I love change. My working life has revolved around both my desire for new challenges and the propensity of my profession to satisfy my predilection for fresh pastures.
This process has at times driven my wife and my family to great distraction. But it is who I am and what I do, and I have to go where I have to go if I want to do what I do. De yeh know like?
I love new chapters. The fresh sense of anticipation coupled with portentously pertinent information previously gathered, offer irresistible glimpses of excitement to come.
That wonderful buzz of excitement, allied to an inbuilt sense of great expectancy and, rightly or wrongly, a natural confidence in one's own ability, combine to create my innate sense of eternal optimism that is oft times at odds with my profession and the increasing number of cynical and selfish people who populate the same.
However, I am at the moment in a most agreeable area in my life. I am experiencing change and I have embarked on a new chapter. My departure from Cork City FC and my imminent move back to Dublin offer good opportunity and fresh challenges, the combination of which a young man like myself cannot but find irresistible.
Optimism
This new era is also reflected in, and further embellished by, the wonderful feeling of optimism that all eircom League of Ireland aficionados have at this particular time of year.
A fresh season is upon us and what greater titillation for the year ahead could we have than the new Monday Night Soccer show on RTÉ Two.
MNS kicked off last Monday evening (watch the first edition of MNS here) and I must state that I enjoyed it enormously. Oh, there were the usual hiccups that are part and parcel of any new venture, but overall, I felt the debut show went extremely well.
Having worked on the early years of The eircom League Show on TV 3, I feel I possess a fair understanding of what constitutes a good presentation of Irish professional football.
I will always stand by the TV 3 Sports Department for their initiative and the passionate and professional manner in which they went about their business. But the greater experience and resources of RTÉ and its impressive tradition of live sporting presentations suggest that the new MNS will offer something of great consequence to all levels of soccer in the Republic of Ireland.
For too many years Irish professional football floundered in the doldrums. Indeed, on occasions the term 'professional football' was a misnomer.
Myopic administration
Antiquated facilities hosting unattractive contests, aided and abetted by a myopic and self-interested administration, diluted the enthusiasm of those that loved the game and dwindled the number of those coming through the turnstiles.
The bold move into Summer Soccer hastened a new era, a more ambitious mindset and the advent of full-time football. The product improved as players and managers responded and the influx of younger players into the league, from home and abroad, added a vibrancy that is the lifeblood of every worthwhile organisation.
The subsequent takeover of the eircom League by the FAI was the next big progression. While it is fashionable to criticise our national institutions at the moment, nobody can even begin to suggest that the FAI has not further modernised the eL.
The substantial increase in both prize money and profile generated by the FAI has raised the confidence level of all concerned and it is at this particular juncture that the relevance of MNS becomes most apparent.
MNS - An important partnership
Television is the powerful medium of our time. Therefore, for the eircom League it is imperative that the product and image we project receives approval and respect from a much wider audience.
The clubs have the major responsibility here, followed by the FAI and the league itself. When this is accepted and implemented, which I believe is happening, albeit slowly, then the next progressive step is increased gate receipts and commercial activity.
The quality and acceptance of MNS will represent a substantial and vitally important partnership with Irish professional football in this respect.
I have always had a voracious appetite for reading. As a kid I sometimes found it hard not to peek a couple of chapters ahead. Indeed, on the odd occasion I read the last chapter first.
Maturity has since taught me the importance of the day, the moment, but I do still have that tendency to seek the pages of the future.
Maturity is great, but it is sometimes good to be childish, to be so excited by what is to come, that one can hardly wait.
Watch MNS each Monday on RTÉ Two and worldwide here on RTÉ.ie from 8pm to 9pm
