The globalisation of sports coverage never ceases to amaze me. Last Saturday I was in the Haight Ashbury hippy district in San Francisco casually surveying the hippified shops, cafes and bars, when I heard that unmistakable shout.
The cry of the Irish Diaspora cheering on their county as the Championship summer gets into full swing. As it happens, Martin Mack's pub on Haight was calming down a bit in the latter stages of the Kildare v Wexford match, with most of the customers still reliving the exploits of Cork and Kerry earlier.
It was now around 11.30am, and many of those in the bar had been supping the elixir of life since about 8am. Needless to say, the locals passing the packed pub buzzing with the excitement of the Championship must have scratched their heads and wondered what those crazy Irish guys could be doing whoopin' and a hollerin' so early on a Saturday morning.
What has this got to do with the League of Ireland I don't hear you ask? I suppose it just drove home to me yet again how important those little pieces of home are to the Irish when off in far flung spots.
Listening to Michael Lyster chat with Bernard Flynn after the Kildare win, I might easily have been in my front room, rather than eight hours behind and thousands of miles away in San Francisco.
It always gives me a thrill to receive e-mails and letters from viewers of MNS from all corners of the globe. Fans of clubs the length and breadth of the country who, for one reason or another, can't get to see their teams, other than on the TV or laptop.
We've received messages from as far away as Uzbekistan, all over the USA, practically all of Europe, Australia and across the Antipodes, a few from Africa, although not as many as from the other locations.
It also never ceases to amaze me, when we are contacted by people in places like Holland, Croatia and Germany who have no connections with Ireland, but are just fans of the global game.
I suppose the obvious thing for Irish clubs would be to twin with clubs in other countries. I know it's already happening in an unofficial way amongst supporters' groups, but it strikes me that if an official contact was made between clubs, the League of Ireland ones would probably have more to gain in terms of sales of merchandise, and supporters of those foreign clubs coming to games here to support their 'other' team.
I'm not sure if it's an area that's been fully investigated by clubs, but it strikes me that it could be a fertile new ground for the sides here to take advantage of.
If towns and cities can twin to their mutual benefit, then why not footie clubs? And I'm not just talking about teams here becoming feeder clubs to bigger British sides, a la Home Farm Everton.
We had to pre-record the programme this week because coverage of the Confederations Cup forced a late start.
I much prefer going live because there's always an extra bit of adrenaline flowing when the red light goes on, but because of the availability of our studio we had to record the show before we knew about Shelbourne's exit from the FAI Ford Cup at the hands of non-league Crumlin United.
So in the absence of an on air 'well done' to Crumlin, here's an online 'well done'.
I had been speaking the day after their first meeting to one of the Aer Lingus ground staff who'd been at the match between Shels and Crumlin, and even though he was a Reds fan, he admitted Crumlin had been unlucky then, so this was no flash in the pan victory at the second time of asking.
They deservedly go into the hat for the last 16, the draw for which will be made on 6 July.
I don't wish to dwell on the issue, but the size of some of the crowds at last weekend's matches was worrying. Less than 2,000 at Turner's Cross amazed me. The Cork fans are super, and I couldn't work out why there was so few of them for the Sligo game.
Perhaps the fact that the Gaelic footballers had a match against Kerry on Saturday, and maybe the fact that season ticket holders had to pay in could have been an issue too. Whatever the answer, Cork City need more bums on seats in their current financial plight.
Bohemians also had a very small crowd as our reporter Stephen Alkin mentioned in his report. Mayfield may not be the biggest of draws, but you'd still prefer to see more Bohs faithful at Dalymount as they opened their cup defence.
Incidentally, Pat Morley is getting worried that Jason Byrne is edging towards Pat's goal scoring record in the league. Jason is about 35 short of Morley's total at this stage, but Pat was keen to stress to us in studio before we went on air the other night, that Jason scored a number of his in the First Division when he was with Bray.
Nice try Pat, but I think a league goal is a league goal, and don't look around, big Jason is behind you!
