Like him or not, you have to love the Dub

Keith Duggan Sideline CutI have often thought that there are only two worthwhile places to watch the Dubs playing football in Croke Park. Either stand in the soul of it on Hill 16 or else travel deep into Kerry country and watch it among the Kingdom folk, in Páidí's bar or surrounded by All-Ireland winners in downtown Tralee.

For a few years back in the 1970s Kerry probably genuinely feared the Dubs, but in the decades since, that trepidation and respect have been replaced by something akin to fond amusement and maybe a little nostalgia. The Dubs fill Croke Park, they make it the noisiest and most evocative football stadium in the world, but when it comes down to it, when September arrives, Kerry, more often than not, own it.

The Dubs are a prized city possession but when they play football in the summer, it becomes a national affair.

There is a general presumption that the country at large greatly enjoys the notion of seeing the Dubs taking a beating on Jones's Road. But that is only half right. One of the reasons is that seeing the Dubs getting beaten on Jones's Road is no particular novelty these days. But it is also down to the fact that when all is said and done, country folk have nothing against the ould Dub.

For country people, Dublin is more or less impossible to ignore. We go to work there. We invariably have cousins there. Some of us even have friends there. In recent decades, it became fashionable for the more remote counties, particularly those along the western seaboard, to split winter training sessions so that those football players working and living in the capital would train in the Phoenix Park.

There must have been times, when the national economy was stagnant and the villages deserted, that the Park must have been literally overrun with big-boned farming types running drills and hoofing footballs on every spare patch of grass. Heaven knows how courting couples found a moment's privacy.

There is always a wildly temperamental mood in the city on these summer weeks when the Dubs are involved in an all-or-nothing showdown in Croke Park. As a body, with 60,000 or so suburbanites all decked in sky blue and singing Molly Malone, the Dubs seem an impossibly cheerful and confident bunch. But, of course, that is just comfort in numbers. Once alone and in reflective mood, the Dub reveals himself as a deeply introspective and fairly pessimistic chap. The Dub is a fatalist.

There are few more heart-rending sights than a lone Dublin fan standing at a bus stop on the evening of a bad loss at Croke Park. The sudden and epic way in which Dublin football gathers momentum during the dog days of August can but lead to intense mood swings and desolate evenings.

Many of my colleagues are bona fide Dubs (though I have heard a theory that the only true Dubs are those who can account for seven generations of city living, both sides, without so much as one of those family members ever darkening the doors of Brown Thomas) and around this time of the year, their eyes become glazed. They take to wandering around the place wearing, perhaps, the shirt that Joe McNally handed them after a league game against Monaghan back in 1984, complete with the sacred Croke Park soil caked around the midriff (it is either that or Bisto). They haul old Lizzy LPs from the attic and refuse to drink anything other than Uncle Arthur and effect a garrulous, Ronnie Drew-type brogue.

Deep down, they are worried and petrified and read bad omens into everything. The return of Ryan McMenamin, Tyrone's tigerish corner back, after a clandestine, late-night appeal championed by one of those mysterious Croke Park disputes committees nobody had ever heard of before - that is a hugely bad omen.

The Dubs, perhaps rightly, interpret this as proof of a nationwide conspiracy against them. Given the Dubs' luck in these matters, McMenamin will not only play today, he will play as he never has before. Peter Canavan will come off the bench and play like he did in 1995. The Dubs will be done down and the glee will be general and unrestrained.

It is hard for the Dub to take, because by and large, he and his kin have been traditionally hospitable and welcoming toward their rural visitors. Cultural facilities have been established across the city with the tastes of rural folk specifically in mind - the Zoo, Busáras, Funderland and Copperface Jacks, for instance.

The Dub regards with a certain fondness the simple delight country folk can take from the sight of O'Connell Street blazing at Christmas or the chance sighting of a thoroughbred celebrity like Bertie or Brendan O'Carroll waltzing down Grafton Street. The Dub will assure the star-struck visitor this was nothing and Dickie Rock was knocking around just the other day.

Even the darker side of city life is a source of wonder to country folk. Country folk like nothing better than a madcap dash down to Heuston, laden with Clerys bags, so they can scold, over a cup of tea and a KitKat, the scandalous chat out of the taxi-driver, the state of the sprouts in the Kylemore and the number of urchins on the Ha'penny Bridge. They would never live in Dublin, they agree, as the train pulls into their town, the rain spitting and not a sinner on the street.

In recent years, it has become more and more common for the Dub to venture into the heart of the country for a holiday weekend, gamely dipping his toes into the Atlantic and spreading advice, good cheer and hard-earned wages in the less-lit parts of Ireland. No matter what is said about the Dub, he can never be accused of not being good for a pint.

Look. It is probably true and fair to state that few country people have actually said a rosary for the intention that Dublin might win the All-Ireland. But we are sympathetic to the plight.

Today is particularly tricky. The Dub has trouble classifying the Northerners. In the south, we know the Dub vernacular: Heero. Bealo. Anto. Seno. Jayo. Whelo. Deco. Robbo. We are familiar with these soldiers. But over the years the Northerners were too wrapped up in themselves to ever pay all that much attention to the Dubs. Yes, Northerners are from the country but they are flintier, tougher to pin down and almost completely impossible to understand.

Among the Dubs there is a certain respect for Northern visitors - you almost never see the cars bearing Northern plates clamped, let alone burgled. They regard Dublin as a likeable place that doesn't really work, with disastrous parking and an unreasonable reluctance to serve chip butties.

The visit of Tyrone means a stressful day for the Dub. But for the rest of us, this game is a treat. Practically the entire country will tune in this afternoon because despite ourselves, we are impressed by the sight of the Dub filling his native stadium and owning it, if only for a single afternoon.

And down in the Kingdom, they smile indulgently.