Celtic Cup announced

[jebus]

Just saw on Sky Sports News that the FA's of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and the Republic have announced a tournament to begin in the spring of 2011 that will be played in Dublin. Any thoughts?

[NeilMcD]

This was announced before, but just been confirmed now. I am not in favour of it for personal reasons as I would rather travel to other countries than Northern Ireland and Wales and Scotland.

[Billsthoughts]

A celebration of how the game shoudlnt be played....:rolleyes:
Think its a rubbish idea.
We are now guaranteed 3 regular games against mediocre opposition.

[boovidge]

with out england it's a bit of a damp squib really.

[NeilMcD]

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2008/0918/ireland.html

[Longfordian]

They're calling it the Four Associations Tournament. What a daft name, Celtic Cup or Four Nations was too sensitive?.

[Newryrep]

No interest, too much other baggage and from a football sence pointless. it should be strangled at birth

[jbyrne]

i actually see some merit in it. too many rubbish friendlys before to be replaced by some semi competitive action. think the first tournament will be held entirely in Dublin

[pete]

Not sure about sporting credentials but makes financial sense for the FAI & Dublin. Stadium likely to be full & will attract decent away support given the short traveling distance - Dublin economy will benefit.

[Not Brazil]

This was announced before, but just been confirmed now. I am not in favour of it for personal reasons as I would rather travel to other countries than Northern Ireland and Wales and Scotland.

You'll not have to travel too far in 2011 - all matches are being hosted in Dublin.

[superfrank]

It should be a good competition, IMO. Scotland, Wales and NI have been on the up in recent years. We should have rebuilt somewhat following Staunton.

Wales have a very strong U-21 side right now, in three years time they could have a very good side.

Four Associations is a daft name though.

[Bohemian1890]

A celebration of how the game shoudlnt be played....:rolleyes:
Think its a rubbish idea.
We are now guaranteed 3 regular games against mediocre opposition.

I agree with that.

[centre mid]

There is probably some merit in this as opposed to playing a meaningless friendly against South American opposition. Friendlies between us and Scotland usually have a bit of an edge to them.

[bennocelt]

They're calling it the Four Associations Tournament. What a daft name, Celtic Cup or Four Nations was too sensitive?.

maybe the British cup?

[Bohemian1890]

maybe the British cup?

Then us and NI would not be in it as we are not part of Great Britain.;)

[NeilMcD]

You'll not have to travel too far in 2011 - all matches are being hosted in Dublin.

Yeah did not know that when I posted.

[Longfordian]

maybe the British cup?

The Colonial Cup.

[NeilMcD]

The p*ssheads cup I think

[gspain]

with out england it's a bit of a damp squib really.

If they are good enough we can leave them in in a few years.

[Steve Bruce]

Then us and NI would not be in it as we are not part of Great Britain.;)

The UK and ROI cup;)

[boovidge]

Then us and NI would not be in it as we are not part of Great Britain.;)

The British Isles cup :)


It should be called the 4 nations cup.

[irishultra]

The Isles of the North Atlantic Cup.

[Lionel Ritchie]

North East Atlantic Archapelagean Tournament? Though for completeness we should maybe invite the Faroes ...and Iceland.

As for England, let 'em off.

I can well understand why elements within their setup wouldn't want anything to do with it and that's nothing to do with the quality of the opposition. If I were Englands manager I'd want it written in my contract that I could NOT be sacked within the six months after a fixture in this tournament. Every game in it would be the end of the friggin world for them.

[Stevo Da Gull]

If there's going to be a fuss about the name then just let a sponsor name it.
I can see it now - The Armitage Shanks Four Nations Trophy, followed by The Red Bull Cup.

Yeah Lionel Ritchie's name idea was better.

[Claret Murph]

I would go for call it what you like when you are at home cup :ball:

So my name would be the New Lansdowne Invitation Challenge Cup .......

[Sligo Hornet]

"Selling Corporate Seats Challenge Cup"

[Claret Murph]

"Selling Corporate Seats Challenge Cup"

Very good Hornet we can always trust you to come up with the odd quip .;)

Hows Watford doing these days ;);)

[Sligo Hornet]

Very good Hornet we can always trust you to come up with the odd quip .;)

Hows Watford doing these days ;)

Not great...think we are in for a very tough season ( i.e. survival chalklenge)..very depleted squad and no money......you have an easy game next week don't you?:(

[bennocelt]

The Isles of the North Atlantic Cup.


:):)
very good

[Drumcondra 69er]

Who cares about the name, naff as it sounds?

I like the idea, it's far better then a lot of the meaningless friendlies of recent years (Canada and China anyone?). They're be a bit of edge to it and heading to Scotland, Wales and even NI for a weekend every 4 years will be a bit of craic. A lot of the lads I go to the home games with don't make too many away games any more with family commitments etc, these games will be more reachable for that bracket of fans.

How will they spilt the games between March and May though? Any idea which will be the double header?

Maybe call it Four Teams One Cup? ;)

[youngirish]

A pointless exercise imo. It won't provide any real benefit to us as I'd imagine most of the teams involved will generally treat it in the same way as a friendly and not play their strongest teams. Many of the top players won't be interested in playing another 3 games after a long and difficult season for their respective clubs.

I can see a ROI squad similar to the one we used to send to those tournaments in the US without many of the bigger names bothering to show up.

The North will probably see it as a great opportunity to get one over on their larger neighbours as their fans seem to relish these fixtures if EG is anything to go by but I can't see too many Republic of Ireland or Scottish players or fans getting too excited about it. The top Welsh players (Bellamy, Bale, Ramsey and Gabbidon) probably won't be arsed either.

[NeilMcD]

Who cares about the name, naff as it sounds?

I like the idea, it's far better then a lot of the meaningless friendlies of recent years (Canada and China anyone?). They're be a bit of edge to it and heading to Scotland, Wales and even NI for a weekend every 4 years will be a bit of craic. A lot of the lads I go to the home games with don't make too many away games any more with family commitments etc, these games will be more reachable for that bracket of fans.

How will they spilt the games between March and May though? Any idea which will be the double header?

Maybe call it Four Teams One Cup? ;)


As far as I see it will run something like this.


Feb Wednesday

Rep Of Ireland V Wales

Scotland V Northern Ireland


May Saturday

Rep Ireland V Scotland

Wales V Northern Ireland



Wednesday

Rep of Ireland V Northern Ireland

Wales V Scotland.

[Drumcondra 69er]

A pointless exercise imo. It won't provide any real benefit to us as I'd imagine most of the teams involved will generally treat it in the same way as a friendly and not play their strongest teams. Many of the top players won't be interested in playing another 3 games after a long and difficult season for their respective clubs.
I can see a ROI squad similar to the one we used to send to those tournaments in the US without many of the bigger names bothering to show up.

The North will probably see it as a great opportunity to get one over on their larger neighbours as their fans seem to relish these fixtures if EG is anything to go by but I can't see too many Republic of Ireland or Scottish players or fans getting too excited about it. The top Welsh players (Bellamy, Bale, Ramsey and Gabbidon) probably won't be arsed either.

Totally disagree. And it's not just at the end of the season, part of it will be played in Feb / March when players will be looking to impress before the qualifiers around the end of March / early April.

It's only going to be every 2nd year I assume and it'll certainly create more interest then the traditional end of season friendlies.

[ArdeeBhoy]

Michael Mouse Cup would be more apt;as a one-off tournament passable I suppose.
As anything more, a Complete waste of space!

Not often I'd agree with the english F.A. but this smells like meaningless parochial bullsh*t....

[Newryrep]

Michael Mouse Cup would be more apt;as a one-off tournament passable I suppose.
As anything more, a Complete waste of space!

Not often I'd agree with the english F.A. but this smells like meaningless parochial bullsh*t....

totally agree, seems the scots arent exactly counting down the days either http://taboard.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=81536, as pointless an exercise as I can think of . Heres hoping for Wales in the Euro draw to put it out of its misery.

One of the Chairmen mentioned bragging rights ?? are they on the same planet.

There are two competitons we are concerned with, the World Cup and the European Championship. Anything else is an absolute joke. If I am being forced to pay E50 to watch a friendly I at least want exotic/talented. end of rant.

[Drumcondra 69er]

There are two competitons we are concerned with, the World Cup and the European Championship. Anything else is an absolute joke. If I am being forced to pay E50 to watch a friendly I at least want exotic/talented. end of rant.

Jesus lads, some of you need to get a grip. Here's a list of of our friendlies over the last 5 years, you can count the exotic ones on one hand. Said it before, I'd sooner play Scotland, Wales or NI then the likes of China, Canada, Bolivia etc and even the likes of Denmark or Sweden.

The games in bold are the games this competition will be replacing, it's obviously Mickey Mouse compared to a WC or EC, that goes without saying but it's not replacing much glamour now is it?

Scotland 12-Feb-03 Glasgow FR
Norway 30-Apr-03 Lansdowne Road FR
Australia 19-Aug-03 Lansdowne Road FR
Turkey 09-Sep-03 Lansdowne Road FR
Canada 18-Nov-03 Lansdowne Road FR
Brazil 18-Feb-04 Lansdowne Road FR
Czech Republic 31-Mar-04 Lansdowne Road FR
Poland 28-Apr-04 Bydgoszcz FR
Romania 27-May-04 Lansdowne Road FR
Holland 05-Jun-04 Amsterdam FR
Bulgaria 18-Aug-04 Lansdowne Road FR
Croatia 16-Nov-04 Lansdowne Road FR
Portugal 09-Feb-05 Lansdowne Road FR
China 29-Mar-05 Lansdowne Road FR
Italy 17-Aug-05 Lansdowne Road FR
Sweden 01-Mar-06 Lansdowne Road FR
Chile 24-May-06 Lansdowne Road FR
Holland 16-Aug-06 Lansdowne Road FR
Ecuador 23-May-07 New Jersey FR
Bolivia 26-May-07 Boston FR
Denmark 22-Aug-07 Aarhus FR
Brazil 06-Feb-08 Croke Park FR
Serbia 24-May-08 Croke Park FR
Colombia 29-May-08 Craven Cottage FR
Norway 20-Aug-08 Oslo FR

[tetsujin1979]

Good post D69er, out of all those friendlies, I'd only take the Colombia, Sweden and Czech Republic over the proposed competition

[gustavo]

on the OWC boards the Nordies are getting quite excited about this anyway

I'd be a bit more in the meh camp

[Drumcondra 69er]

Good post D69er, out of all those friendlies, I'd only take the Colombia, Sweden and Czech Republic over the proposed competition

Exactly. You could argue that the 2 Brazil games and the Portugal ones could have been affected being in February but I've no doubt money spinners like that would be retained for other friendly dates.

It's the dross (that you still have to take your full Block Book allocation for)this will be replacing.

[SalvadorSanchez]

I like the idea of a a load of extra crap games against mediocre opposition! if we want to give it a bit of athmosphere (i.e. needle) I suggest the following;
Always playing it in Wembley
Calling it the "Mr. Cholmondley Warner Royal British Empire Cup"
Using a mug with Princess Di on it and the motto "queen of our hearts" as a trophy.
rather than presenting the trophy, it should be viciously hurled at the winning team by Prince Philip...while he wears a dust mask to protect him from the "frontier sorts"
that'd be the only thing to stimulate the competition...:D
I really think it won't last much more than 3 or 4 years before foot and mouth or a riot or a lost cat or sheer boredom kills it off.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6YTT5VDaO8

[Cymro]

Calling it the "Mr. Cholmondley Warner Royal British Empire Cup"


:D

Reminded me of the Harry Enfield sketch where Arsenal of 1901 play the Liverpool team of the 90s.

That never fails to make me laugh heartily.

As for the tournament, should be a decent laugh, hopefully by then our young players like Hennessey, Bale, Ramsey, Gunter et al will have improved even more and playersd like Bellamy and Koumas will still be at their peaks.

[Newryrep]

Jesus lads, some of you need to get a grip. Here's a list of of our friendlies over the last 5 years, you can count the exotic ones on one hand. Said it before, I'd sooner play Scotland, Wales or NI then the likes of China, Canada, Bolivia etc and even the likes of Denmark or Sweden.

The games in bold are the games this competition will be replacing, it's obviously Mickey Mouse compared to a WC or EC, that goes without saying but it's not replacing much glamour now is it?

D69 Why not play teams who's style that we arent used to playing against instead of a typical english prem league encounter - and I include Norway/Swedan in that etc.

Bulgaria and Italy and now Cyprus by all accounts all good technically, so how do we practise against these type of teams if not if frinedlies , one of the good things v Montenegro is that we didnt look to hoof it all the time.

Anyway we will agree to disagree

[geysir]

It took 3 friendlies, but we finally purged ourselves from the hoof ball by the time we got to Oslo. Though there were times I was worried in the Colombia game that this was going to prove an impossible task.

BT (before Trap) we played friendlies and féck know what the actual plan was.
Trap has actually achieved something quite remarkable through the training camp and a few friendlies.
I think we are set up now for the rest of the qualifiers.

I can't think that far ahead to 2011 about a mini tournament stuck in between the real things, even to consider if it might or might not be interesting.

[Cymro]

ugh, 3 teams that are not only crap but defensive crap at that so we won't be able to put them to the sword.

Frankly if we had any other manager I could see our entire team not giving a damn about this but Trap seems to take everything seriously so he could involve the big guns. Though if he wants a venue to try out the B side no better place than in this.

Ciaran still being nice and positive about this then.....:rolleyes:

Why don't you at least wait until you've seen one of the games before dismissing it out of hand? You might actually like it. Our games versus NI in the World Cup '06 qualifiers were the most entertaining ones in that campaign.

[Orangecelt]

A good name, free of political reverberations and with full approval of the politically correct BBC: The NOGBI cup. Natives Of The Geographic British Isles

[seanfhear]

I think this is being set up just to get our estranged northern brothers used to coming down to Dublin for when the inevitable united Ireland Team is established.We will give them some help getting their tongues around the more difficult gaelic words of the soldiers song(Amhrann na Bhiann).There is no need for them to be embarassed if they do not understand the words as there are a few of us that do not either.
This is a wind up for those that are easily wound up(I am a bit bored at the moment)

[boovidge]

A good name, free of political reverberations and with full approval of the politically correct BBC: The NOGBI cup. Natives Of The Geographic British Isles


Natives? You racist!

[Billsthoughts]

I like the idea of a a load of extra crap games against mediocre opposition! if we want to give it a bit of athmosphere (i.e. needle) I suggest the following;
Always playing it in Wembley
Calling it the "Mr. Cholmondley Warner Royal British Empire Cup"
Using a mug with Princess Di on it and the motto "queen of our hearts" as a trophy.
rather than presenting the trophy, it should be viciously hurled at the winning team by Prince Philip...while he wears a dust mask to protect him from the "frontier sorts"
that'd be the only thing to stimulate the competition...:D
I really think it won't last much more than 3 or 4 years before foot and mouth or a riot or a lost cat or sheer boredom kills it off.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6YTT5VDaO8

brilliant.:D

[ArdeeBhoy]

Why don't you at least wait until you've seen one of the games before dismissing it out of hand? You might actually like it. Our games versus NI in the World Cup '06 qualifiers were the most entertaining ones in that campaign.


Well our games v.Cymru were sh*t! The Welsh fans were more promising, until the game started in Dublin & they stopped! They were almost as quiet as us!

You'll get the odd exciting 'derby', but personally prefer the FAI played away friendlies in those months instead of lining up countless cr*p at Lansdowne/Croker because of their poxy BB scheme which is just there to milk the fans.....

[geysir]

Well our games v.Cymru were sh*t! The Welsh fans were more promising, until the game started in Dublin & they stopped! They were almost as quiet as us!

You'll get the odd exciting 'derby', but personally prefer the FAI played away friendlies in those months instead of lining up countless cr*p at Lansdowne/Croker because of their poxy BB scheme which is just there to milk the fans.....
Yes as a 3rd seed in the World Cup draw we are really being brought down to
banal levels by playing against another 3rd seed, a second seed and a fourth seed team:rolleyes: