Even though football is a game of creative expression, it was easy to feel that Eamon Dunphy might find it limiting.
He is one of Ireland’s most arresting voices, whose coruscating wit made analysis of often tepid matches a must-watch.
This week marks the 1500th episode of his podcast The Stand , in which Dunphy has granted himself the freedom of the airwaves to find an audience for topics international and domestic.
He could barely have cherry-picked a better six years in which to do it.
Between the rise and fall - and rise again - of Trump, Brexit, and a global pandemic, political life has rarely been so difficult to watch and impossible to ignore.
At 77, Dunphy spoke to the Irish Mirror about his newest lease of life as one of Ireland’s most storied journalists.
“It reminds me of radio, and radio is my favourite medium to work on. I have worked in newspapers, radio and television and radio is by far my favourite," Dunphy says.
“I love the podcasting, it’s more of an ideas thing than how you look. It has developed and done very well; it has evolved since 2016.”
There is space to explore the issues that appeal to Dunphy and his inclination to look under the bonnet of what is driving events of global importance.
“[Audio] is more intimate, more about ideas. People are actually listening to what you’re saying rather than seeing you physically, which can be a distraction.
“People are thinking about what you are saying and it is resonating with them in a certain way. There is an intimacy if you are doing an interview. It is much more difficult to be disingenuous, the fakery that you can get away with on TV isn’t as easily done.
“You can cover more ground in an interview and there is a general sensory feeling - you are using your mind, your ears, your voice and you are getting something that is quite a bit more authentic than television.”
Dunphy is proud of The Stand ’s ability to not only endure but to adapt to an ever-morphing world.
“Like every media outlet, you need stories. We have been very fortunate, in having been running since 2016, to have had very big stories. That is the key.
“If you have Brexit, Covid and now the war in Ukraine - big political stories - then there is an audience there for discussion, in-depth analysis.
“Take Brexit: we have had Brexiteers on, people who are Remainers - but it was a big story that needed to be done well. Radio, in the conventional sense, there seems to be a view that you can cover these things in five, 10 or even 12 minutes and then the listener has had enough.
“That may be true, but I don’t believe it is true. I don’t believe in the ‘short attention span theory’ that radio producers have, that people only want soundbites.
“If you look at major broadcasters, they tend to take that view. I think they are wrong.
“They may not be wrong about everybody but there is a substantial audience that we have managed to find that wants in-depth analysis about Brexit, or information about Covid.”
Regularly at the very top of the Irish podcasting charts, and increasingly engaging international ears, the sense of pride in Dunphy's voice is palpable.
“We now have 250,000 streams a week, roughly, which is a lot for podcasts. There are a lot of people podcasting, The Two Johnnies for example, but in the news, current affairs and sport area we are very strong.”
New podcasts abound; having a multiplicity of voices on the most difficult issues is one of the reasons The Stand is able to separate itself.
“We go for informed contributors. We have some very good English journalists, we have John Giles and Liam Brady on football. We keep trying to strengthen the quality of our contributors.
“We have done quite well on Russia-Ukraine; we had a former producer from the Russian state television who left, we got him. We had an Irish guy who lives in Kyiv, during the French election we had the Irish Times’ Laura Marlowe.
“As these major news stories break, we try to improve. We take a broadsheet approach to The Stand rather than the idea that it has to be short and snappy. Not that short and snappy is bad - done well, it is very good - but it is not the audience I’m interested in, it is not the way I’m interested in working.
For a man not disposed to limitations by voices in supposed authority, the listener gets a sense of new release for Dunphy, who turned 77 this month.
“I enjoy it and I’m interested in the stories. The world is changing rapidly, radically and it is not going back to the way it was before. We’re into a new era in world affairs and it is a battle between free liberal democracies and authoritarian states. There are more of them than us, when you add in the Saudis, Iranians, Russians and Chinese.
“There is a massive shift taking place, there is a kind of takeover bid now which has reached into Europe when you look at Viktor Orbán in Hungary, for example.
“We are entering a phase that is, in historical terms, dangerous. It is the unknown and we have to cognisant of that. You have to want to cover it.”
The United States is a near-constant topic of discussion, be with their approach to Covid, the January 6th hearings or the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
Dunphy believes that this augurs poorly not just for America but for the global democratic fabric.
“What is happening [there] is crucial to the future of western liberal democracy as we know it.
“What is happening is that they are heading in the other direction. If Trump comes back in 2024, America will have definitively headed off.
“Who is the guarantor of the West’s freedom? Who supports the idea of a free-speech, liberal, law-abiding democratic system? The answer is nobody.”
The pulling together of threads is an important part of the work for Dunphy, particularly broadcasting to an Irish audience who are temporarily engaged in American current affairs.
“If you really understand what is happening with QAnon, and how close true believers in that got to Donald Trump [...] it is there and it is influencing large sections of that society. They believed that Joe Biden stole the election, and they still believe it - 69% of Republican voters believe that Biden is not the legitimate President of the United States.
“These are people who you would not think of as headbangers or extremists, but they do believe something that is extreme, it is wrong and it has undermined the belief in democracy.
“You have the Roe v Wade judgement being reversed - and immediately implemented by states like Mississippi - where a woman can be unknowingly pregnant and not able to access a termination.
“They have changed the electoral laws in many of the states so that the next authoritarian - whether it is Trump or Ron DeSantis in Florida - the decision will not be made on the count but by partisan politicians. That is law now, and not many know that in Ireland.
“There is nothing stopping Trump becoming President again, or someone cleverer than Trump, and staying there as long as they want.”
Political battles are par for the course in Congress and in the House of Commons but Dunphy believes the frontline has shifted to the internet, with feather-light regulation.
“The most worrying element of democracy is what’s online. Never mind pornography, which is sickening and destroying people, you only have to look at what’s happening with JK Rowling and the trans debate.
“She is being slaughtered for saying what she believed. So they are damaging free speech. It doesn’t matter if you agree with someone, everyone has a right within the law [to comment] - as long as people are not inciting hatred.
“That is where a lot of the debates are taking place, out of our sphere of influence and out of politicians’ sphere of influence. So what are we going to do about Facebook or Twitter? What are we going to do about deadly online sites?”
Dunphy is not the first Irishman to spend significant portions of their life in Britain.
He is, however, in a unique position to explain changes there to an Irish audience with a lived knowledge of both countries' national characteristics.
“I like English people, I’m well-disposed towards them. It is a different England now, it is more multicultural.
"The Tories always had a right-wing, nasty, ‘send them to Rwanda’ vibe to it - but now both candidates in the leadership race wand to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as well as other parts of Africa.
“The worst of Britain has emerged through Brexit, which is an English nationalist project that has succeeded. It was the opportunism of Johnson to seize on this issue on which he has no real strong feelings at all. He has no strong feelings about anything.
“That is how history is made - it’s not designed, it’s an accident. The accident of Brexit, the arrival of someone as mendacious as Johnson, it brought the worst out of England.
“There are still decent people - when you look at the referendum result, it was 52%-48%. But [English nationalists] have now hollowed out the Tory party and it is full of Jacob Rees-Moggs and worse. If there is worse.
“I am not anti-British, on the contrary, but Britain has evolved into a pretty unpleasant place with a lot of racism, a lot of shocking, daily violence - and that comes from anger. Anger from what the establishment is doing.
“If you look at what they have done with the Protocol in the North, they have drafted an illegal law and they are running it through their own Parliament. That is unthinkable, really.
By contrast, Dunphy believes Ireland’s political woes are relatively few compared to the characteristics on show across the Irish Sea.
“Ireland and its fate is dependent on its place in Europe. It is a strong part of the European alliance and Europe - at the moment - is ok, but is not exactly an advert for democracy.
“Sometimes you feel our politicians are mediocre but when you compare them to their counterparts in Britain, for example, they are doing their best. Varadkar and Martin are fundamentally decent people.
“Ireland is part of Europe and its fate will depend on Europe’s fate. It is a liberal country now with personal behaviour, acceptance of different identities and so on. I think it is brilliant that we don’t have virulent racism, nearly at all. We don’t have a right-wing newspaper or political party in any meaningful sense. All of that is plus, plus, plus in my book.
“We haven’t got a health service to speak of and we do have a housing crisis. We haven’t got much to pat ourselves on the back for, we don’t have a well-organised society like Scandinavia.
“We don’t have equality of opportunity for working-class people, which is our biggest failing.”
To end on an interesting conversation on a lighter note, Dunphy speaks about his enduring friendship with John Giles, his erstwhile colleague on RTE Sport.
It is one which has seen the pair call each other during the football matches they watch and Dunphy’s relationship with ‘Chiefy’ is one which should be salutary to men everywhere as we each grow older.
“John is five years older than me and was a mentor to me when I was young, he was in Manchester when I moved over [to United].
“Everybody in Irish soccer who knew John had great respect for him as a player and as a thinker about the game. That endures.
“His knowledge of the game is unsurpassed, his forensic ability to see what’s happening in front of him is incredible.
“When I was able to get him on to the panel, against the wishes of the RTE bosses, was the best thing I ever did for RTE because he flourished in that environment. Bill O’Herlihy was so good and had such a good empathy with John.
“He has been such a key figure in Irish soccer as a player, as a pundit and as a manager.
“Our relationship is very strong, it’s built on soccer. We talk all the time during matches and he gives me the result before the bookies have it so I can make some money!
“Every country has someone who is outstanding and represents the game. We’re very lucky in Irish soccer that when you think of Irish soccer, John is the person you think of.”
He is not the only one. Dunphy remains an arresting voice in Irish life with the 1500th episode of The Stand.
Even without the benefit of John Giles’ tips, not many would bet against 1500 more.
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