We've all heard of the fabled TV3 curse, the dreadful Biddy Early style jinx which has blighted Irish football down years.
For whatever reason, without the reassuring tones of George Hamilton bursting through our speakers, the Irish team seemed to be all at sea. Something about the sight of Trevor Welch or Conor McNamara perched high above the action, a microphone pressed against their philtrum, seemed to bring about a loss in the Irish players, sapping their confidence.
(Or maybe it was the fact that TV3 generally only got to broadcast away international games. Who knows?)
Well it turns out that the curse of the commercial broadcaster has not just affected Ireland.
Following last night's dispiriting loss to Uruguay, brought to UK viewers by Adrian Chiles, Clive Tyldesley and co, England have now played 11 World Cup group games that were screened exclusively (in the UK) by that channel since 1982.
Amazingly, they have won just won one of these games.
Their only win, under ITV's auspices, was the hardly spectacular 2-0 defeat of Trinidad & Tobago, a game which for 80+ minutes England did their level best not to win.
The ITV curse doesn't even end there. During the USA game in 2010, there was a famous cock-up resulting in them going cutting to ads, missing Steven Gerrard's early goal. ITV being ITV though, they showed Clint Dempsey's equaliser right enough.
For England's sake, ITV should cut to ads more often.
The World Cup record as a whole reveals that England have a significantly higher ratio of victories on the BBC than when ITV have shown them, 57% compared to 31%.
The lesson from both England and Ireland, is that when football associations offer games to commercial broadcasters at the expense of state broadcasters, results suffer.
