Whose Side are You On?

From the late 1960s, Northern Ireland was mired in violence for the best part of 40 years.And yet, in that time, world-class sporting figures emerged from there u from boxer Barry McGuigan, through snooker champion Alex Higgins, to footballer George Best. Their backgrounds mightn’t have been privileged, but these working-class lads found they could shine on the football field or find focus at the town boxing club. For other kids, like the young Teddy Jamieson, for whom sport meant knockabout in the back-lanes, these guys were heroes. They were a source of national pride. But, like so many things in Northern Ireland, sport holds an ambiguous position. In a country that was plagued by sectarianism, sport was at the mercy of politics. At times it was redemptive, at others divisive.
Teddy Jamieson’s extraordinary journey through the history of Northern Irish sport covers everything from a 1970s Olympic gold-medallist Mary peters to modern Gaelic football, and ranges from the lows of anonymous death threats to the highs of bridging divided communities. The compelling thread that holds it together is Teddy’s own story. Through personal recollections, as well as a wealth of interviews, we see how that school-yard question of ‘Whose side are you on?’ doesn’t always have an easy answer.As a new generation of sports stars u like Rory McIlroy in golf, and Mark Allen in snooker u emerge unscarred by the Troubles, this is a timely look at what their predecessors faced.