thinks that this is the way to go now. Or, as I suspect, he carefully handpicks these cailini in order to dampen any threat of things boiling over with passion on the terraces and a few digs being dished out amongst opposing fans. Well, fair play to him if it is for that reason; it works.
The young lass will only have managed the first dozen words or so, or two bars, and a minute will have passed. You sometimes expect pallbearers and a funeral hearse to make its way onto the field. Even the most excitable and half-drunken fanatic is now slowly losing the will to stand up. There’s no accompanying music, no dramatic drum beat, no tears flowing down the cheeks of some player’s mother. On the other hand, with three minutes having lapsed and she still hasn’t reached ‘Anocht a théam sa bhearna bhaoil’, some supporters are contorting their faces into scary formations with others momentarily forgetting why they are here in the first place. Your eyes begin to water, not with emotion, but because you’ve been staring at the tricolour for nearly five minutes now and the sky is cutting the lining out of your eyeballs.
Players start to stiffen, standing still after such a vigorous preparation. Nowadays they ignore the anthem and launch into press-ups, stretches and manic scratching of their lower regions. The whole affair is a torture now. More often or not the sound of the lady’s voice is completely lost in the wind as she has been made to stand on the pitch on top of a crate with a fierce breeze behind her. I was at a game lately when nothing was heard at all. We stood there for 15 minutes staring at the flag, not knowing that the singer had been red up five minutes earlier and was already in the crowd staring at the flag because everyone else was.
I’m not getting at the singers, nor am I calling for a new anthem. What needs to be done is simple. Get a pipe band or even St Michael’s themselves who do a great job entertaining the early birds in the stands. They play the thing at a decent tempo whilst the blood is still furiously swirling its way around the beery veins of supporters on both sides. It sets the tone for the players to go hell for leather in the opening plays. Now they’re that numb from the death march they’ve just endured that they take 5-10 minutes to stir from the semi-slumber.
I know what the Ulster Council are at. There’s no chance of a slap or two coming from the crowd if the young girls continue to suck the devilment dry before throw-in. It’s like some kind of anti-craic drug in order to sedate the excitable. Yet they’re doing us a disservice. Billy Connolly used to joke that the English had the worst anthem on the planet for creating any kind of fist-thumping motivation before a sporting event and that they’d win nothing until it was changed. We’re not at that stage yet but it’s becoming a painful experience. I’d rather see the whole joint bulging at the eyeballs with foam gathering around the chin than cross-eyed staring at the sky. We could learn alot from the Koreans during the World Cup.
