While The Irish Times’ ever-entertaining Mary Hannigan may have been right to shout "Halt! Bitte!" (today) after this latest bit of "Don't mention the war…Oops! I just did it again!" from the bould Gary Lineker…
"There’s been a mass invasion of Polish fans in to Germany - there’s some sort of irony there"1
…I couldn't help but crack a smile at the following exchange between RTÉ's Graeme Souness and Bill O'Herlihy:
"I think as a nation the Poles are intimidated by the Germans," said Souness.
"With a certain justification," chuckled Bill.2
There's just something about Bill’s "affable yet slightly embarrassing uncle" persona that allows him to get away with this kind of thing.3
Footnotes
Can’t abide that Mary Hannigan.She got way too excited during Saipan and I couldn’t trust her judgement ever again after that
June 15th, 2006 at 8:55 pmAh now Fergal, sure isn’t Mary’s end of the sports journalism market the light-hearted and gently amusing type? I wouldn’t rush to her for judgements (of any kind) but I happily read her TV round-ups and ’shorts’.
I’ll tell you who I find hard to stomach though - Ger Canning. Let him frolic gaily through the meadows of GAA-land, but keep him away from the ’soccer’. When it comes to association football he’s a grumpy old misery guts who clearly doesn’t even like the game!
June 15th, 2006 at 9:36 pm