FOOTBALL VS THE TROUBLES

Early March brought Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealing plans for a bid to host the 2030 World Cup. Predictably, the press coverage was full of tiresome headlines about football coming home, just as it was before England’s pitch for hosting rights failed in 1990... and 1998... and 2006... and 2018.

But this time was different. No longer would England go it alone in trying to land the tournament. This time, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would be in the Government-backed bid – and, tantalisingly, so would the Republic of Ireland. It could be an irresistible proposition for FIFA.

After a fraught Brexit process put Northern Ireland’s and the UK’s relationship with the Republic at the forefront of negotiations with the EU, it was perhaps a surprising move. But there may even be an increasing appetite for the reunification of Ireland: a LucidTalk poll in February discovered that those in Northern Ireland who would vote for a united Ireland (45.4 per cent) now approaches the number of those who would vote to remain part of the UK (46.8 per cent). Down in the Republic, the results were overwhelmingly in favour of reunification, with 73.1 per cent saying yes.

For the time being, both of those figures and the issue itself are moot points – but it’s a start. In football terms, it means that if the joint 2030 World Cup bid is successful, there is, unbelievably, an ever-increasing prospect of just one team from Ireland taking part.

If that feels very far away, consider what’s gone before. To get here, Northern Ireland endured three decades of sickening civil strife in a war that tore the country apart. Football, as ever, was trivial in such circumstances – but nor was it left unscathed by the chaos.

MILES FROM HOME

Ever since the Belfast Agreement, or Good Friday Agreement, was signed on April 10, 1998, ending decades of sectarian conflict stretching back to the late 1960s, Northern Ireland has enjoyed