Gibson, is of course the player who, having already represented Northern Ireland at youth-level, decided then to jump ship and play for the Republic of Ireland for according to him, "purely football reasons" (more on that anon).
The interview (unfortunately not online) is more concerned with Gibson’s United career, his loan move to Wolves and also touches on his time at Utd’s Belgian feeder club, Fc Antwerp. I was lucky enough to get the chance to watch him (and Jonny Evans and several other of the Utd hopefuls) play there. In the game I saw, he was rather anonymous, although to be fair to him, he was also recovering from an injury. Back to United reserves this season and despite the injuries to Hargreaves, Carrick and Fletcher, he still hasn’t (other than joining up with the squad at Everton) broke into the first team...so it probably makes sense to farm him out to Wolves to get a bit more experience. With the summer new signings at Utd and a host of very promising youngsters breaking through at Utd, I suspect he’s going to have his work cut out becoming a first-team regular at Utd and as I said earlier on in the season, I also suspect that he’ll eventually end up at one of the bigger Championship teams rather than remain at Utd. There again, players of the calibre of Darren Fletcher and John O’Shea are still knocking round OT, so who knows?
Anyway, for NI supporters there are two interesting quotations concerning his defection to The Dark Side:
It was unbelievable you know, making the debut for your country. Everyone from Derry wants to play for Ireland
Assuming by "Ireland" (no team of that name is registered at FIFA) he means the Republic of Ireland football team and not the Ireland rugby or cricket team, that second sentence will be news to the lads and lasses of the Londonderry Northern Ireland Supporters Club.
Having said that, Gibson was brought up on the west-side of the Foyle, which became in the early 1980s, to all intents and purpose, a Unionist Frei Zone. He also, like the vast majority of kids in Ulster, endured a religiously-segregated education. So in terms of the environment that he actually grew up with in Derry, probably then, yeah, it would have been unlikely he’d have got to meet many folk brave enough to admit to being Norn Iron fans. Still, it’s the kind of ignorant comment which irritates.
Curiously though, that is the only time that he refers to the Republic of Ireland team as "Ireland" , for the rest of the article he calls them , er…the Republic of Ireland; for example:
As far as I see it, I’m a Republic of Ireland player and I always will be. That’s not going to change. Honestly, there was no politics at all in my decision. It was purely football reasons , to try and play at the highest level with my country.
OK, Republic of Ireland player, yes, good, even got the name of the team right this time.
But "no politics at all in my decision"....hmmmm, you played for Northern Ireland at youth level, you then made a conscious decision to play for an association other than the one you were born in.
Why?
You feel a closer affinity to that team presumably....why do you feel a closer affinity to that team?
Someone from your city, living on the other side of the River Foyle, will most likely feel a closer affinity to the Northen Ireland team...why?
Purely "football reasons" in both cases? I think not.
And regarding that last sentence, if you’re playing for the Republic of Ireland, you may well be playing for the country that you politically/culturally, or even in a sporting sense, identify most closely with, but it is not “your country”, you were clearly not born in the Republic of Ireland.
Time to cut the bullshit Darron; if you are happier playing with players from Cork, Galway or Dublin rather than Belfast, Ballymena or Newry, then, OK, in the end that’s your decision, but please don’t insult our intelligence by coming out with such spurious rubbish to justify that decision.
7 comments:
Well said, time to cut the crap.
Oh and your link to the list of official NISCs is broken.
Bitter.
Darron's decision to play for Ireland for 'football reasons' of course is spurious.
But perhaps you should ask the more fundamental question - why is he spinning such a unlikely yarn?
In Norn Iron society and with the spotlight of both teams supporters, perhaps it's better to 'spin' rather than admit the real reason: he identifies more with the Republic of Ireland than Norn Iron, just in case someone equates Darron Gibson with being the new, improved version of Neil Lennon, no?
If his 'bullshit' rationale protects him and his from the minority lunatic fringe of NI supporters who forced one of their own out of the NI team, then I for one will buy it wholesale.
Glad to see you recognize his right to choose!
Sorry, one more thing - your 'not your country' remark is so wide of the mark, so utterly un-progressive and so 'Old Stormont Unionism' you must be attempting irony again?
No?
Darron Gibson was born in northern Ireland, but he is also citizen of the Republic of Ireland. I don't want to burst your pedantic bubble but NI being the half way house political entity that it is, but Darron's country can be either or just one depending on his choice.
"In Norn Iron society and with the spotlight of both teams supporters, perhaps it's better to 'spin' rather than admit the real reason: he identifies more with the Republic of Ireland than Norn Iron, just in case someone equates Darron Gibson with being the new, improved version of Neil Lennon, no?"
Or he (and more importantly members of his family who have raised the temperature on occasions with comments which bear little relation to truth) could just stick to the football.
What's the point in him lying about his motivation to play for the ROI? A few simple "no comment"s would do us all a favour and might take the present heat out of the situation.
"Sorry, one more thing - your 'not your country' remark is so wide of the mark, so utterly un-progressive and so 'Old Stormont Unionism' you must be attempting irony again?"
Does he have the right to vote in your elections yet?
No, is the simple answer. But that in itself doesn't dictate that he is any less a citizen of Ireland (The Republic).
My Uncle for example holds an Irish passport but lives outside the state in a country where he can vote and partake in the local political debate. He unfortunately can't vote in Irish election but that doesn't change his nationality, his citizenship or his identification with the Irish state.
When I lived in Sweden I was entitled as an EU citizen to vote in European elections - but it didn't mean I was suddenly Swedish.
Darron himself is born on the Island of Ireland, in the part of the Island that's an entity of the UK - which is something I support btw. But thankfully, his political identity as 'Irish' is fully respected by the UK authorities and his rights as a voter in NI are equally enshrined.
As I've said before NI is a half-way house entity - I don't mean this in a disparaging sense just as a statement of fact. Ultimately identity in NI is a complex issue but coercing individuals into an identity and expecting them to 'belong' on the basis of where they are born is a rather out-moded way of dealing with the issue. If DG felt 'Northern Irish' or identified with Ulster as his imagined community then he would've stayed within the NI set up.
Your half-way house comment is meaningless. Northern Ireland is not a half-way house. It is a sovereign part of the United Kingdom. The Republic's aggressive citizenship laws invite Northern Irish people to take Republic of Ireland passports and those who available of them are effectively taking dual nationality (whether they like it or not). National identity is another matter altogether and proudly, we in the United Kingdom do not predicate our political arrangements on national identity, but that does not mean that any of our constituent parts are "half-way" houses, the warped understanding of ethnic nationalists not withstanding.
"But that in itself doesn't dictate that he is any less a citizen of Ireland (The Republic)."
In this regard, he's only an honorary/second-class citizen, this is from the Irish Government's website:
http://www.refcom.ie/RefCom/RefComWebSite.nsf/0/D23FE8E408FE498280256EA60056F1C4#vote
Dáil Elections
Citizens of Ireland and of the UK who are living in Ireland are eligible to vote
Darron is technically a citizen of "Ireland" and technically living in "Ireland", yet he has less voting rights than a Brit living the ROI...how ironic is that!!
On a more serious note, I was surprised to see that there was no facility even for postal votes for Irish citizens living abroad.
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