60 years later, this has been a very different World Cup to the one I rejoiced in as a teenager in summer 1966

The former Saint Michael’s Convent above the beach in Ballinskelligs … the preferred venue for discerning teenagers for the 1966 World Cup final (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

At the outset, as my own personal protest against the state of politics in Trump’s USA and the ways he and it are infecting, devouring and destabilising the world, I decided not to watch any 2026 FIFA World Cup matches broadcast from the US, although I was watching games played in the two other co-host nations, Canada and Mexico.

Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino, a pair of presidents, have come to embody everything that is wrong about this year’s competition. From the beginning, right up to its end this evening, this World Cup has been a complete disaster, one shambles after another. There has been nothing but one litany after another of controversies, from FIFA’s ticket pricing, to entertaining Trump’s political meddling, along with logistical and environmental problems, cost over-runs, disgraceful abuses of human rights and displays of ugly and unchecked racism.

Harsh US immigration and visa restrictions have targetted players, officials, journalists, referees and fans from several nations. A travel ban blocked fans from Haiti, Iran, Ivory Coast, and Senegal attending matches in the US, the Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was detained for seven hours on his arrival, and the Somali referee Omar Artan was denied entry to the US.

Trump wanted FIFA to give Iran’s place to Italy, and threatened that the safety of the Iranian team could not be guaranteed. That failed to stop Iran, but Iran’s team was forced to relocate its training base from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, Mexico, they constantly bullied and harassed each time they played in the US, the team’s ticket allocation was revoked, and many of the coaching and administrative staff were denied visas.

It was clear Infantino was never going to make good on his pledge that ‘any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup.’ But then this is the same man who presented a newly-invented ‘FIFA Peace Prize’ to Trump last December – whoever thought he would want signs of peace and goodwill at this World Cup?

The national teams from Senegal and Uzbekistan faced unusually strict security checks when they arrived in the US, including individual body searches, the Uruguay national team complained if excessive security checks, and security personnel in Atlanta searched Egyptian fans but not Argentinian fans. In Arlington, Texas, ahead of Egypt’s match against Australia, a Dallas police officer pushed Egypt’s assistant coach and other members of the Egyptian delegation.

Spanish-speaking reporters have been asked by FIFA moderators to use English and their questions have often been turned away, even though Spanish is one of FIFA’s seven official languages, Mexico, one of the three co-hosts, is the world's most populous Spanish-speaking country, and two countries in the final this evening are Spanish-speaking.

FIFA officials have been accused of making racist and white supremacy gestures. At the match between Paraguay and France, a former Paraguay goalkeeper José Luis Chilavert referred to France as ‘a squad from Africa’, Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla made widely condemned racist comments in which she mocked Kylian Mbappé’s background and education.

Folarin Balogun’s red card and automatic one-match suspension ought to have ruled him out of the US match against Belgium. But Trumpphoned a friend, intervened directly with Infantino and then rejoiced that due to his special pleading FIFA had ‘made the right decision’. Belgium and UEFA condemned FIFA’s decision. That alone put an end to my personal boycott. I joined the world in watching and rejoicing when Belgium defeated the US.

I watched England’s defeat by Argentina on Wednesday night in the Old George in Stony Stratford, and I stayed up late last night at home to watch England’s 6-4 win over France in the third place play-off, a truly memorable match.

But my memories of this year’s World Cup are going to be distinctively different from my memories of the World Cup final 60 years ago in 1966.

It was a weekend in July, I was in my teens, it was summer, and it was 30 July 1966. It was the year Ireland had gone over the top in marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1916.

My parents had a real fear that I might fail Irish in the ‘Inter Cert’ the following year. Failing Irish at the time meant failing the full exam outright, and the consequences for families were dire: repeat the full year, which still provided no guarantee of success a second time; leave school and find an apprenticeship, which was never considered in a family such as mine; or being sent to England to a school such as Downside or Ampleforth.

Three of us were packed off to Ballinskelligs for a month to learn Irish. I boarded with cousins from Co Cork and learned much from them too; and when I returned home and was asked whether I had learned much Irish I answered smartly, ‘No, but I learned a lot about French, eh, French kissing.’

During that month in Coláiste Mhichíl, I also remember learning Irish dancing, boring evenings listening to the old seanachaí, reading Anne Frank’s Diaries and JD Sallinger’s Catcher in the Rye, having my first smoke, being challenged to go ‘skinny dipping’, and my first kiss.

I was the butt of some slight humour – but all in good taste – because of what must have been a tinge of an English accent at the time. On the other hand, I remember feeling negative about that year’s commemorations of the Easter Rising in 1916. If Irish colleges were about shaping national identity then, despite my age, I realised already some people wanted to classify me as an outsider.

There was no doubt on Saturday afternoon, 30 July 1966, who I was going to support in the World Cup Final. The main adventure that weekend was finding a place to watch it. Ballinskelligs was then a remote part of Kerry, it was not only part of the Gaeltacht, but it was ‘single-channel land’ and – even then – there were few homes there with a television, and we were never going to risk being caught in a pub at that age.

Two first cousins, Dick and Tom Barrett from Millstreet, Co Cork, came up with a cunning plan. They knew some nuns from the Presentation convent in Millstreet who were staying in Saint Michael’s Convent, the nuns’ summer house above the beach in Ballinskelligs. There we would be hidden safely from anyone listening out for any teenagers at the summer college risking to speak English, to say nothing about cheering on the English football team.

Not only did the nuns welcome us, and allow us to monopolise the one television in their best room, but they even brought in biscuits, cake and soft drinks to keep us fuelled for the afternoon. For us, that alone was almost more memorable than Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick and England’s controversial third goal – did it go over the line fully?

England had a 4-2 win over West Germany after extra time. It was the first and only time that England hosted or won the World Cup and it remains England’s last final in a major international football tournament, and still is England’s only World Cup final to date.

We stayed right through to see Bobby Moore receiving the cup and the team receiving their medals.

We were not watching alone. The British television audience peaked at 32.3 million viewers, making it Britain’s most-watched television event ever.

When I returned in August after a month in Ballinskelligs, my parents never showed any evidence they had received any reports of my independent behaviour. And, yes, I passed Irish in the ‘Inter Cert’ the following year – albeit a pass on a pass paper – and went on to finish the ‘Leaving Cert’ in 1969 at Gormanston College, Co Meath.

I can still remember with joy, delight and glee, England’s first, and so far only, World Cup title back in 1966. As I wait for this evening’s World Cup final between Spain and Argentina, I know which team I am disappointed is not playing tonight.

I do not particularly want to see tonight’s half-time show, which is nothing less that the Americanisation and commercialisation of the game. But I going to be eager to see how uncomfortable Trump is as he finds himself sitting beside the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, the western politician he seems to dislike most, and hopefully to see Trump squirm as he presents the World Cup to Spain too.

And I shall be smiling too as I recall teenage memories of that summer afternoon in July 60 years ago.

A summer stroll on the beach in Ballinskelligs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Greeks have a word for it: 63, Ποδόσφαιρο, Football

The Nikos Kazantzakis Stadium, also known as Ergotelis Stadium or Martinengo Stadium, is the traditional home of Ergotelis in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

As we face into the semi-finals and finals of the World Cup, of course I am hoping for an England win tomorrow night, and then in the final on Sunday night. This is where I live, but I also remember the enthusiasm with which I supported England in the final back in 1966.

Ireland and Greece have not in this competition at all. But I recall many a holiday in Greece, especially in Crete, when holidaymakers from many countries and nations filled the bars at night, and laughed, shouted, cried and commiserated with one another during World Cup matches, always in good humour and always with a shared sense of fun and passion, poured out in good measures.

Despite the absence of Greece and Ireland from the competition, and even though there are few tourists from Argentina in Greece, those bars will be filled again tonight for the semi-final between France and Spain (Tuesday), tomorrow between England and Argentina (Wednesday), and for the final on Sunday night.

Among Greeks, football (ποδόσφαιρο, podósfairo) is the most popular sport, followed by basketball, and over half the people of Greece share an interest in football.

English fans may chant ‘Football is coming come’ on Wednesday night, claiming football as an English game. But it seems there was a classical Greek version of football too. The Ancient Greeks played many ball games, and some of them were with their feet.

These games appear to have resembled rugby football, but they have many similarities too with today’s football or soccer.

ἐπίσκυρος (Episkyros, ‘over the line’) was also known as ἐπίκοινος (epíkoinos, ‘over the public’). This Ancient Greek ball game was typically played between two teams of 12 to 14 players each, and was focussed on teamwork. The game allowed full contact and the use of hands. While typically it was men who played, women also took part occasionally.

Although it was a ball game, it was quite violent – at least in Sparta. The game is comparable to rugby or American football, at least in concept. The two teams tried to throw the ball over the heads of the other team. There was a white line, the σκῦρος or skŷros between the teams, and another white line behind each team. The teams often changed possession of the ball, until one team was forced behind its line. A form of Episkyros was played in Sparta during an annual city festival that included five teams of 14 players.

A depiction on a vase in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens shows a Greek athlete balancing a ball on his thigh. This image is reproduced on the European Cup football trophy.

The Romans later adapted the Greek game of Episkyros, or a similar game called Φαινίνδα (Phainínda),which took its name from Phaenides, who first invented it.

The Romans renamed and transformed the Greek games of football into harpastum, a latinisation of the Ancient Greek ἁρπαστόν (harpastón), meaning ‘snatched away’, from the verb ἁρπάζω (harpázō), meaning ‘to seize’ or ‘to steal’. The Roman game harpastum is said to have been adapted from the Greek team game known as ἐπίσκυρος (Episkyros) or Φαινίνδα (phaininda), a game that is mentioned by the Greek playwright Antiphanes (388-311 BCE) and later referred to by the Greek-speaking theologian Clement of Alexandria (ca 150-215 CE).

Modern football is said to have been introduced to Greeks by expatriate British communities and military personnel. The first Greek football teams were created as part of long-established athletic and gymnastic clubs in the major port cities of Athens and Thessaloniki, as well as among the large Greek communities then living the Ottoman Empire, such as Constantinople and Smyrna, in the early 1900s.

In Athens, Panathinaikos played in red and white after they broken away from the sports club Panellinios Gymnastikos Syllogos in 1908 when it decided to discontinue its football team. The first name of the new club was Podosferikos Omilos Athinon or POA.

Panathinaikos adopted the shamrock as its emblem in 1918. The shamrock bears a closer resemblance to the emblem of Shamrock Rovers in Dublin. The shamrock was proposed by Michalis Papazoglou, an athlete, and was designed by George Hatzopoulos, director of the National Museum of Art and a member of Panathinaikos. But there are different popular myths to explain why Panathinaikos wears the shamrock as its logo.

Michalis Papazoglou had previously played for another Greek club, Chalkidona, who wore the green trefoil or τριφύλλι (trifylli) as their own emblem. Other accounts say Papazoglou was inspired by Billy Sherring, the Irish-Canadian athlete who won the Athens 1906 Olympic Marathon wearing a white shirt with a large green shamrock.

After the Asia Minor Disaster of 1922, which resulted in a large rnumber of Greeks being forcibly moved from Turkey to Greece, and several clubs, such as Panionios and Apollon Smyrnis, were moved too. Many athletes of other clubs, like Pera, formed new clubs in their new home. AEK Athens (Αθλητική Ένωσις Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, Athletic Union of Constantinople) was founded in Nea Filadelfeia in 1923, and PAOK (Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινουπολιτών, Pan-Thesalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans), was founded in Thessaloniki by Greek refugees in 1926.

It seems every large town and city in Greece also needs to have two decent, rival football teams, if not three.

The two main football clubs in Athens, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, are often referred to as ‘the Eternal Enemies’ because of their fierce rivalry. These two, along with AEK Athens, form the ‘Big Three’ (Οι Τρεις Μεγάλοι, Oi Treis Megaloi) in Greek football and are usually the main contenders for the title. Together they share a total of 82 out of 90 Greek Football Championships and they usually end up sharing the top three positions.

The two main football clubs in Thessaloniki are PAOK and Aris Thessaloniki FC. Fixtures between these two rivals are known as the Thessaloniki Derby. PAOK’s success has also added them to ‘Big Three’, making it the ‘Big Four’ in Greece.

In Crete, the two Super League clubs based in Iraklion, Ergotelis and OFI, share a rivalry that can be traced back to social and political roots. Their first-ever game was a friendly match in 1929 that ended after 35 minutes. Ergotelis were ahead by 1-0 when the game was abandoned after violence broke out between the players.

OFI, officially ΠΑΕ Όμιλος Φιλάθλων Ηρακλείου 1925 (Iraklion Sportsmen’s Club 1925 FC), is part of the OFI multi-sports club and celebrated its centenary last year. This year, OFI won the Greek Cup for the second time in its history, defeating PAOK 3-2 after extra time in the final at the Panthessaliko Stadium in Volos on 25 April 2026.

Ergotelis Football Club (ΠΑΕ Εργοτέλης) plays in the FCA Iraklion A1, the fourth tier of the Greek football league system, and home games are played at the Pankritio Stadium. But the club’s traditional home ground is the Nikos Kazantzakis Stadium, also known as Ergotelis Stadium or Martinengo Stadium. It is below the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis on the Martinengo Bastion on the Venetian fortifications surrounding the city.

Ergotelis was formed in 1929 and is part of Gymnastics Club Ergotelis (ΓΣ Εργοτέλης), named after the ancient Cretan Olympic runner. Ergotelis was formed mainly by refugees from Asia Minor, and the first recorded game was a 4-0 win for Ergotelis in a friendly against local side Leon (Λέων) at Chandax (Χάνδαξ) stadium on 4 August 1929. Ergotelis suffered retaliation under the colonels’ junta having previously allowed the songwriter and composer Mikis Theodorakis, later a key voice against the regime, to perform a concert at the Martinengo Stadium. When the colonels seized power, they branded Ergotelis an unpatriotic organisation, and club officials were accused of ‘deviating from the purposes for which they were elected, turning the club into an instrument servicing political, and sometimes unpatriotic objectives’.

As for the Greek national team, its first match was on 7 April 1929, in a 4-1 loss to Italy. Greece has qualified for the FIFA World Cup on three occasions, in 1994, 2010 and 2014, for the European Championship in 1980, 2004, 2008 and 2012, and were the reigning European champions when they failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2006.

Ergotelis Football Club (ΠΑΕ Εργοτέλης) now plays its home fixtures at the Pankritio Stadium in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Previous words in this series:

1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.

2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.

3, Bread, Ψωμί.

4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.

5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.

6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.

7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.

8,Theology, Θεολογία.

9, Icon, Εἰκών.

10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.

11, Chaos, Χάος.

12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.

13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.

14, Mañana, Αύριο.

15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.

16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.

17, The missing words.

18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.

19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.

20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.

21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.

22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.

23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.

24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.

25, Asthma, Ασθμα.

26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.

27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.

28, School, Σχολείο.

29, Muse, Μούσα.

30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.

31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.

32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.

33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.

34, Cinema, Κινημα.

35, autopsy and biopsy

36, Exodus, ἔξοδος

37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος

38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς

39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια

40, Practice, πρᾶξις

41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός

42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή

43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή

44, catastrophe, καταστροφή

45, democracy, δημοκρατία

46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end

47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse

48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha

49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric

50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις

51, Bimah, βῆμα

52, ἰχθύς (ichthýs) and ψάρι (psari), fish.

53, Τὰ Βιβλία (Ta Biblia), The Bible

54, Φῐλοξενῐ́ᾱ (Philoxenia), true hospitality

55, εκκλησία (ekklesia), the Church

56, ναός (naos) and ἱερός (ieros), a church

57, Χριστούγεννα (Christougenna), Christmas

58, ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia), θεοφάνεια, (theopháneia), Epiphany and Theophany

59, Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros), the West Wind

60, Αύριο (Avrio), Tomorrow

61, καλημέρα (κaliméra), ‘Good Morning’, and καλαμάρι, κalamári, ‘squid’

62, Ελευθερία ή θάνατος, ‘Freedom or Death’

63, Ποδόσφαιρο, ‘Football’

64, καφές (coffee), Φραπές (frappé)

65, Odyssey (η Οδύσσεια) and Odysseus (Ὀδυσσεύς)

Series to be continued

Greek postage stamps celebrating some of Greece’s best-known football teams

Ten good reasons why I am not going to the pub to watch any World Cup games played in the US

I have decided not watch any of this year’s World Cup matches played in the US

Patrick Comerford

I have spent much of the day in London, meeting a writer fried from New Zealand, and now I’m on my way back to Milton Keynes, hoping to find an appropriate place in Stony Stratford this evening to join friends and neighbours watching the opening match in this year’s World Cup tournament, when the co-hosts Mexico plan South Africa.

Mexico is one of the three host nations, each staging its own opening ceremony ahead of its first match. Canada follows tomorrow night (Friday 12 June 2026), with its first game against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto. The USA hosts the third and last opening ceremony on Saturday (13 June), before facing Paraguay in Los Angeles.

Scotland’s first match is against Haiti in Foxborough, Massachusetts in the far-too early hours of Sunday (2 am, 14 June), and England has to wait almost a week before playing Croatia in Dallas next Wednesday (17 June, 9 pm).

Doubtless, Trump will try to hijack the events, although his appearance at a major basketball game in New York was meet with Booing throughout the stadium – hopefully setting an example of how to welcome him to any World Cup games.

Today’s opening ceremony is in the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, the first stadium to host matches in three World Cups – it was there Maradona blamed it all on the ‘hand of God’ in 1986 and there Pelé passed to Carlos Alberto in 1970.

The opening ceremony in Canada takes place tomorrow at the BMO Field in Toronto while the opening ceremony for the US tomorrow when the USA and Paraguay play in the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, which also hosts the opening ceremony for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

In addition, two extra ceremonies are planned for 4 July as part of the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary United States during the Last 16 fixtures in Philadelphia and Houston.

I still remember my enthusiasm in my childhood and teenage years for World Cup finals: in 1962, when Brazil beat Czechoslovakia 3-1 in Chile … in 1966, as a schoolboy finding a place in Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry, to watch England win dramatically 4-2 against West Germany in London … in 1970, when Brazil beat Italy 4-1 … And who from Ireland can forget Ireland’s performance in Italia 1990, reaching the quarter final and losing 1-0 to Italy in what every Irish fan still thinks of as a victory for heroes?

But, despite all my enthusiasm, I have decided that I am going to watch televised matches played olny in Mexico and Canada, but I am not going to watch any matches played at venues in the US, even though this means I am going to miss England’s three fixtures in the Group Stage, including the opening game against Croatia in Dallas next Wednesday, and the other games against Ghana in Boston, Panama in New York or New Jersey.

Of course, I never had any notion, ever, of going to the US, or any other World Cup competition for that matter. It has never been my idea of how to spend time or to spend money. But if I was so disposed, I have no doubt I would have been refused a visa. And how could I, in all conscience, feel safe on the streets of any city in the US when even US citizens, never mind foreigners, are not safe from the capricious actions of ICE?

And if, in conscience, I would not be safe and comfortable being in the US for this World Cup, why should I feel comfortable and safe at home, watching it from a distance?

But, while I may continue to watch matches staged in Mexico or Canada, here are ten good (or bad) reasons for not watching any fixtures at venues in the US:

1, Haiti has qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 52 years, and plays against Scotland on late on /early on Sunday Saturday in Boston, in the heart of the exiled Haitian community in Foxborough. The national stadium in Port-au-Prince has been controlled by armed gangs since 2024, so the team played every home qualifier in exile, and clinched a World Cup place with a 2-0 defeat of Nicaragua.

But Trump’s travel ban bars Haitian visitors from entering the US. The players and staff have been given an exemption, but their fans have no such exemption. This can only be put down to racism. During the 2024 election campaign Trump repeated baseless claims that illegal immigrants from Haiti have been eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. During ABC’s presidential debate, he claimed: ‘In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there.’

2, Iran’s supporters are banned too. Iran’s first game is due to be against New Zealand in Los Angeles on Tuesday (16 June), but there are real fears that the team may never get there. Iran has qualified for the FIFA World Cup last March, but after months of war Iran has had to switch basecamps from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana in Mexico. Under the conditions of their visas, they will have to fly in and out of the US on matchday for each of their three group games. It emerged last Saturday that the US had denied visas to members of the team’s backroom staff, with 15 administrative officials denied entry.

Iran’s allocation of fan tickets for the group stage was revoked this week just days before the start of the tournament, and the US has cancelled all tickets that have been sold to Iran’s supporters. Since the US war against Iran began in February, the US military targets have included the Azadi Stadium in Tehran, where the national team trained.

3, Omar Artan, a FIFA-employed referee from Somalia and named as Africa’s best referee last year, was refused entry to the US at Miami International Airport despite having a valid travel visa and was deported to Istanbul.

4, The Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was held and questioned for almost seven hours at O’Hare airport in Chicago, the team’s official photographer was sent back despite having a valid visa, and team members from Senegal and Uzbekistan were taken aside when they arrived and given full cavity searches.

5, The Swiss midfielder Breel Embolo was denied an entry visa – although Swiss authorities seem to have been successful in appealing against the decision.

6, The South African football team faced a 24-hour delay in their departure over a visa bungle, fans from Senegal and the Ivory Coast face restrictions despite qualifying for the tournament, and 90 per cent of Moroccan fans with tickets have been denied entry.

7, Tickets to the games are costing up to $8,000, wich means these are not fixtures for ordinary football fans. Instead, for whom the ‘beautiful game’ has became an ugly game and a game only for the rich.

8, Fans from 27 of the 48 nations taking part need a US visa, costing between $185 and $435. This represents wages that an average person in many countries in the Global South would take several months to earn. The US has a FIFA Priority Appointment Scheduling System (PASS), supposed to speed up the visa process for fans who have bought tickets through FIFA. But last month, about 150 fans in Ghana had their visa applications rejected.

9, Amnesty International is warning World Cup fans about the dangers involved in travelling to the US. Human Rights Watch has reported how an asylum seeker who attended the Club World Cup final last year in New Jersey with his children was arrested by ICE and deported.

10, FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino had no shame about giving a ‘peace prize’ to Trump, the petulant president who knows how to make demands but not how to keep commitments. When the US was bidding in 2018 to host this World Cup, Donald Trump personally wrote to FIFA promising that ‘all eligible athletes, officials, and fans from all countries around the world would be able to enter the United States without discrimination.’

It all amounts to a complete package of lies, humiliation, discrimination, racism, petty vindictiveness and an apparently planned and co-ordinated effort to humiliate black and Muslim players and team officials. So much for football being the ‘beautiful game’. So much for that FIFA ‘peace prize’ for Trump, who is using this world cup for propagamda in the same way Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

These may be small gestures on my part. They may have no impact at all. And I don’t want anyone to interpret them or misrepresent them as anti-American protests. Nor do I want any family members or friends in the US to take offence, to take umbrage. I have had too much of the Trump regime, and I do not want Trump to have one more viewer who adds to his capacity to boast that this year’s World Cup was his World Cup and his success, his triumph.

I have decided not watch any of this year’s World Cup matches played in the US

Cormac Comerford makes his Olympic debut on the opening day of the Winter Olympics

Team Ireland alpine skiier Cormac Comerford from Glenageary, Co Dublin, in Piazza Walther (Photograph: David Fitzgerald/ Sportsfile/ Irish Examiner)

Patrick Comerford

Cormac Comerford from Glenageary, Co Dublin, finished 34th in the men’s downhill today on the opening day of the Alpine skiing at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, where Franjo von Allmen from Switzerland delivered a sensational performance to win the first gold medal of the Games.

Cormac Comerford made his Olympic debut this afternoon in skiing’s queen event at the Stelvio Ski Centre in Bormio, finishing the 3,442-metre course in a time of 2:04.40. He started out last among the field and came 34th among the 36 starters, well pleased with his effort on a highly technical, and in parts treacherous, course.

‘It’s an incredible feeling to make my Olympic debut today in this weather, on this slope,’ he told The Irish Times. ‘To bring it down Stelvio is a huge achievement, coming from the artificial slope back home. There’s a huge sense of pride. I made a few mistakes in the run, it felt smoother in training, but that’s racing and I’m really proud to have brought it down.’

‘I’m excited to be here,’ he said. ‘If I’m proud, I hope I can make Ireland proud as well.’ He was the first member of Team Ireland to compete in this year’s Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina when he hit the slopes on the opening day of the games.

Ireland has been sending teams to the Winter Olympics for many years, but it is 24 years since Dublin-born Clifton Wrottesley (Lord Wrottesley) came up one place shy of a medal for Ireland in the skeleton at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

Cormac Comerford’s Olympic scholarship meant fewer pressures in a sport that costs him €40,000 a year to compete in. This is important for him, as he remembers how hard it was when first started out professionally after starting to study engineering at TU Dublin (Technological University Dublin). His summer work included ‘a lot of sailing instruction and labour on construction sites.’

He says he spent too many of his early years on the circuit sleeping in bus stations and carting a ski bag the weight of his own body to different events and different countries in order to shave pennies off his budget.

It took him six years to qualify for his engineering degree because of the time spent away from home. He could, as he joked himself, be a doctor by now. But scholarships from Trinity, FBD and from the Olympic Federation of Ireland were critical in allowing him to stay on track and in pursuit of his dream.

He competed in the World Championships in 2017 for first time. He is now at his peak, among the top five per cent in the world, 23rd in the World Championships, ‘and hopefully going a lot higher.’

Cormac Comerford found that breaking into a sport where Ireland have no tradition was hard, and his achievements were often belittled. ‘I remember watching Shane O’Connor on the TV at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and thinking, ‘Imagine if I could do that, how cool would that be?’ So going into Milan-Cortina would be massive for me. To achieve that childhood dream would be the cherry on the cake.’

When Cormac Comerford was eight and growing up in Glenageary, his aunt first took him up the dry ski slopes in Kilternan in south Co Dublin. Now, 21 years later, after his fourth qualification attempt, Comerford is among the four Irish athletes taking part in Milano Cortina 2026.

Cormac Comerford … ‘It’s been a childhood dream of mine’ (Photograph: RTÉ)

The 25th Winter Olympics are spread across six locations in north Italy this year. They opened last night (6 February 2026) and continue for the next two weeks until Sunday 22 February. Cormac Comerford’s journey there has been has been a difficult one and his childhood dream of reaching the Olympics has been tested repeatedly over the years.

‘It’s been a childhood dream of mine, since I first put on a pair of skis, up at the Ski Club of Ireland. I fell in love with the sport, and when I got to watch Shane O’Connor at the Olympics in 2010, that’s when the seed was really sown’, he says.

Cormac is competing in all four events in Milano Cortina: the downhill, super-G, giant slalom and slalom. He has also competed in five World Championships, when he finished inside top-30 in the European Cup. The three other Irish athletes are Anabelle Zurbay (17), who was born in Minnesota; Thomas Maloney Westgård born on the island of Leka in Norway to a Galway mother and Norwegian father, and Ben Lynch, who has lived in Vancouver since he was three.

Cormac Comerford previously reached the minimal qualifying criteria in alpine skiing for Sochi 2014, Pyeongchang 2018, and Beijing 2022, but each time he missed out on the strict quota for Irish representatives. Yet he never let go of that dream. ‘Being an Irish ski racer can also be incredibly lonely, there aren’t many of us, it’s a really hard path to forge.’

‘There were a few turning points,’ he recalls, ‘like when I started in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), my whole career was hanging on me getting a scholarship there. Thankfully they believed in me, I got some extra support, and it was enough to help me keep the dream alive.’

None of his family are skiers. He grew up playing GAA underage with Cuala, alongside Con O’Callaghan, and was also involved in rugby, hockey, sailing, and surfing. But, ultimately, skiing came out on top.

His specialist event is the slalom, the mix of technical and physical demands, dodging between 50 or 60 gates, 8 to 11 metres apart, while flat-out downhill at 60 kph for between 40 seconds to a minute.

His first event was on Saturday, the day after the opening ceremony in the San Siro Stadium in Milan.

It is 34 years since Team Ireland first competed at the Winter Olympics, at Albertville 1992, and the four athletes selected for Milano Cortina bringing to 37 the number of Irish Winter Olympians. For Cormac, the lifelong dream is finally being realised.

Cormac Comerford works as a mechanical engineer in the off-season, and spends most of the winter travelling Europe, training and competing. He recalls how he spent too many of his early years on the circuit sleeping in bus stations and carting a ski bag the weight of his own body to different events and different countries in order to shave pennies off his budget.

Cormac Comerford grew up in Glenageary in south Dublin. He was a sporty child, lining out for Cuala in both GAA codes, and playing rugby at Newpark Comprehensive in Blackrock. His mother’s passion for sailing also meant he spent a lot of time on the water. But trips with his aunt to Ireland’s only artificial ski slope in Kilternan caught his imagination from the age of eight.

He loved the individuality of downhill skiing, its niche status in Ireland appealing because it meant Comerford could hone his craft under the radar. ‘There was no noise around the sport, especially in Ireland,’ he says. ‘It was just me in my own world with the racing. That's what really pulled me in and kept me hooked.’

He is competing in four different events at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and faces three more Alpine skiing events: on Wednesday (11 February) in the Super-G (Alpine Skiing) in Bormio; next Saturday (14 February), in the Giant Slalom Run 1 and 2 (Alpine Skiing) in Bormio; and on Monday 16 February in the Slalom Run 1 and 2 (Alpine Skiing), also in Bormio.

The closing ceremony is in Verona on Sunday 22 February.

Alpine skier Cormac Comerford from Glenageary … representing Ireland in skiing at the Winter Olympics in Milan (Photograph: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile)

It’s quite clear by now that I was never going to be welcome at the World Cup in the US … not that I ever planned to go

I have no plans to visit the US … well, certainly not for the next three years

Patrick Comerford

Well, it looks like I’m not going to be able to go to the World Cup next year. Not that I ever planned to. But it’s quite clear by now that I’m not welcome.

I’m still hoping that Ireland qualifies in the playoffs against Czechia in March and then against either Denmark or North Macedonia. But I’m going to have to cheer on Ireland and England next summer from the welcome warmth of the pubs in Stony Stratford.

In my wildest dreams – even if I could afford to, even if some unexpected generous benefactor made the unexpected gift of a World Cup package – I would never think of spending most of June and July being ferried around Mexico, Canada and the US. I have no doubt that it’s going to be fun, and the fans who get there are going to have wonderful experiences – at least in Mexico and Canada.

But there are no circumstances I can imagine that would allow me to be in the US at this time: not for the World Cup, not for holidays or family celebrations, not even through sheer curiosity. Even if I was presented with the impossible, unimaginable surprise gift of an all-expenses-paid package, I am not going to be in the US next summer, under any circumstances. Frankly, I am not going to be in the US for at least the next three years.

It’s not that I would not like to go. I have been to Florida, and I once stopped briefly in New York, and I always thought I would be back. When I was working on the Foreign Desk in The Irish Times between 1974 and 2002, I was involved in planning and editing the news of no less than seven US Presidential elections (1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000), and I worked on editing US news on day-to-day basis.

I always thought I would get there for more than a holiday, perhaps for a short period of work experience, or an academic exchange or conference. At one time in the 1990s, I was invited to consider taking a course at Episcopal Divinity School beside Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an offer I have sometimes regretted not taking. There are still so many places I dream of visiting and seeing, from Boston, New York and much of New England or Quaker Pennsylvania to California and Oregon.

But I’m not going to the US as a tourist, a football fan or out of theological or cultural curiosity for the next three years at least.

Over the past week, US government agencies and departments have started imposing Donald Trump’s demand that all tourists to the US have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years. The mandatory new disclosures apply to the 42 countries whose nationals are currently permitted to enter the US without a visa, including Ireland and the UK.

The US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) is also demanding that any potential visitors or tourists disclose any and all telephone numbers and any email addresses they have used in the last decade, provide face, fingerprint, DNA and iris biometrics, and hand over the names, addresses, birthdates and birthplaces of family members, including children.

I cannot remember the six or seven email accounts I have had to use professionally within the past ten years, and I no longer have access to them. I have no problem with biometric details been garnered from my passport at many airports these days. But I certainly have no permission to breach all data provisions and provide intimate personal details of my sons, my ex-wife, my sisters and brothers, their spouses, their children and their grandchildren – even if I did know them.

I deleted my XTwitter account many months ago because there was so much far-right extremism there, and the hatred and racism were not only tolerated but encouraged. I certainly am not going to allow some goon from ICE or Homeland Security at an airport leaving me standing and abused verbally as they scroll though my many Facebook accounts, my Pinterest pins, my YouTube clips, or my four different blogs.

All of this is in response to an executive order issued by – a diktat from – Donald Trump demanding restrictions to ensure visitors to the US ‘do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles’.

Of course I ‘do not bear hostile attitudes’ toward US citizens. How could any have blanket hostility towards the citizens of any one country?

I have many distant cousins – second, third or even more distant cousins – who are US citizens. I cannot imagine I agree with all of them on every political issue, all the time. But they are part of my extended family, and long after Trump has left or been removed from office, those US citizens shall remain part of understanding of what extended family means.

When I was a child, my father’s first cousin in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Margaret Linders, regularly sent us bundles of children’s books and comics, so I was familiar with Clark Kent, Lana Lang, Lois Lane, Lex Lothar and life in Smallville long before they featured in films. I was still in my teens, still thinking Woodstock was the most creative event my generation had heard of, when my brother moved to Durham, North Carolina, as a PhD research student at Duke University – he died there 55 years ago this week, and is buried there. One of the last photographs of him was outside the United Nations Building in New York in front of the sculpture by Yevgeny Vuchetich, ‘Let Us Beat Swords into Ploughshares’ (1959).

Of course I ‘do not bear hostile attitudes’ toward US culture. Part of my growing up included heavy doses of US pop music, musicals and composers, television comedy and domestic soap operas, Hollywood films and actors, and works of literature, architecture and art, from Elvis and Joan Baez to George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein; from Jack Benny and Woody Allen to Mr Ed and Green Acres; from TS Eliot and Robert Frost to Sylvia Plath and Maya Angelou, Bob Dylan and Alan Ginsberg; from Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry to Walter Gropius and Abram Edelman; from James McNeill Whistler and Man Ray to Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock; from Fiddler on the Roof and the Wizard of Oz to ET and Apocalypse Now. I too enjoyed the work of Rob Reiner, and find Trump’s response to the double murders loathsome and beneath contempt. And for that I am content to be labelled the organge felon as being infected with what, in his schoolyard bullying tnatrums, he smugly refers to as Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Every journalist admires and is indebted to the bravery and innovative work of Pulitzer Prize-winning writers like Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Harper Lee, and Truman Capote who never did actually win the Pulitzer Prize.

Every campaigner for human rights and social justice and against war and racism has been inspired by Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and the Berrigan Brothers.

Every theologian I know has read Thomas Merton, Paul Tillich, Rosemary Radford Ruether and Katie Cannon, has read Walter Brueggemann, Stanley Hauerwas, John Shelby Spong and William Stringfellow.

Of course I ‘do not bear hostile attitudes’ towards US institutions. I have been to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and would never think of changing the name of the Kennedy Center in Washington to anything crass or vulgar.

Of course I ‘do not bear hostile attitudes’ towards the US ‘founding principles’. If only US politicians today – and the President in particular – shared my respect for those principles, including the rights to life, liberty and property, for popular sovereignty and the rule of the people rule, for republican principles or representative rule, for individual liberty, the rights to free speech and due process, for equality, the separation of powers and the separation of religion and state, for checks and balances, federalism, and majority rule with minority rights, all codified in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

My respect for those ‘founding principles’ includes a desire to see them extended to all democracies and all nations, including Trumps new allies and friends in Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and North Korea. This respect leads to a desire to see the present president of US being impeached for breaching each and every single one of those principles. In a letter in the Guardian today (16 December 2025), Wal Callaby writes: ‘You couldn’t make it up. You quote Donald Trump as saying “But we always take people from places like Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? … The only thing they are good at is going after ships.’ … the day after US troops seized a tanker of Venezuelan oil. Piracy is piracy, no matter who does it.’

But, I have to admit I ‘bear hostile attitudes’ towards the US government – not any or every US government, but this specific administration, its president, its vice-president, its senior office holders, and the putrid, fetid, racist, hate-filled atmosphere they have created, encoraged and sustained.

Not that they need access to my passwords. They already have their bots at work. The biggest rises in views of my blog postings this year coincided with three major events this year: Trump’s inauguration, Trump’s farcical birthday parade, and Trump’s demands for access to the social media accounts of potential tourists. What a dreadfully insecure president the man is, but we must continue to insist in saying that the emperor.

Nor are they are going to miss me. California is already preparing for a significant decline in foreign visitors this year, for example, and Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles already reports a 50% fall in footfall.

There were growing fears that the World Cup is going to be chaotic with US immigration raids continuing apace. Human rights organisations are warning that Fifa risks becoming ‘a public relations tool of an increasingly authoritarian US government’. With cross-border travel between Mexico and the US increasingly fraught, the Sport and Rights Alliance is demanding Fifa ensures protection against ‘racial profiling, arbitrary detention, and unlawful immigration enforcement’, both of local communities and of visiting fans during the tournament.

I shall be watching the World Cup – and cheering on England and (hopefully) Ireland – next summer from the welcoming comfort of the Old George and some of the other pubs in Stony Stratford.

Truman Capote and Harper Lee … they represent the best of 20th century American writing and literature

Every Greek city seems to need at least two big football clubs: look at Iraklion’s OFI and Ergotelis

The Nikos Kazantzakis Stadium, also known as Ergotelis Stadium or Martinengo Stadium, is the traditional home of Ergotelis in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I was saying some days ago (6 May 2025) how so many things in Greece seem two have two words for them in Greek, from two words for wine, οίνος (oinos) and κρασί; and two Greek words for bread, ἄρτος (artos) and ψωμί (psomi); to two Greek words for beer, μπύρα (bíra) and ζύθος (zythos) and two words for fish, ἰχθύς (ichthýs) and ψάρι (psari).

It seems every large town and city in Greece also needs to have two decent, rival football teams, if not three. In Iraklion they are Ergotelis and OFI, and their generations-old rivalry, dating back to the 1920s, has been marked out by the cultural history and political upheavals in Greek life over the past century.

The two main football clubs in Athens, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, are often referred to as ‘the Eternal Enemies’ because of their fierce rivalry. These two, along with AEK Athens, form the ‘Big Three’ (Οι Τρεις Μεγάλοι, Oi Treis Megaloi) in Greek football and are usually the main contenders for the title. Together they share a total of 80 out of 88 Greek Football Championships and they usually end up sharing the top three positions.

The two main football clubs in Thessaloniki are PAOK (Pan-Thessaloniki Athletic Club) and Aris Thessaloniki FC. Fixtures between these two rivals are known as the Thessaloniki Derby. PAOK’s success has also added them to ‘Big Three’, making it the ‘Big Four’ in Greece.

In Crete, the two Super League clubs based in Iraklion, Ergotelis and OFI, share a rivalry that can be traced back to social and political roots. Their first-ever game was a friendly match in 1929 that ended after 35 minutes. Ergotelis were ahead by 1-0 when the game was abandoned after violence broke out between the players.

OFI, officially ΠΑΕ Όμιλος Φιλάθλων Ηρακλείου 1925 (Iraklion Sportsmen’s Club 1925 FC), is part of the OFI multi-sports club. OFI is celebrating its centenary this year. It was founded in the winter of 1925 when a group of athletes who trained together in Iraklion formed a new club, Omilos Filathlon Irakleiou (OFI), or the Iraklion Sportsmen’s Club.

The team competes in the Super League Greece, the top division in the Greek football league, with home games at the Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium in Iraklion. OFI is the most successful club on Crete and the only one from the island to have played in European competitions. It is the team outside Athens and Thessaloniki with the most continuous appearances in the Greek first division. It has secured one Greek Cup (1986-1987) and one Balkans Cup (1989), and has competed seven times in UEFA competitions, making it the premier team outside Athens and Thessaloniki.

OFI’s home at the Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium (Γήπεδο Θεόδωρος Βαρδινογιάννης) was built in 1951 and is popularly known as Yedi Kule. The nickname Yedi Kule refers to the Heptapyrgion, a Byzantine and Ottoman fortress in Thessaloniki known as Yedi Kule in Turkish, which features in many Greek rebetika songs.

The stadium was built on the site of three cemeteries – Jewish, Orthodox and Armenian. When it was being built, workers discovered two large holes that had been gun emplacements left after the German occupation of Crete during World War II. The stadium has had several renovations, most notably in 2004, and 2018.

OFI ‘ultra’ fans, the ‘Snakes’, sit at Gate 4 while the visiting fans usually sit at Gate 1. Section 1 is what many call ‘the old man’s seats’ and is mostly filled with older people and fathers and sons who want to watch the game in peace. They are as far away as possible from the ultras (Sections 4-5) but relatively close to the away fans if they join (Section 6, north of 1).

The rivalry between OFI and Ergotelis intensified under the Greek military junta of 1967-1974, but this has been transformed from bitter rivalry to good-natured banter between neighbours in more recent decades.

Ergotelis of Knossos, the Cretan runner, inspired the name and logo of Ergotelis Football Club in Iraklion, known for its progressive ideals

Ergotelis Football Club (ΠΑΕ Εργοτέλης) plays in the FCA Iraklion A1, the fourth tier of the Greek football league system, and home games are played at the Pankritio Stadium. But the club’s traditional home ground is the Nikos Kazantzakis Stadium, also known as Ergotelis Stadium or Martinengo Stadium. It is below the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis on the Martinengo Bastion on the Venetian fortifications surrounding the city.

Ergotelis was formed in 1929 and is part of Gymnastics Club Ergotelis (ΓΣ Εργοτέλης), named after the ancient Cretan Olympic runner. Ergotelis was formed mainly by refugees from Asia Minor, and the first recorded game was a 4-0 win for Ergotelis in a friendly against local side Leon (Λέων) at Chandax (Χάνδαξ) stadium on 4 August 1929.

Ergotelis has had nine appearances in the Greek Super League, and its best finish was in seventh place in 2013-2014 season. It has also won the Beta Ethniki, the second tier, once, in 2006. Its traditional colours are yellow and black.

From the beginning, Ergotelis was known for its progressive ideals. It was one of the first clubs in Greece to allow women into its sporting divisions and onto the board of directors. Those values and traditions are embedded in the club’s name and logo: Ergotelis of Knossos won twice the Olympic dolichos or running race at the 77th and 79th Olympics in 472 BCE and 464 BCE.

Although Ergotelis had won all races he ran in Crete, the local governor excluded him from the local team in the Olympics for political reasons and his liberal and radical ideology. Forced to leave Crete, Ergotelis moved to the Greek colony of Himera in Sicily. As a citizen of Himera, he won at the Olympics as well as at the Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean games.

Pindar honoured Ergotelis with the ‘12th Olympionikus’. Ergotelis’ beliefs and personality, his values and his origins at Knossos near Iraklion inspired the club’s founders in their choice of name in 1929.

The club was forced to shut down temporarily in 1935 because of the political activism of leading figures in the club. Ergotelis regrouped in 1937 with a strong team that was first in the 1940 Iraklion Football Clubs Association Championship but that was never completed due to World War II.

The Greek colonels junta in 1967-1974 issued an edict demanding every regional Greek city be represented in professional divisions by one single football team. At that time, both OFI and Ergotelis were playing in the Second National division, and at the end of the 1966-1967 season they finished in third and tenth place respectively. Both clubs had secured their place in the second division for the next season, but under the colonels’ diktat, Ergotelis was relegated to amateur status.

Ergotelis claimed the relegation in 1967 was retaliation for allowing the songwriter and composer Mikis Theodorakis, later a key voice against the regime, to perform a concert at the Martinengo Stadium on 6 August 1966. The colonels branded Ergotelis an unpatriotic organisation, and club officials were accused of ‘deviating from the purposes for which they were elected, turning the club into an instrument servicing political, and sometimes unpatriotic objectives’.

The Martinengo Bastion, with the grave of Nikos Kazentzakis, overlooks the Martinengo Stadium, the venue of the controversial concert of Mikis Theodorakis in 1966 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

At the end of the 1966-1967 Beta Ethniki season, the club was forcibly relegated to amateur status through an edict that allowed each regional city have only one team in the Second national Division.

To add insult to injury, any local clubs remaining in the second division were given the right to demand the transfer of any number of players from the relegated clubs, bypassing official transfer regulations. OFI remained in the national competitions and signed up five of the best Ergotelis players at the time – Konstantinos Theodorakis, Dimitrios Papadopoulos, Manolis Stavroulakis, Konstantinos Zouraris and Georgios Skandalakis.

A court decision in favour of Ergotelis was overruled by the Hellenic Football Federation, which was controlled by the junta and approved OFI’s contracts with the players and threatened to evict Ergotelis officials from the Martinengo Stadium. Club directors were either demoted or prosecuted and Ergotelis was effectively dismantled in 1967.

It was the beginning of a prolonged period where Ergotelis languished in the lower leagues, while OFI prospered. Ergotelis made a brief comeback to the Second Division after winning the 1969-1970 local Iraklion Championship. But the club was now too weak to be competitive, and was relegated at the end of the 1970-1971 season.

After the junta collapsed in 1974, several attempts were made to bring Ergotelis back into competitive football. But these efforts were met with failure, and Ergotelis struggled between the lower regional and national competitions for over 30 years.

Happily, in recent years, old bitter rivalries between OFI and Ergotelis eased off in the early 2000s when Ergotelis returned to top-flight football. OFI fans have celebrated Ergotelis promotion and attended home games during the club’s first season in the Super League. Relations improved further when Ergotelis loaned the legendary scorer Patrick Ogunsoto to a financially struggling OFI in the Beta Ethniki for no fee, to help OFI’s bid to return to the Super League.

When Ergotelis was promoted in 2004, the Martinengo Stadium was not fit for use in Alpha Ethniki matches. Ergotelis relocated its home ground to the newly-built Pankritio Stadium (Παγκρήτιο Στάδιο, Pancretan Stadium), and OFI’s Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium was designated the club’s alternate home ground.

The 2014-1015 season was marred by continuous managerial changes, an abundance of unfortunate and costly player transfers, multiple matches postponements mid-season and competitors withdrawing from the league due to financial reasons. Ergotelis finally finished in 16th place in the regular Super League and was placed 15th only because Kerkyra (Corfu) was penalised, placed 16th and relegated for the illegal transfer of shares.

Financial crises, one after another, came to a climax on 19 January 2016, when club officials finally decided to withdraw the team from the competition. After 14 consecutive years playing in professional divisions, Ergotelis was once again relegated to amateur status and went into liquidation.

Despite finishing in ninth place during the 2021–22 Super League Greece 2, Ergotelis were discharged from the professional championship, resulting in a two-level demotion to the local top-level amateur championship, FCA Heraklion A1.

Ergotelis has a small but fiercely loyal fanbase, organised into two supporters’ groups, the Daltons Club and the Alternatives Fans of Ergotelis. They both usually occupy Gate 19 at the Pankritio Stadium.

The club has never forgotten its social and political traditions. A concert at the Pankritio Stadium on 19 September 2011 honoured Mikis Theodorakis, commemorating the 45th anniversary of the controversial concert at the Martinengo Stadium in 1966 that challenged the rise of political authoritarianism in Greece.

Ergotelis Football Club (ΠΑΕ Εργοτέλης) now plays its home fixtures at the Pankritio Stadium in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A new Cricket season is about to begin for Stony Stratford and in Campbell Park

The Cricket Pavilion anat Campbell Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

Patrick Comerford

I had planned to join clergy colleagues in the Milton Keynes area on a mid-week walk last week, beginning at the Cricket Pavilion and continuing around Campbell Park or down to the coffee shop at Willen Lake.

But it was mid-term break for most parents with children at school. So, instead, the two of us who turned up took a short walk through the park that took us as far as Campbell Wharf Marina.

After strolling around the wharf, the boats and the canal banks, I made my way back to the cricket pavilion and the cricket ground in Campbell Park. This is a meticulously maintained ground known for its first-class standard cricket pitch. It hosts a diverse range of matches, including local, county, youth, business, and exhibition matches.

There is a thriving cricket following in Milton Keynes and Campbell Park hosts many matches from April to September. In local domestic cricket, Campbell Park has been used by Stony Stratford Cricket Club for its Premier Division and Division 2 fixtures in the Northamptonshire Cricket League and as the venue for all 3rd XI and 4th XI games.

Campbell Park has also been the home venue for the Northamptonshire Cricket Academy play in the Northamptonshire Cricket League, and Bucks Cricket use Campbell Park for the training of many of their youth teams.

Most matches at Campbell Park are free to watch, with seating on the grass terraces beside the pitch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Campbell Park hosted its first match in 1981, when the Northamptonshire Second XI played the Leicestershire Second XI in the Second Eleven Championship. The first List-A match on the ground was in 1997 when Northamptonshire played Nottinghamshire in the AXA Life League. Two years later, the ground was the venue in 1999 for a List-A match between New Zealand A and Sri Lanka A.

Campbell Park hosted a single first-class match between a First-Class Counties Select XI and New Zealand in 2000. Northamptonshire played Hampshire there in 2004 in the Totesport League. The ground hosted its first Twenty20 match in 2005 when Northamptonshire played Gloucestershire in the Twenty20 Cup. From 2005 to 2008, the ground was the venue for four Twenty20 Cup matches, the last in 2008 when Northamptonshire played Warwickshire.

Buckinghamshire used the ground from 1998 to 2000, for Minor Counties matches, playing two Minor Counties Championship matches against Staffordshire and Suffolk and one MCCA Knockout Trophy match against the Sussex Cricket Board.

Campbell Park has held two Women’s One Day Internationals. The first was between England women and South Africa women in 1997, and the other between Ireland women and India women in 1999.

With the return of the cricket season in the warmer months, enthusiasts can look forward to an exciting line-up of fixtures. Most matches are free to watch, with seating on the grass terraces beside the pitch. Clubs, organisations and businesses are encouraged to bring their matches to the ground.

I am looking forward to the 2025 season which is about to begin. In previous summers, I have enjoyed some weekend games played by Stony Stratford Cricket Club at the Ancell Trust Sports Grounds on Ostlers Lane. Stony Stratford is back in the NCL Premier Division, and the Men’s First XI plays Old Northamptonians CC at Raunds Town Cricket Club on Saturday 26 April, while the Second XI plays Brixworth Second XI at Ostlers Lane.

Now, with the return of the cricket season, I must also look out for the line-up of fixtures in both Ostlers Lane and Campbell Park.

Getting ready for the new season in Campbell Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 30, Tuesday 4 March 2025, Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Tuesday)

The first and the last (see Mark 10: 31) … ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ (Revelation 1: 8) … the AΩ symbol in the centre of the altar designed by James Franklin Fuller in Saint Mary’s Church, Julianstown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are coming to the end of this period of Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the beginning of Lent. Today is Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday or Mardi Gras (‘Fat Tuesday’), and Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025).

The word shrove is a form of the English word shrive, which means to give absolution for someone’s sins by way of Confession and doing penance. Thus Shrove Tuesday was named after the custom of Christians to be ‘shriven’ before the start of Lent. Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘The first and the last (see Mark 10: 31) … ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last’ (Revelation 22: 13) … a detail in the East Window in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 28-31 (NRSVA):

28 Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ 29 Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’

‘The first and the last (see Mark 10: 31) … Alpha and Omega in lettering in the reredos in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Today’s Gospel reading (Mark 10: 28-31) follows immediately after the story we read yesterday of the man who runs up to Jesus, kneels before him, and asks, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ The man is told to go, sell what he owns, gives it to the poor, and only then follow Jesus. He ‘was shocked and went away grieving’ (see Mark 10: 17-27).

Jesus responds to this by telling the disciples: ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (verses 24-25).

Peter now tells Jesus that the disciples have left everything to follow Jesus. His implied question points out again how easy it is to think that being a disciple or follower of Christ should be linked with the hope of rewards in the here and now.

What do I cling onto most now that I can shed – not in terms of property and possessions, but prejudices and values – that get between me and Jesus, and between the way I live now and eternal life?

Then will I be happy to get down on my knees, like a camel, and squeeze into the City of God through the smallest and most narrow of the city gates, and find in the most humbling of ways how to squeeze into the Kingdom of God?

But, as Jesus says, ‘many who are first will be last, and the last will be first’ (verse 31).

I was never good at sports and athletics as a schoolboy. Nevertheless, I persisted. In the track and field events one year, I bravely entered a race in which all the runners were offered a handicap. I started first, and the most athletic boy of my year started last; in all there were six entrants. I started first, and finished last; the most athletic boy who started last, needless to say, came first.

At first, as boys on days like that, I felt humiliated and embarrassed. No platitudes or clichés such as ‘God loves a trier’ or ‘playing not winning is what matters’ could console me.

It took me a long time to realise not that I had come last, but that I had come sixth. Apart from we six, where were the other boys in my year? They were on the sidelines watching; most of them had not even kitted out that day.

In my own gauche way, I continued to enter school sports, and as an adult still tried to play rugby and cricket occasionally. When I was selected, I was the player sent in to bat first, so that I could be dismissed immediately and everyone else could get on with the game.

But does it matter, being first or last?

In the Book of Revelation, almost at the beginning, we read, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Revelation 1: 8). He is the Alpha (A) and the Omega (Ω) – the A to Z, as we might say today – the beginning and end of all things, the first and the last, the Lord God Almighty who is, who was, and who is to come. And he says again, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last’ (Revelation 1: 17).

At the end of the Book of Revelation, Jesus says once again, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’ (Revelation 22: 13).

At the end of this period of Ordinary Time and as Lent is about to begin, it is good to be reminded that it matters little whether I come first or last in the race. I ran. He is our ‘Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’. He will soon return, bringing our reward:

‘Surely I am coming soon.’
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen. (Revelation 22: 20-21)

‘I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and last, the beginning and the end’ (Revelation 22: 13) … stencilled lettering in the Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church in Cahersiveen, Co Kerry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 4 March 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The World’s Greatest Leader: Jesus Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by the Right Revd Filomena Tete Estevão, Bishop of Angola.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Tuesday 4 March 2025) invites us to pray:

Lord, equip us all to live lives rooted in prayer. Help us to seek you daily, finding strength and direction in your presence, and cultivating hearts that are open to your guidance.

The Collect:

Almighty Father,
whose Son was revealed in majesty
before he suffered death upon the cross:
give us grace to perceive his glory,
that we may be strengthened to suffer with him
and be changed into his likeness, from glory to glory;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Holy God,
we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ:
may we who are partakers at his table
reflect his life in word and deed,
that all the world may know his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Holy God,
you know the disorder of our sinful lives:
set straight our crooked hearts,
and bend our wills to love your goodness and your glory
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

An amusing take on being first in and first out … an old cartoon seen in Ryder and Amies on King’s Parade, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org