“At Elland Road, I get the odd person from Northern Ireland who says hello or recognises me, but at Solitude, there’s maybe 2,000 people and I think I know at least half of them.”

Tim McGarry is a football fan, at home and in Leeds, but the nature of his fame means that his matchday experience can differ greatly. His double life as a fan was never more evident than on Boxing Day at Solitude, the home of Belfast’s Cliftonville FC. Ten days earlier, he had been at Elland Road to witness an anti-climactic draw with Coventry and had enjoyed his day in relative anonymity. Back in Belfast, barely thirty seconds passed without a conversation with other Cliftonville fans.

For anyone from his homeland, Tim McGarry is a household name who has graced TV screens, theatres, arenas and comedy clubs for almost three decades. From part-time radio work came The Hole in the Wall Gang, the comedy group/theatre company he is part of, who created the sitcom Give My Head Peace, which satirises the major players in the conflict known as The Troubles. Now, he hosts The Blame Game, a comedy panel show and The Long and the Short of It, an Irish history show.

A lesser-known fact is that he started out as a lawyer, most notably at the Fair Employment Commission in the early 1990s, taking cases to fight against sex discrimination, a time that shaped his path into political satire and television. Still, none of this predates his first love, football.

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