The story of 2015 in Irish football was Jonathan Walters's emergence as, undisputably, the nation's favourite David Cameron supporter.
Any man who can make this country forget that he tweeted 'Yes @DavidCameron?????? Glad the country has seen sense...' is clearly the author of great deeds elsewhere.
The conservatism with which the name of Stoke City has been associated with since the Tony Pulis days does not just confine itself to their style of football.
Walters's teammate and 'proud Bostonian' Geoff Cameron waded into geopolitical matters today and flaunted his right-wing credentials by lashing President Obama out of it for daring to propose the closure of Guantanamo Bay.
Not even the lure of increased scope for tax cuts elsewhere could convince Geoff that we should let the terrorists loose on the streets.
So why is #Obama trying to close down #Guantanamo ? How does this help our country? Save tax money? But let's just let the combatants go!
— Geoff Cameron (@GeoffCameron) February 23, 2016
US soccer players tend to be more circumspect on politics than the players of native American sports. The assumption has long been that soccer guys tilt liberal.
Indeed, right-wing pundit and regular Fox News contributor (four of the most ominous words in the English language) Ann Coulter wrote during the World Cup that soccer was undermining the moral fibre of America.
It was a game for prissy European sophisticates who disliked unilateral action. Its burst of popularity in America was down to the infusion of Hispanic immigrants as well as the cultural elitists and their Europe fetish.
This intriguing article in The Atlantic magazine by Peter Beinart argues that Coulter is in fact right to worry about soccer. He suggests that America’s new found interest in the game heralds the end of ‘American exceptionalism’ in whole swathe of areas and points out that the soccer constituency was the one that propelled Obama to power.
