Irish Abroad 2013/2014

The new season starts tonight for Irish players based in England and Scotland, with Celtic playing Cliftonville in the Champions League qualifiers, and Hibs and St Johnstone starting their Europa League qualifying campaigns tomorrow night.

The live blog will be running on the Irish Abroad site from tonight with all the goals, red and yellow card updates as they come in - http://irish-abroad.appspot.com/Live

Or you can follow on twitter @irish_abroad with the hashtag #COYBIG

If I can, I'll include updates from the Irish teams playing, but the LOI blog provide an excellent service on twitter @TheLOIBlog so follow them

Anthony Stokes for Celtic and Barry Johnston for Cliftonville are the two ROI-born players in tonight's starting line-ups. Ex-Celtic man and male model Diarmuid O'Carroll also on the bench for Cliftonville.

So Stokes didnt get into trouble for trying to beat up Elvis?

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Originally Posted by Crosby87

So Stokes didnt get into trouble for trying to beat up Elvis?

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No, Elvis had left the building.

Do you know why they used to say that BTW? He never performed encores. (Not the fake Elvis Stokes punched, the real fried peanut butter and banana eating Elvis.)
Also, at Graceland he only ate breakfast food. It was served all day long.
And that's all i know about that.

Eoin Wearen is feeling strong and raring to go according to his twitter account. All he needs now is a club!

https://twitter.com/EWearen

Anybody who has high hopes for the Irish at Watford will be a little concerned to see they've signed 8 players from Udinese, presumably to get around the new loan rules.

http://www.watfordfc.com/news/articl...gs-909189.aspx

Eoin Doyle got his first to put Chesterfield 1-0 up against Leeds tonight, but it's since been overturned to 2-1. Leeds United starting line-up notable for featuring Green, White and Brown in midfield.

Green was captain too!

Middlesbrough's Dylan McGlade on trial at Oxford: http://www.banburycake.co.uk/sport/o...ford_United_3/

Graham Burke off to Shrewsbury till January

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23619405

That's great news for him, especially that he's seemingly bypassed League Two and has been attracting the manager's interest for some time. Villa's strike force is looking really strong this season so he really needs experience on loan to make any sort of impression.

edit: love the random "you know?" in the middle of the article. I love this new "street" approach the beeb are taking with their news reporting, you get me?

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

Eoin Doyle got his first to put Chesterfield 1-0 up against Leeds tonight, but it's since been overturned to 2-1. Leeds United starting line-up notable for featuring Green, White and Brown in midfield.

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You can never find an orange man when you want one..................

Just found this blog by Leon McSweeney on all sorts of topics from the challenge of finding a new club and views on international football that the IFA might like! However, he is quite a good writer.

http://sweeneymc83blog.wordpress.com/

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Originally Posted by gastric

Just found this blog by Leon McSweeney on all sorts of topics from the challenge of finding a new club and views on international football that the IFA might like! However, he is quite a good writer.

http://sweeneymc83blog.wordpress.com/

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I assume this is the piece you're referring to when you mention his views on international football: http://sweeneymc83blog.wordpress.com...onal-football/

I find myself disagreeing with a lot of what he has to say. Why does Matt Holland proudly donning the green jersey but later proudly singing the British national anthem have to be viewed as a contradiction or as an example of chicanery, for example? Holland is a dual national; why wouldn't he be proud of both his shared heritages?

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Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

I find myself disagreeing with a lot of what he has to say. Why does Matt Holland proudly donning the green jersey but later proudly singing the British national anthem have to be viewed as a contradiction or as an example of chicanery, for example? Holland is a dual national; why wouldn't he be proud of both his shared heritages?

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Because he started belting out QSTQ during Amhrán na bhFiann as he lined up for his debut with us was the story I heard. Don't know how true but also that another player, maybe Stan, had to stop him and tell him QSTQ was not the correct choice on this particular occasion.

Have never heard that before - it's a gag or similar that I'm pretty sure Mark Lawrenson has told in relation to himself, mind - and think it's a mutated urban-mythical version of Holland's singing of the British anthem before a play-off final at Wembley for Ipswich. I don't see why an England-born player with Irish heritage singing one of his two national anthems in an appropriate manner, given the occasion, should offend Irish people.

I've heard it a number of times, but that doesn't mean it happened either. If it's ever proven I would like to see his long range goal away vs Portugal that saved our asses in qualifying and his equalizer vs Cameroon in the world cup immediately struck from the records :)

It sounds way too ridiculous to be true. I'm guessing your sources were in the pub and well-lubricated with pints, ha.

Ronan Murray to Notts County

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23727971