Irish fans and the Paris experience

[Mad Moose]

I felt this topic deserved a thread of its own for what was a pretty incredible few days on and off the field. The show of emotion by Shay Given particularly on the field at the end was mirrored off the field by the travelling thousands of Irish fans and as much as Shay, the rest of the players and management, deserves acclaim so to do the Irish travelling support in their contribution to what will be one of the most memorable nights in Irish football, and not all for the right reasons, that reason been Thierry Henry's contribution to our World Cup 'sortie'. Indeed the echo of protest may well linger for some time to come leading to inevitable head scratching, and ultimate silencing, at the top table of footballs world governing body.

For the most part the week was entirely positive. I can't say I was overly confident travelling but to be honest in this game you presume nothing and see how it goes. How it went was beyond my wildest expectations. Killer Kilbane was 10 years younger in that game considering his contribution to the first game. I like Kilbane and his contribution to Irish football but he was seriously found out in the 1st leg. Maybe with a different view from the stands I couldn't fault him on effort in Paris. I thought France shaded the first half in the 1st Leg and asserted influence a hell of a lot more in the second half. No such summary of events in Paris. We controlled the game and dominated them. Seeing McShane come on forced my hands to my face, a look to the skies and a half rotation with my back to the play. Again the lad was in an entirely different frame of mind and despite a clumsy moment with Anelka and getting caught out with a French forward turning him to get a cross in I thought he did well.

Despite the events surrounding the winning 'goal', of which I was hopelessly unaware of at the time, Irish players and fans once again showed the greatest dignity despite being cheated of the chance, to progress to the World Cup Finals. Lets be honest, after the last couple of years of the very darkest clouds of recession hovering over the country, we needed, as much as any other nation, some hope, the notion of a ray of sunshine to warm a feebling country. It could be said cheating partly led to our recession and cheating led to our world cup exit at that.

Irish players and fans united at the end. I didn't expect any less and no player in my opinion better exemplified the pain and heartache of defeat alongside ultimate respect for the travelling support than Shay himself. It was a very very sombre and proud few moments but alas another dream died.

Its always great to be able to go away following your international team and be afforded the warmth and generosity of the hosting nation and people and its something few countries can actually claim to be able to do. It felt different this time and its a few years since it felt this good, it felt very much that we deserved to be in that position. In all honesty we deserved our place in South Africa already but FIFA had other plans in how the World Cup competition should be played out. We were going there still in a tie against arguably on paper one of the better sides in the world. And we beat them. In 90 minutes, on their patch we beat them. We beat them on the field and off the field in terms of support. In fact French support is very very poor and they almost needed cajoling into supporting their side.

Apart from saying the above I have to say thanks to a few people here who were very helpful in particularly sorting match tickets. Acquiring them wasn't a problem in the end and the touts were outdone in their efforts. Thanks 'philkildare' for sorting my ticket and meeting me there. It was nice to enjoy a couple of pints together. As much a thanks must go to the lads who sent me messages offering tickets. Casso and Philkildare particularly as I missed my flight on Monday eveining and so had to make alternative arrangements. It played out a little differently than I expected and arriving in Paris in a smoking pick up truck driven by a smiling, potentially psychopathic, Japanese man who spoke no English whatsoever and nodded continuously on my asking him 'was he sure he understood I needed to go to Paris?'. It didn't help one bit that this clapped out and unidentifiable vehicle make, let alone model, had a still working tape cassette player which replaced the broken radio which only played one song over and over again and so if I ever ever hear 'Boy George's 'Do you really want to hurt me' ever again I am admitting myself to care. I eventually took a huge gamble, which the decision making process thankfully wiled away an hour of the journey, and switched the cassette off and only glanced at him for a few moments smiling apolegetically and in fear. I've never left a vehicle so quckly in my life and despite the early hour of about 6.50am I had a couple of pints. A few mates came over from Nottingham too and its always good to have a pint with Ed and Anthony whether in Greaneyfriars, Nottingham or under the Eiffel Tower at 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon. I met up with a few of the YBIG lads and while I'm not a man who frequents YBIG very much it was still good to meet them. I casually let drop I was more to be found on foot.ie than YBIG it got a certain chorus of boos in particular. For those that do pop over here they know who they are.

A few mentions have been made of the type of behaviour that is almost entirely influenced by football across the water and it wouldn't be too surprising that many of those subscribing to such behaviour would indeed quote 'The Pool' or' United' as 'their clubs' when asked who they follow. Oh 'and Ireland too' might shortly follow. Its not overly surprising to most of us here that the number of fellas I met over the few days who were along to support their home country might describe themselves, as one was described to me, as 'a mad Liverpool fan'. Anyhow the irony us undoubtedly lost, clouded and confused by the tide of alcohol that accompanys their support. In any case what I wanted to say before turning toward a rant was these small numbers who are hell bent on giving our support a bad name need reeling in, pulling to one side and put in line. Its a small minority but enough to do our good name no favours at all.



Anyhow thats turned into a rant, a familar rant heard here and I guess the outcome of the game will resonate for some time to come. We'll talk about it for years to come and the story may even grow legs and turn into something glorious, magnificent and legendary. Like stories of Cuchulain or na Fianna of Ireland old.

I've no doubt there are photo's from the trip. It might be a nice place to put them.

[Mr.Devine]

Harpsbear, absolutely brilliantly put, I couldn’t have summed up my own experience in Paris and feelings afterwards any better or more eloquently than you have done. As a fellow Donegal man I have to say looking at Shay after the final whistle brought a tear to my eye, the emotion etched on his face was unbelievable. I was never as proud and as gutted at the same time in my life as I was leaving the Stade de France two nights ago.

Well done to all the supporters, 120 minutes of constant, on your feet, encouragement and signing was fantastic. The French support was absolutely pathetic, I cannot emphasis that enough to those of you who were watching it on tv, because it may have came across like the French were getting behind their team but I’ve never seen a poorer home support in all my days travelling to matches. 20,000 free French tricolours that were left under their seats, blue and white ponchos handed out for free to spell "Les Bleus" in the stand and the most annoying public announcer that you can imagine begging his fellow country men to out shout "les verts" and playing loud music over the Irish fans signing, doesn’t hide their poor level of support for their team!!

To every man women and child in green in the stadium Wednesday night, I say well done! Well done to Trapp, the whole backroom team and most importantly the players, on putting on the best performance I have witnessed from an Irish team in many years!

[edinho]

well put Brend, sums up the experience beautifully. Now is the winter of our discontent. Never been so proud to belong to a warm, generous, friendly and fiercely proud nation. we should be proud and can hold our heads high.

[Beavis]

This campaign personally reignited my empathy with my fellow fan. We sang our hearts out from Mainz to Bari to Paris. Croke Park even came alive at times (thanks in no small part to the organisation of the Singing Section).

It is great to see the fan / team rapport is very strong again after the low ebb of the last campaign. The team's reaction towards the fans at the end of Saturday's game was heartwarming.
Keane's Late Late interview, the booing of the team, players wanting to quit and the Stephen Ireland departure are the type of incident which are hopefully firmly behind us now.

[harpskid]

I've no doubt there are photo's from the trip. It might be a nice place to put them.

http://www.facebook.com/chris.mcnult...&id=1056888159

Have my own pics of the trip up here. Have some videos which are YouTube-bound too in the very near future.

[Uncle_Joe]

Best away athmosphere Ive ever experienced. Irish fans totally out singing the French for the entire game. The way the lads played kept left the fans with no choice but to sing our hearts out.

We may have had better results but I dont think we have ever outplayed a team away from home like we did in Paris. Truly awe inspiring performance.

[finbarrk]

We could do with a few more songs though. Our song list is limited enough in fairness.

[Desyf]

Yep, people are still getting the words wrong to "Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole..."

[ccfcgirl]

It was a great trip, felt so proud to be Irish over there, athmosphere in the ground was electric

[ArdeeBhoy]

Nice post by HB there.

A good antidote to the general incompetence, Inertia & whole-hearted C******** of FIFA and the antics of Henry....
For me though, that pain will be there a long time.

[Mad Moose]

Time to forget the 'cheating' and time to celebrate the very usual impact of Irish fans whereever we go.

A few pictures of the day then.

[Mad Moose]

And a few more

[Mad Moose]

And a few more. May title these as the others were non specific.

Somebody asked if there were many Irish fans around the ground. This picture shows a few Irish flags if you look closely.



And a very large pocket of green right here.



Duffer cracks a joke

[Mad Moose]

Les Miserables



Shay cuts a very very forlorn figure



Andrews sheds those tears. He was magnificent in both play off games and really surprised me particularly the first leg.

[Beavis]

Very good pictures there Harpsbear, would you have a link for any more ?

[Mad Moose]

Very good pictures there Harpsbear, would you have a link for any more ?

To be honest most of what I took was rubbish as I had had a few scoops and I am still getting used to my camera.

You can have a look here though but most are fuzzy and now worth viewing.

http://www.facebook.com/#/album.php?...7&id=755813254

[Beavis]

To be honest most of what I took was rubbish as I had had a few scoops and I am still getting used to my camera.

You can have a look here though but most are fuzzy and now worth viewing.

http://www.facebook.com/#/album.php?...7&id=755813254

Thanks. I'm having a bit of trouble letting go, so any little bit is appreciated

[tetsujin1979]

Took some snaps in the build up to the game, but nothing after kick off
Enjoy: http://picasaweb.google.com/tetsujin1979/FranceIreland

[francesco_1]

[Paulie]

In my 20 years of going to Ireland games, I have never felt so cheated. Just an observation, but after leaving the game I was reflecting on what had occurred, not just the handball but the match as a whole, and I realised that the French people deserve this French team. What I mean by this is that the French team are not popular within France as they are (accurately) perceived as arrogant and mentally weak with a propensity to start blaming each other as soon as things start to go badly. Considering the importance of the game, the French crowd were extremely poor and completely failed to get behind their team at any stage of the game. Instead they chose to sit there waiting to be entertained. It just made me realise that the French team is merely a reflection of the French fans and that they deserve each other. Ireland might not be going to the World Cup but we still have a team to be proud of. In the main we have an average bunch of players, in terms of ability, with a 3 or 4 very good players thrown in. The sum of our parts is much better than our ability as individuals. We have passion, unity and mental strength and I'd like to think that our players are a reflection of the Irish fans and that next time we won't be shafted by the opposition, the referee or FIFA.