Henry McDonald: Fans on both sides of divide agree that football stadiums are a disgrace

Before that announcement it appeared that Irish football clubs were going to lose the multi-million scheme that could have redeveloped local stadia.

The minister’s initial decision to halt the funding while at the same approving of millions to redevelop the GAA’s Casement Park in west Belfast came under fierce criticism within the local football community.

However, some of that criticism clouded the real issue and indeed the cause of the Irish League by suggesting her original determination was motivated by sectarianism. Because it clunkily characterised the policy as one of pitting the allegedly Catholic-Nationalist GAA against an allegedly Protestant-Nationalist Irish Football community. Which to those who follow and love the Irish League is an objectionable, inaccurate stereotyping of the local sport.

An interest declaration at this stage: I am a lifelong Cliftonville supporter who can still remember the darker days when the Troubles in Northern Ireland cast a shadow over the game.

I recall a time when going to matches away from home was often physically perilous and when you could be subjected to attacks involving hand grenades courtesy of the UFF, bricks, bottles, steel so-called ‘Chinese darts’ and even hot coals chucked over us by irate grannies.

On top of the physical violence and threats there was the ubiquitous sectarian chanting and abuse which lasted for decades.

In fairness and in total honesty some of us were not blameless angels either and I am still ashamed of aspects of my own teenage behaviour following the Reds at certain fixtures in the late 70s and early to mid 80s.

Mercifully those days have faded far into the past and the atmosphere around grounds in the 21st century across Northern Ireland has