Here’s a message for the Ryanair social media team wannabes who work on the Dublin Airport social media accounts - Declan Rice is no more English now than he was in 2018 when he first wore the white away jersey as an Ireland senior player. And he’s no less Irish now either than he was that day for the friendly against Turkey in Antalya.
On Saturday evening, Declan Rice scored in the penalty shoot-out as Arsenal lost to PSG in what was, for the most part, a disappointing Champions League final.
Rice, once of Ireland but now of England, scored but Eze and Gabriel didn’t as the Gunners again failed to add the old European Cup to their repertoire.
It’s important to note here that former Irish international Rice did score his penalty at a crucial time in that shoot-out to level the scores at 2-2 after Eze and then Mendes had missed, for Arsenal and PSG respectively. He scored, they missed. It happens in football.
But none of us, including the Dublin Airport social media team, can really imagine the pressure that any elite player is under in a penalty shoot-out.
What we can acknowledge is that it takes real cojones to stand there in front of almost 62,000 people with a ball on the spot in front of you and a goalkeeper and the world staring at you - most of whom, it seems, hate your club these days.
What we also know is that no player sets out to miss his or her penalty kick in a shoot-out. Not Declan Rice. Not Finn Azaz. Not Alan Browne. Not Stuart Pearce or David Batty or Gareth Southgate.
Nor, we have to assume, does whoever runs the socials for Dublin Airport know what it is like to even play in a game of such importance or to take a penalty in a Champions League final shoot-out. We don’t even know who they are or if they play football and ever ended up missing a penalty and losing a cup final at any level.
It is a pity then that said nameless social media person behind the Dublin Airport socials chose to attack Declan Rice and Arsenal with a cheap shot on Saturday night. It’s one they must have been saving to use ever since their Rangers penalty jibe back in March after their penalty shoot-out against Celtic and the two Gers misses that sent the DA team into overdrive if you remember.
We let them off that time. Goading Rangers could be classified as mickey taking, a bit of fun on behalf of the Celtic brethren. - even if I’ve regularly seen the shops at Dublin Airport accept money from Rangers fans, some of them even wearing their colours!
This time however the Dublin Airport cheap shot was wide of the mark, in my ageing opinion at least. To carry an image, posted here, of a disconsolate Declan Rice and claim underneath it: ‘Lost on penalties. Obviously he is English after all’ is crass and insulting to anyone with dual nationality, never mind the thousands of Arsenal fans who use Dublin Airport every week of every month of every year.
Arsenal by the way will probably fly into the same Dublin Airport in August for their pre-season friendly at the Aviva but they’re only going to be customers so it’s all right.
Declan Rice is English and he is Irish, like Morrissey, like so many others with shared identity. Had Martin O’Neill played him in that competitive game against Moldova in 2017 when he trained with the Irish squad before the game, he would happily have committed himself then to Ireland and we’d happily have taken him.
Had he won that competitive cap, even as a raw teenager, we wouldn’t even be having a Dublin Airport social media debate right now. We’d have taken him when the chance was there and we’d have taken the opportunity to switch allegiances away from him.
12 November 2020; Declan Rice warms up during the International Friendly match between England and Republic of Ireland at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
But we didn’t. So Declan exercised his right and switched to England, the country where he was born to Irish stock. We’ve all vilified him for that. Of course we have since hating the English is a national past-time here.
But maybe it is time to call an end to the Declan Rice baiting. Maybe we need to finally get over it and wish him well, with Arsenal or with England. Maybe we need to grow up as well and ask the social media team at Dublin Airport to do the same.
Let’s leave the cheap shots to Ryanair and just enjoy their ‘window seats with no windows’ responses whenever anyone complains.
They’ve made an art of it. Anything else is imitation and it’s not even bordering on flattery.
