An Irishman's Diary

ONE OF THE perils of attending sports events is having to put up with obnoxious, loud-mouth opposition fans. But you can deal with that, usually. What’s worse is having to put up with obnoxious, loud-mouth fans of the team you’re supporting.

Take last Friday’s Leinster-Clermont rugby match. It was a magnificent game and occasion, thanks partly to the visiting supporters, who travelled in large numbers, paraded en masse from Dublin’s city centre, and created a spectacle of great noise and colour at the RDS. The balmy weather helped too.

From the kick-off, however, there was a cloud hanging over my part of the stadium in the shape of the drunken twenty-something Leinster fan behind me. It wasn’t just that his voice was shrill, or that his accent made Ross O’Carroll-Kelly sound like Ronnie Drew. No, I could put him with shouting “For fock’s sake, goys!” at regular intervals.

What got under my skin was his habit of referring to the Clermont kicker – Australian Brock James – as a “dingo”. Every time James lined up a penalty, our friend would shout: “Miss it, you focking dingo!” It became such a routine that when another Clermont kicker – Morgan Parra – had a go, he was called a “focking dingo” too.

At this point, I weighed up the right amount of sarcasm with which to tell the loud-mouth that the latest kicker was French. Unfortunately, one of his friends beat me to it. And then, sure enough, when James returned to kicking duties, our man shouted: “Miss it, you French pig!” (either he was short-sighted or the beer had blurred his vision). So once more I was tempted to correct him: saying that, no, actually, this was the dingo again. But I didn’t.

As usual on these occasions, I had mentally rehearsed several different approaches to the annoying fan, from exaggerated politeness (“I say, old chap, would you mind moderating the language?“) to something more drastic, like head-butting him. And as usual, I did nothing. Neither did anybody else.

The players couldn’t hear him anyway, we knew. It was only those around him who had to suffer.

Besides which, of course, intervening with people who have drink taken carries certain risks. In fact, my RDS experience reminded me of a similar situation last year. It was at the famous World Cup soccer play-off in Paris and it illustrated the wisdom of silence: an option I did not take on that occasion.

The loud-mouth then was from an entirely different social milieu: he had a Donegal accent, a Celtic jersey, and he didn’t say “goys”. But he was about the same age as the RDS man, contained a similar quantity of beer, and again he was right behind me.

The most annoying thing about him was that all his criticism was directed at his own team. His favourite term of abuse was “tit”. Damien Duff was a “tit”. Robbie Keane was a “tit”. Kevin Kilbane was a “big useless tit”. And so on.

After 15 minutes, I had had enough. As politely as possible (after first noting that he was a bit smaller than me) I turned around and asked: "Which side are you on, anyway?" But apart from causing him to mutter something – probably "tit" – this had no effect. So minutes later, I tried again, now drawing his attention to the distance between us and the pitch, which was in a different arrondissementof Paris. The players couldn't hear him, I said, but we could, and he was very hard to listen to.

This didn’t work either. So the third time we spoke, I found myself waving a finger in his face and implying that my patience with diplomacy was limited.

The situation was escalating, I knew. But how dangerously, I never found out: because just then, Ireland scored. Cue an explosion of joy among the supporters, who swept each other dangerously forwards, backwards, and sideways, like on the old terraces at Lansdowne (except that there were seats here to fall over).

And amid all this chaos, I realised I was being hugged. Intensely. From behind. It was a manly hug, although only just. And when people settled down again, I though it best to ignore it. Things happen between men in the trenches: no need to dwell on them afterwards. But then the Donegal man hugged me again. And, pressing his face so close I could tell what he’d been drinking (Kronenburg 1664), he said: “Sorry about earlier. It’s just I get emotional at games.”

I told him not to worry, we all got emotional at games. Then I tried to restore some distance between us: 3ft minimum. But it was no use. From then on he was my best friend. There were more hugs, before and after the dastardly French goal.

And as we came to know each other better, I realised that, apart from anything else, I was probably old enough to be his father.

Maybe my sternness had belatedly awakened some need for an authority figure. Or maybe it was just the beer. Whatever, by the end, I felt responsible for him. So when I saw him again later at the train station, abusing French fans about Thierry Henry, I led him away gently. “They know,” I told him, “Let it go.”

So perhaps that’s why I didn’t say anything to the loud-mouth Leinster supporter. The danger of provoking violence is one thing. But provoking affection has its risks too. At this stage of my life, I just wasn’t ready to rush into another relationship.