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17 December 2007

Football For All 2007 Round Up by Football For All Ambassador, Radio, TV Star and The Green and White Army’s Favourite Son, Colin Murray: “On being asked to write a short piece as Football For All (FFA) Ambassador, looking back at the year that was, I asked for a list of all events and award winners. The emails came thick and fast… our Inaugural FFA Awards night, the FFA Conference, the IFA Anti-Racist month, the World Untied Consultation, the Unity Cup, the winning of the MAMA award in Dublin and so on and so on.

And then I received the winner’s names, all of them more than worthy of being singled out as key players in the change in the landscape surrounding the supporting of our national football team. At the FFA Awards night, I was truly honoured to be entrusted with handing the awards over to such outstanding recipients, the Volunteers and Fans who are the lifeblood of football in Northern Ireland.

However, I would also wager a significant amount of crisp banknotes that none of them, in keeping with the overall humility and team ethos of the Northern Irish support, are very comfortable in the spotlight. None of them, I would predict, tell stories in bars on Saturday nights about just how special and important they are.

So, instead, I’d like to metaphorically award every Northern Ireland fan, who has bought into the idea that football is football; not Catholic, not Protestant, not political, not a colour, not creed. I’d like to impart the highest honour of Respect onto those who have realised that change was, and still is, needed. Who will continue to sing the most vibrant, passionate and at times hilarious football chants from home and away stands all across Europe, without use of bigotry or political rhetoric to support their football team? Why? Because every one of them are, in my eyes, brave ambassadors for a different way forward.

It has unnerved me recently, to see the proposed FIFA rule change drag our football team back under the local political spotlight; to hear it once again be discussed in terms of, if we are being honest, religion. However, after contemplation, I realised I had nothing to worry about, because the collective will of people in Northern Ireland has always been stronger, more resolute and, ultimately, more successful, than those who allow politics and religion to muddy the sporting waters. I truly believe that, in a decade from now, any talk of ‘which Ireland should he play for?’ will be a sentence for the history books.

As I have said above, in order to achieve this, other issues will need to be addressed in order to make the Northern Ireland football team even more accessible to everyone in Northern Ireland. I am sure there are debates and disagreements to follow, but as long as they remain constructive and are discussed between real football fans - not Politicians – the FFA campaign will go from strength to strength.
So, in conclusion – while Sir David has thrilled and countless menand women in Green And White have sweated blood to make a nation proud – I would like to sum up 2007 in just two words… The Fans”.

For further information contact Michael Boyd on 07894614328