I NEVER thought I'd say this but I think it's a shame England weren't in the European Championship final. I think they should have been given a bye to the final and allowed to win it in normal time. In fact I think they should be allowed to win every Olympic event, Wimbledon, the Tour de France, the All Ireland and indeed every major sporting fixture for the next 10 years. Teams competing against the English soccer team in future should be forced to play in sacks with silly hats on their heads.

Please, don't get me wrong. You wouldn't like me when I'm wrong. At first, like most right thinking people, I wanted Switzerland to beat them in the opening game of the tournament. I yodelled in solidarity with their quirky, landlocked fans (whose only consolation was not having to paint their flag on their faces they just had to lie in the sun and bandage their noses).

I supported Scotland with an almost Rwandan vehemence. Blood still boiling I cursed and abused the English in accordance with local custom as they plodded through to the latter stages. My voodoo dolls of Gascoigne, Shearer and Pearce were mashed to a pulp, in vain. I had made them out of cheese, so don't worry, they didn't go to waste.

In my fury, I left London. I left to escape the tabloid led jingoism and xenophobia that accompanies all sporting events in England, and all other events too. (And I found out that if you fold any broad sheet in two and read it sideways with a magnifying glass you've got an equally offensive tabloid.)

I left to avoid the fans, ungracious in victory, ungracious in defeat, ungracious in their sleep. In Ireland, we celebrate win, lose or draw. We think we're great, but not necessarily better than anyone else. In England winning is a birthright. It's all that matters. And when they do win, they don't celebrate, they just get slightly less angry.

I left mostly because I am Irish and, despite the fact that I generally like English people and grew up with a Cat Stevens like devotion to English soccer, it was my duty to leave.

But look at me now I've put bells on my trousers. Heavy bells, by mistake. My jeans are hanging off me with the weight and sheep are following me around. I've thrown away the tin whistle. No longer shall I play the rebel dirge. No longer shall I bother people with my tinniness and spittle. I've joined the brass band. My drums are of ash and willow.

So why the sudden change of tune?

Well I'll tell you why. Because I live and work in England and as a nation it is depressed. An only child, sullen and spoilt, whose parents have fallen on hard times and can no longer afford the tennis coach. Isolated in Europe, suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome after 15 years of Tory rule, no country in the world needs a lift as badly.

Sporting success, as any politician knows, is the Prozac a country needs to lift it from its gloom. Haughey knew this when he appeared like a goblin on the Champs Elysees to greet Stephen Roche, whose achievement in winning the Tour de France is surely the greatest in Ireland's sporting history.

The "upturn", for want of a better word in the Irish economy is due to the success of our soccer team over the last 10 years. I know it's probably also responsible for the increase in marital breakdown, the smugness epidemic, bad tattoos and all of that, but they're mere side effects, just as the prolonged use of Prozac can cause delusions and paranoia and make you lose all sense of proportion.

And so I urge responsible sports people around the world to concede defeat to England at every opportunity. Let them win as you'd let your Dad win at pool. And in the bar afterwards, clap them on the back and remind them of some great British military achievements. And then maybe they won't be so difficult to get on with.

I ACTUALLY played football myself on the day of the European Championship final, with the Comedy Store comics against the Comedy Store staff for the Comedy Store trophy. In defence, they featured some of the biggest and most feared bouncers in London, people who search you going into the penalty box and confiscate the ball. The only remotely funny thing about our side was the medical condition of the players. In the dressing room before the match, I was rubbing some suntan lotion on my legs when I got cramp. That's how feeble I am these days.

I wish I could say otherwise, but I just don't like running anymore. There was a "fun run" in my home town recently. A fun run! Those words should never appear together, not even in the same book. Running is never fun. Running is something you do when a man is chasing you with a knife. Running is something I do when my wife sends me to the shop for matches just as Countdown is about to come on.

When I was eight years old, I played football every day for 10 hours a day. I covered every blade of grass in the county. I ran and ran until the land was barren. Cattle starved and Monaghan became a mud bath before the council forced me to quit. But they couldn't stop me for long. I'd sneak out of the house in the middle of the night and play with a luminous ball. Running into chestnut trees prepared me for the tough tackling centre halves of the Sunday leagues and the even harder knocks off the field.

And now, aged 30 and supremely unfit, I treasure every match, every move, every moment as if it's going to be my last. Football for me, playing it, watching it, talking about it, is pure escapism, pure joy, the ultimate metaphor.

I see stand up performance purely in terms of football. I am a manager. My jokes arc my players. The audience is the opposition, heckles are tackles, an ad lib followed by a devastating punch line is a mazy run and volley into the top corner. I don't really know what a throw in is yet. Before the show I select the team strong reliable funny gags for a "premiership" venue untried or indulgent ones down in the local pub and dirty jokes for when the opposition is fierce. Big laughs are goals.

It was fitting then, that my last match was for the Comedy Store, a game in which the distinction between football and comedy was finally blurred. We won 5-2.

(By the way, I was only joking about wanting England to win things.)