Irish involvement in the Football League playoffs

[CraftyToePoke]

Trap was a gas man wasn't he ? Nolan and Cunningham got the early nod but Coleman and McCarthy less so.

[tetsujin1979]

McCarthy was 19 when he made his debut, but he'd already been playing club football for about three years at that stage, so it seemed like he was older

[DeLorean]

League One Final 20 May
Millwall: Shaun Williams (should start), Aiden O'Brien (should start), Paul Rooney (unlikely)
Bradford: Colin Doyle (should start), Josh Cullen (should start), Billy Clarke (likely sub), Kevin Toner (likely sub)

Bradford v Millwall has just kicked off on Sky Sports 1.

Doyle, Cullen and Clarke all start for Bradford. Toner not in squad.

Williams and O'Brien start for Millwall. Rooney not in squad.

[DeLorean]

Clarke just missed a great chance to give Bradford the lead when clean through on goal. He seemed to do everything right but Archer made a brilliant save in the Millwall goal.

[DeLorean]

Millwall have, undeservedly, taken the lead late on through Steve Morison. Clarke and O'Brien both substituted earlier on.

[tetsujin1979]

Millwall promoted. Wonder if Forde will be given another run in the Championship?

[DannyInvincible]

I don't share the total aversion for Balls.ie that I know some others here do and I find it quite handy for keeping up-to-speed with Irish sporting news I might otherwise miss, but I do have to say it really grates with me for some reason when the site goes into stuffy pontification mode, which it does quite frequently now and like how it does here in relation to hundreds of Millwall fans taking to the Wembley pitch yesterday after their team won the League One play-off final: https://www.balls.ie/football/steve-...wembley-365473



They describe the fans who took the pitch as "idiots"/"bloody idiotic"/"act[ing] the tw*t[s]" and described Millwall player Steve Morison as a "hero" for having scolded his fans.

Since when was a mass of jubilant supporters, who've followed their team through the highs and lows, running on to the pitch to celebrate with their team and players, with whom they've been on a season-long journey, such a moral outrage?

Just another thought; have Millwall fans received a bad rap because they already have a "reputation" or would Bradford's fans have been similarly scolded had Bradford won the game and their fans done the same thing?

Anyhow, fair play to Aiden O'Brien on sticking up for his supporters: https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2017...itch-invaders/

But O'Brien, who progressed through the London club's academy, refused to join in the condemnation.

"No, they have the right to do that you know," he said. "They've been supporting us all through the season. They should celebrate as much as we celebrate. It's a team thing and they're part of the team. They can run on the pitch in my eyes for all they want, they deserve to."

[tetsujin1979]

There's reports of the fans abusing the Bradford players, that's where the outrage is coming from

[DannyInvincible]

There's reports of the fans abusing the Bradford players, that's where the outrage is coming from

That's not the impression I got from the Balls.ie piece. The piece doesn't actually mention anything about abuse.

There's a video of Bradford's manager Stuart McCall being interviewed in the Wembley events office post-match and, in that, he takes issue with himself and his players having been on the receiving end of taunting and "verbals" from some Millwall fans. That's a fair enough complaint, although Balls.ie mention nothing of it, whilst McCall does add that he's "not necessarily blaming the people that did it". Rather, he says that stewards should have formed a barrier across the half-way line, presumably to have kept the Millwall fans in their own half, rather than saying the fans should have stayed off the pitch altogether.

Steve Morison simply took issue with the fact that fans of his club were trying, in a good-natured manner, to embrace/congratulate him and his manager on the pitch after the game. Balls.ie actually referred to a fan who tried to hug them as "act[ing] the tw*t". There was no abuse exchanged during that encounter; the supporter looked happy/cheerful, understandably (considering his club had just won the play-off final), and seemed a bit perplexed by the negative reaction of the Millwall captain after he was shunned.

The Sky commentators also said the Millwall fans "in their joy [had] over-stepped the mark a little" and were "going to spoil it for everybody" simply because there were "too many supporters on the pitch". They mentioned nothing about abuse. They wouldn't even have been aware of any abuse exchanged at that time anyway.

[tetsujin1979]

mentioned in an article on the Express' site here: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/807...vasion-Wembley
Can't find where I originally read it, might have been todays Independent, but it's not on their site

[DannyInvincible]

mentioned in an article on the Express' site here: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/807...vasion-Wembley
Can't find where I originally read it, might have been todays Independent, but it's not on their site

I'm not denying there was abuse and taunting towards Bradford staff and players from some of the fans who took to the pitch. I'm aware of it, Stuart McCall spoke of it and I mentioned that above.

My point is that the abuse isn't what Balls.ie, the Sky commentators and Millwall captain Steve Morison had been taking issue with. None of them mentioned anything about abuse when they were expressing their condemnation of the Millwall supporters. Rather, they were getting outraged over supporters simply having been on the pitch, which I think just goes to demonstrate the ever-growing disconnect between supporters and the clubs they support at modern elite-level. The pitch-invading fans were seen to have transgressed or breached a now-ingrained partition that holds the experience of supporters to be very much secondary and as something to be controlled and sanitised.

Taking to the pitch after a cup-final or whatever used to be a common thing. It happens in sports all around the world. It is a collective and generally harmless expression of jubilation and celebration between triumphant supporters and their victorious heroes. Abuse and threats of violence aren't necessary components of a celebratory pitch invasions, so, in my view, the mere sight of fans on the pitch after yesterday's match was, in and of itself, hardly something for observers to be getting into a state of moral outrage about.

[OwlsFan]

I am afraid that is one of my pet hates - running on the pitch, especially now that I am too old to run anymore. It denies the team a lap of honour and the players just get swamped and can't celebrate with each other and the losers are surrounded by the other side's supporters with potential for trouble. I agree that it's just not the Millwall supporters who do this. It's now a part of the culture like taking off a jersey when a player scores, which I don't get either, but then my stomach makes me look like an unfit darts player so no jersey removal for me.

[tetsujin1979]

Might have been missed out - entering the pitch is a criminal offence in the UK now. I think we've become accustomed to the sight of fans on the pitch at All Ireland finals, even though the GAA have been trying to stop that, and Munster fans would often invade the pitch after a big win, but again I can't remember the last time I was in Thomond Park when that happened.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

God forbid a player was attacked by a fan carrying a knife.

It's a recipe for disaster.

Thank God it doesn't happen more often.

It's only a few years since Neil Lennon was attacked by a fan on the touchline.

What's to happen if you have a dozen, or hundreds, of maniacs on the pitch outflanking and outnumbering security with the players easy targets.

[NeverFeltBetter]

The GAA clamped down on pitch invasions in Croke Park, not so much anywhere else I think. For them I think it was numerous incidents involving losing fans accosting match officials as much as anything else.

While I appreciate the desire to be part of a victorious moment, there's enough potential for bad things to happen that I don't mind attempts to stop it altogether.

[DannyInvincible]

I don't always find myself agreeing with the content in Spiked, but I concur with the author of this piece: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite...8#.WSLhkuvyvDc

[I]t was obvious to anyone at the [2016 Scottish Cup final between Hibernian and Rangers], and those of us who watched at home, that the vast majority of this unrestrained, uncontrolled mass of Hibs fans were on the pitch to celebrate a long-awaited victory, not to cause trouble. Describing their actions as ‘disgraceful’ is nothing but moralistic posturing, revealing a low view of football fans.

This snobbery is also reflected in Scottish legislation. Under the Football Offences Act (1991) it’s illegal to enter the ‘playing area’. Like the media, the law makes no distinction between the violent minority and the jubilant majority. Football fans – all of them – are an undifferentiated, unpredictable mob, and those who invade the pitch to fight are just as guilty as those who invade the pitch to celebrate.

This is a great shame. A celebratory, exuberant pitch invasion is a wonderful thing to see. Football stadiums are among the last places where such uninhibited outbursts of emotion and excitement are still possible. Enforcing such heavy-handed restrictions will only kill the exciting, unpredictable nature of the sport. As a Hibs fan myself, I’ll remember that day for Hibs’ win and the jubilant fans.

We shouldn't get hysterical by sensationalising matters or by unnecessarily and unfairly conflating pitch invasions with hooliganism. Nobody was physically attacked, hurt or injured due to the Millwall pitch invasion. I'd be very surprised if supporters weren't given a brisk pat-down by security (for potential weapons, bottles or other banned items) when entering Wembley anyway. Security checks are fairly standard. They even happen at LOI games where there's little potential for trouble breaking out, by and large.

And if there are hundreds of attendees looking for trouble already together in a stadium, whether they're on the pitch or not will hardly make a difference. The trouble at Lansdowne Road when England played us in 1995 was in the stands, for example; not on the pitch. Criminalising entire masses of jubilant football supporters doesn't weed out those genuinely intent on violence and aggression.

Another piece here that makes a number of particularly pertinent and insightful points: http://thetwounfortunates.com/in-def...tch-invasions/

(I'm going to quote them rather than ask people to trawl through the entire piece for them. Hope that's OK.)

It’s just, as with racism and homophobia, the media and forces of law and order appear to think that such behaviour is the exclusive province of football fan whereas it seems to me that all these things are a part, a regrettable part, of our society and the fact that they exist in the context of football is only because a football crowd is made up of people who reflect that society with all its positive attributes (such as fundraising for charity) but also all its faults.

...

This conflation of violence and antisocial behaviour with its context only occurs in football, it seems to me, yet violence and boorishness happen at other events without everyone who attends them being part of the problem. There was a good example of how football supporters are treated differently to almost any other group recently when the MP for Harlow, Robert Halfon, posted a photograph on Twitter of a great deal of litter in the Piazza at Covent Garden the night after the League Cup final between Sunderland and Manchester City with the words ‘Went to London for dinner. Wish I hadn’t. Scumbag football hooligans turn Covent Garden into a disgusting Cesspit (sic).’ In reply, it was pointed out that similar messes had been left by crowds leaving the Royal Opera House, and on the occasion of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and at New Year. None of these people have been described as ‘hooligans.’ Let’s not even mention the Bullingdon Club.

I’m really not trying to defend violent behaviour but asking for a distinction to be made between different kinds of incursions onto football pitches. Even the language that’s used takes sides. Fans ‘spilling onto’ or ‘running onto’ the pitch don’t sound as threatening as those who are ‘invading.’ There are laws that deal with criminal behaviour such as violence. Whether that behaviour is conducted in a football stadium, a nightclub or on social networking shouldn’t make an iota of difference.

There’s an old saying, ‘pass a law, create a crime.’ Because going onto a football pitch is illegal for fans, it can, as we’ve seen, bring you a criminal record even if your intention is nothing more heinous than to hug the striker who just took you into the Premier League. I would suggest that allowing supporters access to their football field and their players would be good for the spirit of football. By controlling the manner in which supporters are allowed to celebrate, the authorities are quite literally acting as killjoys. Preventing supporters being on the pitch on special occasions is one more way that football fans are being separated from their clubs, literally in this case. Our role is to pay up, sit down and passively accept the increasingly passionless commodity that’s being offered to us.

[DeLorean]

League Two Final 28 May

Exeter: Pierce Sweeney (should start), Liam McAlinden (likely sub), Ryan Swan (unlikely)

This is going on at the moment, 1-1 at half time. Sweeney & McAlinden both on the bench for Exeter, Swan not in the squad.

[pineapple stu]

Don't think Swan has made the squad since he joined. Not sure if he'll be kept on after the match - probably more unlikely if they go up.

[DeLorean]

Exeter lost 2-1 in the end.

[DeLorean]

Championship Final 29 May
Reading: Liam Kelly (should start), Paul McShane (50/50), Stephen Quinn (unlikely), Josh Barrett (unlikely)
Huddersfield: Sean Scannell (likely sub)

Liam Kelly is our interest in the Championship playoff final. He starts on the bench, 0-0 after 24 minutes.