The First Division Survival Guide

by Brian Kennedy

(first published in the March 2009 Sporting Fingal programme)

THE FIRST DIVISION SURVIVAL GUIDE
(All every fan needs to actually get through a season without taking your own life!)

1. OPTiMISM: Even if it’s hopeful, misplaced or pure blind, every fan from Athlone Town to Monaghan United (yes even Monaghan) will have dreams somewhere between winning 33 games in a row or avoiding finishing last and not getting beat by Fanad United in the Cup.

2. SAT-NAV: If you intend travelling by car to Mervue United and don’t want to end up in Letterkenny talking to a farmer called Joe and his five sheep in the field you actually thought there was a football stadium, then a Sat-Nav is a must. Sure they do lead the odd person into a bog when it’s a city centre you’re looking for, but if you don’t want the entire supporters club laughing themselves sick at you in the pub then invest in one.

3. QUIRKY CHANTS: Most clubs can be very mundane in their choice of chants to the opposing fans, so it’s handy to have an array of one-line put downs to quieten even the noisiest of travelling supporters. Slogans like “Come in a taxi, you must have come in a taxi!” are nice when there are three fans from Fingal in your ground, whilst “Can we play you every week?” is a bit predictable when you’re 6-0 up after 15 minutes. More clever ones would feature “Your shish and you know you are” when there’s a Turkish player in the Shelbourne side, or “Are you Rockmount in disguise?” whilst hammering Cork City.

4. A SCAPEGOAT: The more common name for the person in the middle with the whistle in his mouth. Often known as “the b****** in the black”, you can be sure there will be an array of officials that will “reportedly” have cost your team at least 78 points this season. I do feel for the poor refs as they have an impossible job, though sometimes it’s hard to feel any sympathy when your right back has been carried off on a stretcher with half his leg still on the pitch.

5. MOANING FANS: No stadium is complete without the guy who happens to sit behind you every game, moans when your team aren’t 4-0 up after 45 seconds, wants the manager, board, kit man, tea-lady and  “Sparky” the team mascot sacked, and swears never to come back down to the ground for the rest of his natural life. Even when your club hits a 95th minute wonder goal from 40 yards he complains the ballboy obscured his view, calls the team lucky and tries to tear up his season ticket before someone points out the obvious….it’s laminated.

6. LUCKY ITEMS OF CLOTHING: You may think the guy alongside you in that musty smelling trench coat is a vagrant who’s come in off the street to see if there’s any free soup going at the RSC but chances are he’s wearing the dodgy smelling coat because he first wore it when United won away at Rovers and now links a piece of fabric to the main reason 11 men on the pitch are winning every week. He’s utterly convinced it’s nothing to do with the sound management, solid defence and ruthless strike-force. Nope it’s because of his coat. Us men, we’re a pathetic race at the best of times aren’t we?

7. A RADIO: This applies to at least one fan in every football ground, everywhere in the natural world. You know the guy, folks. The one who spends half the time watching the game whilst pulling an array of faces the other half and tapping his right ear so he can make sure the voice over the airwaves actually said “Cork City 0 Bray Wanderers 9”

8. AN EX-PLAYER TO RIDICULE: They may have gone onto greater things since leaving the city by the Suir, but there’s nothing more gratifying then seeing an ex-player fail gloriously at about 12 other clubs, put on five stone and end up back in Waterford with a team of 18 year olds on the opposing side to the boys in Blue. And then getting beat 5-0 (with him scoring three own goals).

9. A CREDIT UNION LOAN: If you’re going to every home and away game.

And finally…

10. A GOOD SENSE OF HUMOUR: You need to be able to look on the bright side of life when you’re six down at home to Monaghan, the heavens have opened, the car has a flat tyre and the child dropped your chips.