Barry: Discovering new unity in defeat

Sep 24 2008 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

SO, the Ryder Cup is over for another two years.

For many people last weekend marked the only time in 24 months when they felt European – or cared about golf.

I don’t much like the game myself. I just can’t get excited about a sport which in essence is not a team game.

So golfing tournaments leave me cold. It really doesn’t bother me who wins the Open or the PGA.

A lot of rich men hit a wee ball around and, at the end, one of the rich guys wins – and becomes even richer. Who am I meant to support? Why should I care?

But the Ryder Cup is different altogether, I can get into it. I sat down and watched it last weekend, well bits of it anyway.

Europe against America, there’s something we can all understand. Our great continent taking on Uncle Sam every two years.

And how sweet it was in 2004 and 2006 when we didn’t just beat the Americans – we humiliated them.

Not this time though. Fair play to Paul Azinger’s team, and their notably unsporting fans, they were deserved victors.

But, it was still great to watch a tournament which united Irish, English, Spanish and Swedes in a common goal. It’s just about the only sporting event which involves a team representing an entire continent.

Shouldn’t there be more of this kind of thing? And shouldn’t we choose sports that we Europeans are actually good at?

For example, let’s have a Continental Cup in football – after all, it is the truly global sport.

What a side we’d have: Buffon, Fabregas and Ballack all in the same European team – with David Healy up front of course.

We’d wipe the floor with the other continents, especially North America, which would just be the Mexican national team.

Seeing our boys beating the best of the rest every two years would do more for European integration than all the treaties in the world.