I am sitting in Dublin Airport as I write this. I will board a plane shortly and make my way to my partner’s parents house to surprise them for Christmas as my girlfriend makes her first festive trip home in eight years.

I should really be buzzing. I am in a way. I am really looking forward to seeing the surprise on their faces when we call upon them but I found my mind drifting to the League of Ireland. More appropriately, the lack of League of Ireland.

The tv screen at the airport coffee shop is shifting between news stories and when football popped up I just felt empty. My Friday nights have been souless since the 2015 season ended and I pine for the new season to begin. It can’t come soon enough for me.

The news stories that break in the meantime don’t satisfy my hunger for our wonderful league. Transfer news and announcements of awards. They drip like an irratating tap. Slowly. You would wait a long time to fill a glass with water to quench a thirst. I am really thirsty right now. I am dry. I need the Leaue of Ireland.

I miss the rituals. The drive to the match with my two partners in crime. It is a long journey to a ‘home’ match for us. If we make our break from Dublin the journey is 170km. If I have to join the ther lads in Dublin the trip is about 215km for me. One way. We go to each game with a sense of ‘this will be our night’ every time. The night when the game blows us away and our lads turn in the performance of a lifetime. Rarely is that the outcome. Well not recently. We’ve not had the best of seasons of late but in many ways the game, under lights, on a Friday night means much more to me.

There is something much more to it than just attending a football match. It is a time to be with friends. It is a time to unwind. Relax. Let your emotions be dictated by the unscripted theatre going on all around you.

The good, the bad and the forgivably ugly from time to time.

Watching the ‘glamour leagues’ on tv does little for me. It did years ago but its effect on me and the ability of matches on the tv to harness my attention has diluted over the years. Match of the Day is not bad. I enjoy watching that if I have not given into the tired eyes that always take over at that time on a Saturday or Sunday night. A full game is a different story. When you regularly attend live football, regardless of the standard, a game on the tv can’t satisfy you in the same manner.

When you give the right back an ear full from your couch or a bar counter for being skint by a nifty winger for the fifth time in the opening ten minutes it is not half as ‘real’ as when you open your lungs from the stand or terrace at a match. You genuinely believe he can hear you when you are at the match and believe me, much of what is roared at full tilt from the stands can be heard load and clear on the park.

You pay attention to the game too. You learn to ‘read’ the game. Toilet breaks need to be limited. No Pausing. No replays. Just one chance to see it all. It all. You can take in the entire game when you attend it. What the cameras catch on the tv is only half the story. The other half you ‘see’ when you are present. The characters. The chants. The eternal whingers who find a gripe when you are strolling 5-0. The optimists who cling to that silver lining in the darkest of black clouds. The laughs. The joy. The frustration. The sense of occassion. The curry chips. You don’t get curry chips like it at home on the couch. You can try but they just don’t taste the same without the game right there in front of you.

You don’t get the full package from watching a match on the box.

It lacks the ‘love’. An unbreakable love.

I love my team.

I love my league.

I loved last season.

I will love next season.

I don’t love the break in between.

I miss you so much, so much so that If my other half knew I was writing this she would board the plane on her own!

Roll on 2016.

Love Your League

#loveyourleague