Where have you watched an Ireland game?

[wallis]

Come on then , lets lighten the mood here away from all the serious stuff.

Wheres the best/worst places or most extremes youve gone to in order to watch an Ireland game ??

I'll give you my mine :

For Ireland v Russia I was in Canada with my long suffering girlfriend. We had our itenary all worked out and were in Jasper when I discovered that the bar in town I was told that had the game on - didnt. The bar staff reckoned the only chance to see the game was to go to Vancouver.

I convinced my girlfriend that we could get ourselves a few days in Vancouver squeezed in to the holiday and in exchange for putting up with the journey I would go horse riding with her (which I really wasnt looking forward to).

I drove for 10 hours straight (one break for food and bathroom - 600 miles) and after checking in to a hotel , got up at 5am and took her to the Croatian Cultural Centre in Vancouver which was the only place anyone knew was showing it.

They had a large shed out the back of the bar and a weak satellite signal and 20 of us squeezed in to watch the 1-1 draw.


I did meet two guys in their 50s in Japan who had sold their cars to get the money for the trip but had told their wives they had them nicked from their local in Monaghan.

[finlma]

Thats a good story.

Nothing as exciting as that but I watched the Ireland Italy World Cup 94 game when I was at the Gaeltacht in Connamara. We had to watch it with the sound down in case we heard any English.

I saw the Ireland Holland game in 2001 in Nevada Smiths bar in New York. I was living there at the time.

[Dotsy]

I was living in Riga at the time of the Ireland-Holland playoff at Anfield for Euro 96. Nowhere was showing the match on TV so I had to listen to the radio coverage. The only place I could get a reception was up on the roof of our apartment building (flat roof by the way). It was minus 15 degrees centigrade with me dressed in about 10 layers constantly walking around the roof as the reception kept shifting depending on where I stood. The girlfriend brought some of our Latvian neighbours up to have a laugh at me.:(

[wallis]

"Nothing as exciting as that but I watched the Ireland Italy World Cup 94 game when I was at the Gaeltacht in Connamara. We had to watch it with the sound down in case we heard any English." :D

[Kevin77]

Mmm...watched plenty of matches at 2, 3, 4am in Australia.

Had two big arguments with the ex girlfriend over watching Ireland matches. She was English and we watced a double header at the Irish club in Perth (Scotland v England followed by Ireland v either Belgium or Turkey...cant remember which play off it was). She went mad at me for cheering for Scotland. Put her in a right mood. I told her there was no chance I'd go for England. She said she'd be following Ireland, so i should in turn follow England. Needless to say when I hit the roof after Scotland scored along with all the Scots and Irish in the venue, sparks flew. She called me every name under the sun and stormed out At 3.30am! I let her go and watched the Irish match afterwards and met her in the car after at about 6am(she was asleep). Worst thing was I had to go straight to work after.

Needless to say she is my ex now! Ha ha

[zerocoolie]

My family moved to Oz for a year or so in '89 and I remember watching the Italia '90 quarter final game against Schilachi and Co. in Sydney - back when I was just a nipper!! :D

We were late for Mass cos we stayed for the end... hehe

[Stuttgart88]

My mate had to listen to a match in a phone booth in rural Italy while his mum put the radio up against her home phone in Derry.

I got chucked by an old girlfriend after abandoning a walk in Aran Mor to watch the Ireland 2 Croatia 2 friendly in '96 in the pub in the harbour. I met an old mate from UCD watching the match so actually it was quite a good outcome.

[finlma]

I got chucked by an old girlfriend after abandoning a walk in Aran Mor to watch the Ireland 2 Croatia 2 friendly in '96 in the pub in the harbour.

Getting dumped for a friendly - now that's a real supporter.

[hoops1]

Stuttgart
Now thats what I call hard core!

[mandrake]

i was in pokhara in nepal 1999 , went for dinner and then to bar for a pint it was showing highlights of yugoslavia v ireland 1999 i seen last 5 mins a few liverpudlians had found out the game was on and were looking for me all day(i had watched a liverpool game 4 days before witht hem)
i seen 5 mins...

[Stuttgart88]

It was worth it, believe me!

[Kevin77]

Ha ha Stuttgart. Classic stuff

[wallis]

Stuttgart has the lead !

Although I live in England I actually met my girlfriend in Dublin after the Estonia game five years ago so whenever she wants to complain about me watching an Ireland game I always comeback with "if it wasnt for Irish football we never would have met!"

Women .. know your limits !

[davey]

I was working in Greece at the time of Belgium - Ireland 2nd leg play-off in 97. Had gone away for the weekend to a small town called Volos. Anyway, had given up on finding anywhere to watch the game when I spotted some footy on a TV in a closed TV shop across the road from where I was staying. Went over and couldn't believe it was the game!! Got myself a few amstel tinnies and spent 1 1/2 hours drinking by myself watching the game in a shop window! Made friends with lots of stray dogs but still went hope unhappy after the 2-1 defeat :(

[CollegeTillIDie]

When I was in Germany for Euro 88 the day of the Ireland- Soviet Union game in Hannover, Holland played England in the Group earlier. Myself and a few lads walked into a resident TV lounge in a hotel in Hannover to watch the Dutch beat the English. Then it was on to the stadium for the Ireland game.

[pedro]

Nothing as exciting as that but I watched the Ireland Italy World Cup 94 game when I was at the Gaeltacht in Connamara. We had to watch it with the sound down in case we heard any English.

Ditto, i was in cloaiste lurgan, in spideal. what a memory!

[finlma]

Ditto, i was in cloaiste lurgan, in spideal. what a memory!

The very same. Maybe we watched the game together or even worse danced together at a ceili.

[concanta]

i watched the italian 94 game from the adelaide hospital ...just after got my tonsils out - couldnt really talk but i managed to scream that night...got sick and had some mad infection afterwards...nearly feckin died but it was worth it

[Noelys Guitar]

Listening to Ireland Holland match 1990 on RTE radio in London as the signal wavered every 10 seconds..england Egypt game on TV and I was ****ed off for not going out to Italy or home as I had previously been in Germany for 88 Then I heard Jim Beglin go beserk as the signal came back on the radio..went mad with my brother and some friends..Stuggart did you play in the UCD superleague by any chance? Same question for college till I die.

[CollegeTillIDie]

Noelys Guitar

Well when I was in UCD, there were no DARTS so being a Northsider meant that any visits to Belfield at weekend meant 1.5 hour to 2 hour bus journeys in each direction.so no I didn't play but I watched one or two though after Saturday morning lectures though. One of my best friends was the Superleague secretary and kept goal for Foster during his first year in College. He actually ended up playing for every UCD representative team before he left College. Ending with 3 League of Ireland Appearances and 3 in the Shield.

[brine3]

I watched Ireland vs Italy in 1994 on a delayed broadcast in Japan. I already knew the result because I had gotten it on the shortwave radio via BBC World Service with loads of interference. "Repub-shreeeeesdlakaks-and one, Itadlfkjljfaly -il" But is was great watching it with all these Irish people in Japan, with half the people knowing the score but pretending not to for the sake of the people who didn't know.

The worst has to be in the away end of the St. Jakob's stadium in Basel at 2-0, just waiting for the final whistle to blow so we could get the hell out of there.

[pedro]

The very same. Maybe we watched the game together or even worse danced together at a ceili.

what r the chances eh? i arrived to col lurgan halfway through cos i got kicked out of another college up th road! that was back in my wild rebellious days..hold on im still wild and rebellious!

[Stuttgart88]

Stuggart did you play in the UCD superleague by any chance? Same question for college till I die.
I did indeed. We even won it one year. 1989 I think it was. You?

[Tired&Emotional]

Ah, the good aul 'UCD Superleague....we had a keg of a none-the-wiser for our exploits the year we won (Sunday league)...not sure of the year at this stage but did have the DART's to get us s/s!

[Junior]

Sorry if this is a bit long........

It wasn't an Ireland game, but was during the World Cup out in Japan. We had 3 or 4 days to spare between our group games. Myself and the lads headed over to Okanowa for a few days to try and meet up with Mister Meagee and co. and to have a mouch around.

Apart from the Amercian squaddies stationed out there, it was as though no one else spoke a word of english and when you tried to discuss the world cup they were oblivious as to what you were on about. We eventually found a sports bar on the main island and went to try and watch the afternoon game between Sweden and Nigeria. We found the place, the screens were on, showing the game but all the lights were off and the doors were locked. We battered on the door and eventually a guy came out a basically said in sign language ‘closed’. We put on our best Swedish accents and begged him to let us in and eventually he did so – just for us. The 4 of us supped there for the afternoon in darkness watching the game.

Whilst this was happening, the phone was ringing non stop and yer man was answering and writing stuff down in between serving us our cold beers. We thought to ourselves, ‘this will be a great spot to watch the Argentina v England game tonight’, the all-dayer was planned (well in fact it was well in progress at this stage!).

Anyway come 7-8 oc’clock that night the doors were opened and people began to start coming in a sitting at the tables. Our friendly bar man asked us if we would vacate our ‘prime seats’ as they were all booked up, even the ones at the bar!!! We were a little confused but then it sank in, that’s what all the bleedin phonecalls were about. They were all booking their seats and yer man didn’t even tell us that’s what you had to do!

Anyway it was standing room only for us, but for some reason the gargle all of a sudden became free – no one wanted to take any money off us?? It turns that everyone was paying a one off entrance fee and then it was free drink for the rest of the night. Well seeing as we hadn’t paid in – it was just free gargle all night for us!!!!!

We were getting pretty buckled by this stage, England were winning 1-0 and a group of English teachers started up with en-ger-land, en-ger-land etc….. We sucked the locals in with a rousing chorus of Nipon, clap,clap,clap Nipon clap,clap,clap and then proceeded to teach them a number of other classics such as ‘who put the ball in the English net – Diego Diego’ ‘Dieeegoooo, Dieeegooo – Diego scored and the brits went home’ and the old classic AR-GEN-TINA AR-GEN-TINA.

It was a great atmosphere and the brits took it all in good humour and even brought us to an old drinking den to completely finish us off in the early hours of the morning.

Happy days…………….

[Junior]

Sorry just remembered another good 'free drinking ' tale following Ireland, though I'll summarise this one!!

Riga, 1995 - cracking German type boozer gives you a credit card for your party as you enter the premises. Every time you order food or drink you hand the card over to the bar staff who just keeps adding it to your tab. You pay when you leave.

What happens when you get 2 cards for your party by mistake and you wake up in the morning with the unused one still in your pocket??

You go back to the same place - get another card as you go in. Pile all the drink and food you can muster for every bleeding irish fan in the place on one card. Put a token round on the other and pay for that one as you leave!!!!!

Jaysus, must have been about 20 of us eating and drinking for the best part of a day and it cost us about a fiver in total!!!!

[Noelys Guitar]

I did indeed play in the superleague..82-83 & 83-84 for the maintenance. A team made up of people who couldn't get a game anywhere else! And I kid you not with this one. In the 2nd season we played a game on a pitch with a steep embankment on one side. Somebody brought up a "winger" from Walkinstown. About 2 mins into the game he disappeared down that embankment to get the ball and hasn't been seen since. Everybody was waiting around for him to bring the ball and he just disappeared. He either jumped on the #17 in his kit or the more likely scenario disappeared into the student bar!..