http://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...s-up-twisted-logic-of-the-masses-1855582.html Monday August 10 2009 Admit it, Dunmanway set you thinking. This country is a basket case. Fifteen thousand people (a Garda estimate) pour into west Cork to watch a bunch of kids in Liverpool shirts play football. An emergency traffic plan is put in place to avert chaos around the town. And nobody thinks of putting in a call to the Samaritans. This isn't called devotion to a team. It is enslavement to a brand. All those baby-soap complexions peering out the windows of the Liverpool team bus last week pretty much represented just the recreational arm of a great conglomerate. Imagine young Daniel Pacheco's call to home on Thursday evening. "Mama, eeeesss crazy. Deeees people think we are Liverpool. We are kings to them. I no understand. Maybe Meester Benitez pick me next week, yeeees?" And somewhere in Malaga, a mother shook her head sadly, marvelling at the imagination of a child. Before hanging up, she probably reminded Dani not to forget to floss that night. "Si, Mama, adios!" There are maybe two conclusions to be drawn about those people who gathered in the sunshine and breezes of the Mary Immaculata Community College. One, they don't get out enough. Two, this is probably quite a good thing. Now we know they weren't victims of some clever public relations hoax. The event may have been flagged as the 'Mighty Liverpool' coming to west Cork, but Rafa Benitez and his boys were in Sweden on pre-season chores. Interest Anyone with even a passing interest in the club would have been aware of that. And the smart chap organising the event didn't exactly dress up the busker playing spoons as an afternoon of Verdi. He went on Thursday's RTE's 'Morning Ireland' and 'News at One' to name-call the 'stars' about to descend upon West Cork: "Pacheco, Irwin, Nemeth..." Not even a murmur of that exotic, pony-tailed dish from the East, Andriy Voronin, to set pulses aflutter. Yet still they came. Great hordes of red-clad pilgrims, giddy, lovesick and visibly deferential of their visitors, as if Dunmanway was host to a gathering of world statesmen. Even for this 40-year Liverpool supporter, it seemed less a sporting event than a gathering of loons. If anything, the timing headlined the strangeness of it all. On the day 'Liverpool' came to Dunmanway, Cork City just about side-stepped a Revenue winding-up order over tax liabilities and St Patrick's Athletic secured a remarkable European victory in Russia. The death rattle in the throat of domestic football here has never been more audible. Even the most basic fiscal savvy seems beyond those doing the books. Clubs buy success at a plainly ruinous cost, then look startled when the roof caves in. The madness is endemic, yet the product is palpably sound. Irish teams don't present themselves as a coconut shy in Europe anymore. They compete. The standard of football in the League of Ireland has probably never been higher. Yet, pretty much no one pays in to see it and you can't sustain full-time football without an audience. Hence the chaos now enveloping the game. Soon, every club in the league will probably be part-time again, skill and fitness levels will regress and we'll return to a tradition of embarrassment at the big venues. Now that's a bitter pill to swallow when you think of the throng that paid into a temporary stadium in Dunmanway last Thursday to watch a bunch of kids who probably had to be home by dark. It's a moot point if any of those who played in Liverpool shirts last Thursday will ever even make a Premier League match-day squad. So there's a fictional quality to their place in the world. They are exotic only for what they wear. Anyway, in the spirit of Dunmanway, this column has a plan. You see, we've fallen into a little good fortune. Actually, truth to tell, quite a lot of good fortune. It began with an e-mail from a Madame Lione Prez that precipitated the most extraordinary flood of correspondence. Our relationship has blossomed like a hot-house flower since. You see, she wants to cut me in on the $20m fortune of her late husband. I need to do virtually nothing. Just let her lodge the money in my bank account and reap 40pc for the storage. I told her I have a dream of buying my own football club and turning them into a force in Europe. Her response was heart-warming. She spoke of her gratitude to God Almighty for bringing us together. "I am happy to hear that you want to own a club," wrote Madame Prez. "I am a football lover too, so let's invest in your football club and a five-star hotel." Within days, Zaman Ahmed -- a kind banker in Burkino Faso -- contacted me about the $14.5m fortune left behind by a family wiped out in a plane crash in Paris nine years ago. Then Barrister William Tamale wrote to me of a client who died of a "heart-related condition" in '03, leaving behind $11.5m. He put me in touch with Madame Sonia Zongo, another banker in Burkino Faso, who is offering me 40pc of the $9.5m left behind by a wealthy American lost in a plane crash in Kenya. I've just had an e-mail telling me that I've won £1m in a draw with the 'Pepsi Bottling Company'. Honest. I'm feeling so good, I could sell Hull City reserves as a Broadway show right now. Or maybe peddle sand to an Algerian. Still, must go. There's a chap on the phone with a business proposal. Goes by the name of Ashley and he's talking about a "fire sale". What's not to like?