I watched part one of RTE’s new four-part documentary, Green is the Colour last Wednesday evening(May 16th 2012).  The series examines the history of the soccer in Ireland and the Irish national team.

I was somewhat sceptical about what I might see before the programme began. I was fearful that the storyline might get the Sky Sports treatment; everything is brilliant, it always has been and it is only going to get much better. What I saw was a very insightful account, warts and all, of the formative years of Irish soccer.

Sports commentator Darragh Maloney is the narrator of the series. His opening remarks tell us that the series is “all about football in Ireland, and the Irish in football. From the nineteenth century ‘Garrison Game’ to the summer of 2012 and Poland and Ukraine.”

The list of contributors is very impressive. Former Irish Times soccer writer and now President of the Sports Journalists of Ireland, Peter Byrne brings his vast knowledge of Irish soccer to the series. Paul Rouse and Mike Cronin, who have previously collaborated on The GAA; A People’s History and The GAA; County by County add their deep knowledge of social movements in Ireland. Professor Joe Lee formally of UCC also contributes extensively. While the usual suspects like John Giles, Mick McCarthy, Eamonn Dunphy, Brian Kerr and many more add their valuable personal experiences of soccer in Ireland. All these contributions helped made last Wednesday’s episode one a very lively programme.

I found one small irritant in the content. There was an assertion made early on in the programme that “Football is the greatest game in the world.” It is. Ask a Rugby League fan from St Helens, or a Rugby fan from Auckland, an NFL fan from Green Bay, an Aussie Rules fan from Sidney or a GAA fan from Kerry is football the greatest game in the world? They will all reply yes. The only trouble is they will all be talking about different codes of football.  Association Football or Soccer as it called in most countries does not have a monopoly on the word “football”.

Soccer as we know it emerged in England in much the same way as Hurling and Gaelic Football emerged here. That is through a mob from one village or parish vying against a mob from another village or parish for possession of a ball. The public schools of England such as Eton and Harrow adapted these mob games to suit their pupils during the early part of the nineteenth century. The Victorians saw the playing of games as effective way to develop good character in the young men who would become their future political and economic leaders.

One problem remained however; all these schools had their own variations on the way soccer should be played. This issue was finally solved in 1863 when 12 clubs came together in the Free Masons Pub in London to agree a set of rules under which all teams could compete. This series of meetings lasted several weeks and there were many disagreements about what practices should be kept and what should be outlawed in the new rules. Eventually the rules of Harrow were adopted almost in their entirety. This meant that catching the ball and making a “mark”, a la Rugby and Aussie Rules, were outlawed. This is how the modern game of soccer was born.

The timing of these agreed rules was fortunate as industrialised Victorian England was ripe to embrace the new game. It gave the working class an outlet; somewhere to spend their Saturday afternoons along with thousands of others who lived, worked and now played in the industrial cities across England.

Even though the game spread like wildfire throughout all of Britain it did not spread across the Irish Sea to Ireland. In fact it was another 15 years (1879) before soccer was introduced to Ireland. It is obviously not within the remit of a documentary to ask why it took so long for soccer to spread to this island, but it is extraordinary that a pastime so popular in England should take 15 years to arrive here.

I suspect that the fact that Ireland was predominantly a rural state stymied the advancement of the game. Unlike England, where there were many large centres of population, Ireland had very few cities. Even in Belfast, Dublin and Cork, our biggest centres, there was no great sense of industrialisation, which meant that many citizens were focused on surviving the extreme poverty instead of enjoying pastimes.

When soccer arrived, it arrived to Belfast and it quickly took off in that city. The workers in the Belfast shipyards were the only workers in Ireland who had a life similar to the workers of the English cities. In the early 1880s soccer spread to Dublin, and thanks to the soldiers of the British Army, it also began to spread to the “Garrison towns” throughout the country. Just when it seemed that soccer might get a foothold in the Irish sports psyche, the GAA emerged and quickly gobbled up most the available youth.

It was about this time also that cracks began to appear in the administration of the game. Soccer was strongest in Belfast, where the game was rooted in the working classes, and the Protestant led administration of Irish Football Association began to quarrel with the more middle-class administrators of soccer in Dublin. This split grew wider with every passing year but it was not until 1920 that Dublin finally broke away and formed the FAI.

During that thirty-year period Ireland did not fare well in international games losing almost all of the first fifty internationals. The most notable success came in 1914 when Ireland won the Home International Tournament for the first time. Ireland defeated England and Wales and then drawing with Scotland. As I am sure we will see in the three episodes to come, Ireland’s progress in soccer has often been stymied by events outside the country’s control. The success of 1914 was no exception. The significance of the international breakthrough was quickly lost in the reality of the Great War.

Sectarianism was rife in Ulster soccer throughout the first 30 years of the IFA. What happened during these years is not skimmed over the documentary. Also highlighted are the largely ignored efforts of members of the soccer fraternity during the War of Independence.

Last week’s episode concluded in the 1920s and the struggle of the new FAI to play international football.

I am looking forwards to tonight’s programme which covers the 1930 to 1980 era. This was a golden era for domestic soccer and the League of Ireland. Hopefully the programme will shine a light on this aspect of game and the great club like Shamrock Rovers, Bohemians, Cork United, Evergreen and Waterford who slogged hard through dirty winter Sundays to keep their game during the middle part of the twentieth century. It would be nice also to hear how the various historians viewed the ending of the GAA ban on playing soccer and the effect this had on the playing of soccer in Ireland.

There is no doubt that Green is the Colour is and important contribution to the understanding of the development of all sports in Ireland. Part two is on RTE 2 tonight (Wed May 23rd) at 10.25pm and I fully recommend watching it.