10 May 2012
The song I associate with Ireland’s trip to Euro 2012 is ‘The Fields Of Athenry’ as sung by Irish fans sometime after a Spain in third gear had knocked in their fourth goal. I wish it wasn’t. I was watching at home on TV in France, crumpling like a collapsed deckchair of pain and mortification, and that whole performative aren’t-we-great-please-love-us wasn’t helping. I can’t say I’ve ever felt the need to belt out terrace anthems lustily while my team is getting its collective arse handed to them, but maybe that’s just me.
Anyway, Euro 2012. Almost as a karmic apology for l’affaire Thierry Henry, Giovanni Trapattoni’s Ireland had been blessed with a straightforward qualifying play-off against Estonia. Karma only goes so far, though: once qualified for the big gig, we were duly plopped right into the obligatory Group of Death. I remember some Celtic Tiger-style high optimism and big talk about how beating Croatia and battling to a heroic draw with Spain would set us up with a dramatic winner-takes-all clash against Trap’s home country Italy. That lasted for about two minutes of a Croatian reality-check; in all three matches Ireland got an almighty chasing. Turned out Poland itself was even rockier than the road to get there.
The official squad single, our first since the heady pre-Saipan ‘Here Come The Good Times’, was indeed just as foreboding. Like that ill-fated 2002 World Cup ditty, ‘The Rocky Road To Poland’ had the imprimatur of Ray D’Arcy’s radio show, then still on Today FM, just if anyone’s looking for a scapegoat. Its makers evidently were passing Carroll’s Irish Gifts, heard the most plastic and condescending diddly-aye Irish folk song being played, then decided: that’ll do. Damien Dempsey wheels out his heart-o’-the-rowl Dubbalin balladeer routine, lyrics get updated to football-adjacent notions about ‘winning the trophy’, someone signs off on throwing in a refrain of ‘You’ll Never Beat The Irish’, and by now I’m cringing just as much as that gloomy night in 2012 when various Spaniards took turns to walk the ball into the Irish net while The Best Fans In The World™ were making a show of us again. They weren’t singing ‘The Rocky Road To Poland’, though.
