A man came up to me at Hunky Dorys Park the other night and told me that he had been a regular attendee of League of Ireland matches in the past but had become a lapsed supporter for one reason or another.
Having watched MNS on a regular basis, his enthusiasm for the domestic game had been re-ignited and he was now going to support his local team week in, week out.
It made me very happy, because he obviously enjoyed the programme each Monday, but he also saw that the local game has something good to offer if you give it a chance. I'd like to think that there are many others out there going to matches who've had their love of the game sparked again by our programme.
Although we only had footage from three matches this weekend, with the intervention of the Setanta Cup into the fixture list yet again, we still had some great goals to show, and a huge number of talking points.
Not least from Friday night's match at Dalymount Park. In the build up to the game, Pat Fenlon communicated his displeasure with some of the comments coming from the MNS studio about his team's play so far this season, which I was very surprised to hear, because Pat himself had been critical of the performances served up by Bohemians so far in the League, and indeed in Monday's papers he was quoted questioning the appetite or will to win of some of his players. The very point that our panellists had been making.
The Gypsies will obviously be contending for the title come seasons end, but it would be remiss of our panel not to comment honestly if Bohs are on a run of four games without a win, including back to back defeats.
Having said that I was delighted to see the Phibsboro club win at Windsor Park to set up a Dublin derby in the Setanta Cup final, and endorsing the credentials of the Airtricity League versus its Northern equivalent.
Incidentally, how idiotic was the constant chanting of 'Thierry Henry' by the Linfield fans. Pretty pathetic, but they got their comeuppance, and Bohs-Pat's will make for a better final.
Eoin Hand had a couple of good brain teasers for us in the production office before the programme, having entertained the punters in O'Donoghue's the night before with his vocal talents. Eoin did his best impression of Jimmy Magee with these ones.
Name the five Airtricity League clubs with the letter V in their names?
Name the four English clubs who's name finish with the letter E before Football Club?
MNS staffer James O'Toole plumped for Wigan Athletic. Good man James, we've a better class of worker on the MNS crew! Maybe Mr O'Toole was still in celebratory mode after his beloved daughter Katie Mae went to see his beloved Derry City for the first time ever, and saw them rattle five past Wexford Youths at Ferrycarrig on Sunday. They'll want her to go every week now if she brings them that sort of good luck!
Eoin's other brain teaser was - Which English FA Cup winners surnames are also the names of countries that have played in the World Cup? (There are at least four of them by our reckoning) If you get stuck on any of these questions, we'll post the answers on the MNS facebook page in a day or so.
Liam Buckley was a welcome guest in studio this week, and it was interesting to see his face as he looked back on the old footage of himself playing in the 80s and 90s and on the successes he had at managerial level as well. We felt it was important to mention the fact that he made his debut for Santander at the Nou Camp against Barcelona, as Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes made their Barca debuts on the same night.
We trawled for footage of Liam from that game, but all we could find was Gary Lineker banging them in for Barca! Incidentally, it's great to see that Bucko hasn't been a slave to fashion either. The hair is the same today as it was when he was banging them in at Milltown for Shamrock Rovers in the 80s. I think Liam and Gilbert O'Sullivan are the only two people I can think of whose hairstyle has remained constant through the decades.
Liam made an interesting point about players from here being good enough to play in other European Leagues apart from the English and Spanish Leagues. (Of course there are exceptions who make it to the very top in England but they are relatively rare). He played in Spain, Belgium and Switzerland and is well placed to judge the merits of the players here and on the continent.
Not that we want to lose our best players to any league, but it would be an interesting life and professional experience to live and play in a European League, whether that would be in Holland, Belgium, Switzerland or wherever.
One man who's on the verge of making it at the very top level is Seamus Coleman who's currently on loan at Blackpool from Everton. I think after listening to our chat, viewers will keep a slightly closer eye on Blackpool's last two results in the Championship, to see if they make it into the promotion play offs.
The last time we spoke to Brian Murphy about life at Ipswich, a few viewers contacted us to ask what our fascination with former League of Ireland players playing in England is. The reality is that people like Brian, Seamus and Keith Fahey to name just three were hugely popular players at their respective clubs here and the vast majority of those supporters and football supporters here are interested to know how they're getting on across the water.
We make no apology for that one. We had hoped to chat to Paul Doolin about how the Irish under 23's plans are going at the moment, but time was against us in the end, but we'll come back to it the next time he's in.
Finally for now, Colm 'The Kid' Foley was upset that I thought he might have been alive in 1974. I forgot that his nickname is 'The Kid' which should have given me a hint.
Apparently he was minus five years of age in 1974, so any hope of him remembering players from the finals in Germany in '74 was somewhere between none and slimsville. Ironically during our footage of the Sporting Final v Dundalk match when Alan Kirby scored from the spot I was going to say he reminded me a bit of the Pole, Grzegorz Lato, but I knew I'd be wasting my breathe with Colm, so I kept it to myself, but if you happen upon a DVD of the '74 finals have a look at Lato and a look at Kirbs the next time he turns out for Fingal.
Give Kirby the slightly longer 70's hairstyle and you'll see what I mean. Actually if Alan needs advice on 70's hairstyles he could always just ask his boss. Liam Buckley.
