Book review: Irish Soccer Migrants: A Social and Cultural History

For those of us who grew up in what Sky Sports increasingly likes to call ‘the Premier League era’, part of the draw of watching clubs like Manchester United or Liverpool, Arsenal or Aston Villa was the prospect of seeing Irish players on TV. I grew up watching Roy Keane and Dennis Irwin, Steve Staunton and Paul McGrath, to name just a handful. These players, as Conor Curran’s insightful new book shows, were part of a longer story of Irish football migrants to Britain – stretching back to the late nineteenth century and the beginnings of professional football. Curran also shows us that their experience as migrants in Britain was a parallel strand to wider Irish migration to Britain in the twentieth century. While the particulars of the footballing labour market mean that they didn’t necessarily live only in those places where other Irish labour migrants went, there were similarities in the experience of alienation, a sense of otherness and homesickness.

Organised into seven chapters the book examines the geographic spread of Irish soccer migrants, the place of coaching and schooling in the development of Irish soccer, the process behind players moving from Ireland to the United Kingdom, the experience of playing abroad, post-playing careers and the reasons for the declining numbers of Irish players at top-flight British clubs. A chapter looking at player movements to Scotland, Europe and North America also sheds some light on those who opted for less traditional paths among Irish soccer migrants.

A sometimes statistically heavy book – it feels as though Curran is showing his workings to us as to a maths teacher – the real heart of the book is the testimony of players and former players who agreed to be interviewed by Curran. Humorous and affecting by turns, the insights from the players prove that the initial basis for this book – a FIFA Havelange Scholarship which Curran completed – was a good investment. We are, thanks to Curran’s exacting research and the quality of the interviewees’ responses, given a sense of what the world of professional football can be like – good, bad and indifferent. One of the most poignant of all the interviews was that with Mick Meagan. He told Curran:

Now I used to feel very sad when I’d be going over on the boat, in those days, and to see all the young boys and girls setting off for England, and they didn’t know when the boat docked which way to move…At least I was going to nice digs, and being looked after, and I thought it was very sad, to see all these younger boys and girls, just standing there, with a look that said, ‘Which way will I go?’ ‘Where will I go?’ (p. 143)

One criticism that might be levelled at the book is that it doesn’t do enough to explore comparative experiences. While there is the briefest mention of a study of Scandinavian players in England, this is used by Curran as a jumping off point to discuss the similar experiences of Irish players but the comparison is there to be drawn by inference only. Explicit consideration of the similarities and differences between two sets of players (from small, northern European nations), surely rich ground, is left hanging. Likewise, the experiences of the new footballing immigrants and their sense of otherness and alienation (I’m thinking particularly of the newer footballing labour markets of Africa, Asia and South and Central America) – another source of potential comparison – are not touched on, except to be hinted at as a reason for the decline in British clubs’ interest in Irish players, north and south of the border in the seventh and final chapter of the book (pp. 318–45). Nor do the globalised tendencies of the Premier League and the loosening of limitations on the free movement of people across Europe get much of a look in.

These quibbles aside, Curran has written a valuable book in the continuing development of Irish sports history – a book which acknowledges that professional sport is a form of labour and is (an albeit specialised) part of the world of work, and it further acknowledges that many Irish footballers who wish to make their career in their chosen sport, must like many others in the Irish population, take their chances abroad and battle with the complex feelings and experiences that come from being an emigrant. Well-illustrated, and heavily annotated, Curran’s latest book – his third – is perhaps his most valuable contribution to the nascent field of sports history to date.

David Toms