In a league of his own
Ardal O'Hanlon's football series is leagues ahead of the week's other sporting offerings, while RTÉ 1 dramatises a nuclear disaster in Sellafield
Say what you want about the convicted fraudster and now legal adviser Giovanni di Stefano (who featured in Saibhir Ach Salach's somewhat pointless re-exhumation of the entrails of John Gilligan's vicious little world on TG4 at 10.30pm on Thursday), but he has at least one thing going for him in his endeavours to muscle into the small universe that is Shelbourne Football Club. He may have connections to some of the more unsavoury thugs of the past 30 years but, in the unlikely event that the Shelbourne board decided to explore his offer of investment, they will be relieved that he has no contaminating connections with the Devil's personal representatives on earth – which, from the prospective of Tolka Park, is Shamrock Rovers.
Most cities in Europe have a similar invisible tribal dividing line represented by local football clubs. In a new series, Leagues Apart (RTÉ 2, Thursday, 10.30pm), comic Ardal O'Hanlon set out to explore the social and historical rivalries between teams in various European cities. O'Hanlon's first trip was to Athens to watch the build-up to a local derby between Olympiakos and Panathanaikos. Leagues Apart could have been voyeuristically patronising, but in fact it was both enjoyable and informative about the origins of many teams which date back to the socially devastating time in the early 1920s when Greece and Turkey basically swapped a million refugees each, with people forced to live in tents and start their lives from scratch. Often the only thing that gave them an identity was their support of certain teams.
The Panathanaikos emblem of a shamrock, often confused as an Irish connection with the club, was actually a random logo chosen by the middle-class gent who founded the club a century ago. In contrast Olympiakos has its roots in the left-wing working-class dock area, making every clash between the two teams a clash between classes, cultures and political ideologies. Based on this first programme, Leagues Apart, has the right balance between soccer pilgrimage, history lesson and travelogue.
Balance is not a word that sprang to mind when watching Ryder Cup 2006 (TV3, Thursday, 11.50pm). This preview of the middle classes of two continents preparing for war felt like a corporate video made in praise of the K Club and felt out of place on television. Made by the rather inappropriately named Napper Tandy Productions (or perhaps Wolfe Tone, like Alice Cooper, was a secret golfer) it featured a host of fawning pros praising the "Doctor" who turned out to be Michael Smurfit. Bizarrely, for such a rich man, he appeared to have a hole in the knee of his trousers. Maybe I was misreading the situation but why else would a grown man give an interview with a K Club-logoed hat balanced on his knee?
There was a time when RTÉ shied away from controversial drama. So it was good to see them take on the ever-present threat from Sellafield in the provocative and well-made Fallout (RTÉ1, Sunday&Monday,9.30pm). Ireland has grown so self-satisfied but it was chastening to see an enactment of how easily the edifice could collapse. Directed by David Caffrey for Frontier Films, it was incredibly fast-paced, effecting deliberate jerkiness from news bulletin to news bulletin. It felt unreal in the sense that such disasters are too terrible to imagine – until they actually happen and the unbelievable becomes reality. It didn't make the most emotionally engaging television but it was certainly chillingly compulsive.