Sir, - Although there has been much investigation of the legal implications of Wimbledon's proposed move to Dublin, what has been strangely overlooked are the potential socio-political consequences of this scheme.
I have long been a supporter of a certain London club which - through its fans' symbolic association with Rangers and Linfield, and the perennial and embarrassing renditions of "No surrender to the IRA" - contains its own brand of anti-Irish sentiment. I even once had the misfortune to stand next to a fan who kept calling Tony Cascarino a "Fenian bastard" throughout the whole game.
One has only to look at the fiasco at Lansdowne Road two years ago to realise that a trip to Dublin by English louts will be used as an excuse to indulge in their own brand of bigotry and jaundiced nationalism. As an Englishman, Lansdowne Road was a humiliating spectacle, and as a frequent visitor to Dublin I am ashamed to venture towards Temple Bar for fear of being associated with the normal kind of English clientele found there. Envisage the situation if these hoards of English louts who descend on Dublin on a weekly basis were politicised through football tribalism.
There are plenty of mentally unstable pseudo-Nazis contained within the fan bases of most English clubs. I dare say "Dublin FC" and its supporters would relish the prospect of having to deal with these kind of people every fortnight. - Yours, etc.,
London W6.