Coyler

I just don't like the way that it's building up as The Gary Neville Tie. "Cantona's Comeback" with him scoring the peno, the match being put back two days for "Ferdinand's Return" last year and the boost that gave them, then "Rooney's Return" to Anfield and him scoring the winner, now this time it's all about this little twerp. Don't think we ever come out of those kind of games well (although I'm sure there must have been the same kind of things going on when we had the good run against them, just that I never noticed).

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He still hasn't scored for United yet, has he? Go easy on the hexing

Great news for the lads where I grew up, who can now get Celtic jerseys with Dublin 9 on the back. Class.

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To-day's Irish Times, in the Foreign Affairs section.

Ah now go easy on Sociedad! Donostia would go into mourning if they lost two Alonsos.

Yep, he said the granny rule is a load of bollix, no disrespect to Ireland etc. Wouldn't buy a second hand car off the fecker, never mind acquiesce to cheer him on or be bullied into investing emotional capital into his performance. This man gets asked -- begged -- to play in Croker and my only appearance to date on the hallowed turf remains my legendary ten-minute cameo as combined nippy left corner forward and towering midfield colossus for Mr. O'Donoghue's class against Mr. Coffey's class on a primary school tour in 1984. It's not right.

Two Gerrard jerseys on the pitch.

Yes, I can't wait for Dave Kitson to run onto Croke Park to represent me. That'll truly be the great day for Irish sport I'm told it will be.

Maybe. Can't see this class of stuff going down well with them, to be honest.

The Glazer boys must be loving this in the boardroom...

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I don't care a hang what provocative songs you sing. However, you said you personally wouldn't sing about race and that that's where the line needs to be drawn at the match. That's what you said, and you're to be applauded or positively chanted about for it. But you said that's the only thing you wouldn't sing about. As there is an undeniable problem with gay-friendliness in the greater world of soccer more or less parallel to the rampant racism of the past, I wanted to know what extra moral weight, if any, a matchgoing non-racist was giving to a stand against racism over a stand against homophobia, if racism was the only place to draw the line. There was a time when provocative, racist chants were par for the course, no? My world is far from the perfection you're to be forgiven for assuming , and indeed I joined in racist chants at players as a kid on the terraces of League of Ireland matches before I saw sense. Just a bit of provocation for the players. To-day, racism on that level is all but eradicated in Ireland and Britain and grounds are presumably an infinitely more welcoming place for black people as a result. It is surely to be hoped that a similar shift could be made in the mindset that would see gay people made similarly comfortable going to the match. If I'm mistaken and football grounds and dressing rooms are already a rainbowed, pink-triangled heaven then I apologize for looking for problems where they don't exist. But of course I didn't realize you were taking the piss when you said that only racism was unacceptable and that queerbos (my word, again) are fair game which makes my overwrought, handwringing indignation rather moot now, doesn't it? The dig you make in your last sentence is very curious, however -- though of course I am now open to the possibility that you are back to taking the piss and don't really think me a pious equator of gayness and family riding -- and without wanting to rise to it I'd point out that not only do I make no link between homosexuality and incest, I don't even term incest a "sexuality".

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As I said to the bouncer on the George at the weekend.

I'm not trying to take you anywhere. You came out and nobly said that the line at matches is drawn at racism, full stop, and that's the only thing off-limits. I have an honest curiosity about people who feel that it's not acceptable to shout racist abuse but say that it would be grand to shout anti-gay abuse because they're fair game because after all songs are already sung about Neville shagging his ma and sure incest is sick sex just like gayness. There was an interview linked a while ago with some black lad who had loads of Liverpool songs who said he was once almost in tears because Everton sang something racist at Heskey, and he then went on to list as a favourite of his a song that said David Moyes was gay. These people just confuse me (as do certain gay people I know who spout almost taxi-driving levels of racism). I was trying to find out more about them before they become extinct by asking a few questions of you, that's all. And I've said it before, Alonso can't come out soon enough. Bite the bullet, Xabi.

And are you equating homosexuality with incest?

Why not blacks, then? Should they not man up?

(And f*** the FAI for appointing a Durham man twenty years too late.)

Bullcrap, he went up for at least one other fifty-fifty in the air that almost creased him and he got stuck in more than I've seen him for a while. After he had his nose smashed in.