Monday night. A 'holidays' knees-up at Football Factory with free bar and scores of fans of different allegiances. It's not exactly the backdrop you'd imagine for the most beautiful moment on this island yet.

Jack Keane is the barman that's always there. 6am, 8am, whenever your team is hitting the broadcast mediawaves, streamed however he can get it. When the connection goes down, Jack puts on a Roy Keane mask, swears his head off, and gets the game back on before you can get a sentence out. He serves pints like a demon, especially when no coin is being exchanged. Happy to hold forth behind the bar, to listen to loutish singing from unlikely lads and lasses. We can barely hear each other over the din, but when Jack Keane stands halfway up the stairs, the room goes quiet. 

Jack tells us that his nine year old daughter asked him what he was writing, waving the paper in his hand. He told her that he was planning what he would say to the people who come to the bar, people of different stripes and creeds. She said 'and they actually listen to you?' There's laughter, and a chorus of 'Keano! Keano!' Jack says solidarity is more important than ever in these crazy times, that we are one football family, whether we support Bournemouth or Borussia Dortmund. He tells us that, even though he's been in New York a long time, every time he came out of the tunnel when driving downtown, he would look up in wonder at the twin towers. His wife - now ex-wife - would say to him 'why do you always look-up? They will always be there' and, Jack says, it's the only time she was ever wrong.

It makes me realise that, if you're willing to open your arms and your heart, you will always find a little piece of home, wherever you are.