The first match you watch in a stadium can have a major impact not only on your love of the sport, but also who your team will eventually be.
While some people can scarcely remember the first time they watched their favourite player run onto the grass in person, for other, those are defining moments in their lives.
Sports journalists John Duggan, Johnny Ward and Dan McDonnell as well as manager Shane Keegan are four such people for whom that first live match was quite literally a game changer.
Speaking on OTB Football Saturday, the four of them, inspired by Keegan's story of his son's first Spurs' game, recalled their first live matches.
"I do feel obliged to say that this was [my son] Conor's first ever Spurs match," Keegan said. "He was of course at nine months old there to watch us win the League of Ireland First Division!"
For Ward, the draw of a First Division League of Ireland encounter would be all the bait he needed to get hooked on football.
"My first game in professional football would have bee, Galway United against Cobh Ramblers," Ward said. "There was about 350 people at the game!
"It was a night in terms of weather quite similar to Anfield today. Galway United won 1-0. Brian Irwin got the goal. I think it was his only goal ever for Galway United.
"The goalkeeper for Galway United was since incarcerated, actually, which is quite an interesting story. I kept the match programme for years and years and years, and I've never looked back.
"I absolutely loved it. I don't know if it is like that for [anyone else], but floodlit football is something completely different. I was like, 'this is really cool!'
"It was a bad first division game, but for some reason I just fell in love with it."
What is your earliest memory of attending a live football game?
The Football Saturday crew shared some of their stories on the show this afternoon. ⚽️ 🏟@JohnDugganSport
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Irwin seemed to be a somewhat surprising link for soccer fans in Ireland, as McDonnell also remembered the striker.
"I think Brian Irwin scored in the first Dundalk game I went to," McDonnell said. "He scored twice! That would have been one of my first games.
"I didn't really go to any of the Ireland games until I was a bit older. I remember the TV being wheeled into the classroom to watch the Wednesday afternoon qualifiers, because they would have been during school time in those days.
"That was probably because there were no floodlights in Lansdowne back then. I wouldn't have travelled up for games.
"They can be sort of life-defining experiences for some people, that first game. Whether it goes good or bad."
A die-hard Tottenham Hotspur supporter, Duggan was used to disappointment early, as his first game was a loss for his side. Regardless, it was enough to hook him in for the rest of his life.
"My first Spurs game was in 1988 against Portsmouth as a nine-year-old," Duggan said. "Barry Horne scored the winner for Portsmouth, Spurs lost 1-0.
"Not many Spurs players of great repute were playing at that stage. I didn't see [Paul] Gascoigne until two years later when he joined that summer."
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