The worst moment following Ireland

Let's ignore Saipan here. I'm talking about on the field of play.

Gelsenkirchen 1988. We in an enclave of green surrounded by a sea of orange. It's the first time at a major championship after waiting for years. The Dutch (one of their best teams ever) have been repelled and all their subs have been used. They are getting frantic. A semi-final in Euro 88 is only minutes away. McGrath heads clear yet again but the balls is crossed to the head of Wim Kieft. Bonner appears to have the ball covered. However the spin on the ball resulted in a freak bounce past Bonner and into the back of the Irish net. Irish calls of off-side for Van Basten (which video replays clearly showed to be the case) were ignored.

There were more tears shed by any set of Irish fans that day than I've ever seen shed since as those there were the original of the species, the ones who had been through the dark days of Touhy, Giles and Hand and who for 81 minutes had glimpsed nervana.

There was no singing of "always look on the bright side of life that day" I can tell you. I had to wait until McAteer's goal in 2001 for revenge and that was sweet.

I didn't handle losing to Belgium in the play off a few years back very well. Think more so because I knew Belgium were sh*t and proved it in the tournament

I'm too young to remember Euro 88 which I'm sure was a real sickner, losing any match in that manner would severely **** anyone off.

Personally the match in Macedonia where they scored in the last minute which caused Ireland to be knocked off the top of the table into the playoff spot (I think). Which we then lost. :(

Top three worst moments IMO (in no particular order):

Hartes penalty miss during the Spanish match in 2002
The whole Donadoni - Bonner could only parry - Schillaci saga
The Belgium playoff

Whatever about Macedonia away (twice), Israel, Austria in the Euro '96 qualifiers, losing to Croatia away in '99 was a real kicker, I still don't know where all the extra time came from.

Gelsenkirchen & Macedonia away (particularly the second one).

Belgium in '81 was unbearable!

Last Saturday was up there too, esp as it reminded me so much of Macedonia. I was lucky not to have seen the Austria game in '95. I think I missed both of them actually.

For games I was at.......

1) Macedonia Away 1-1 , 90th minute equaliser. From automatic qualification for Euro 2000 to the US Nike Tournament in a split second - never felt as gutted at an Ireland match ever.

2) Croatia Away 1-0, Davor Suker 95th Minute winner was a sickener - luckily we were heading back to Malta which softened the blow... a little.

3) Romania Away 1-0 France 98 Qualifier, Played reasonably well that night, Roy missed a peno at 0-0. Could have been a great away result.

Games I wasn't at.....

Holland Euro88 - I was a young impressionable Kid
Italy WC90 - See above.
Israel on Saturday!!

Great post OwlsFan.

For me, I would look at the games in Gelsenkirchen in 1988 and Rome in 1990 with pride. I was able to accept those results as we had achieved so much. However, I find it more difficult to accept bad results against poor opposition. This is my top 5 list of lows as an Irish fan (excluding Saipan obviously).

1. Liechtenstein away 1995
2. Macedonia away 1997
3. Portugal away 1995
4. Austria home 1995
5. Switzerland home 2002

The reason I have not included Croatia away and Macedonia away (1999) is because I still felt positive about qualifying for the European Championships, even though we conceded injury-time goals in both.
As an Irish fan, there were a lot of lows between 1995 and 1999, the rare highlights being our home victories over Croatia and Yugoslavia.

I think for me it has to be the Spain game, purely because we had them on the ropes and shouldve finished them off.
Up there too would be Croatia/Macedonia/Belgium and prob one of the biggest let down was in 94 when we played Holland, the country was quite confient of a win(mainly cos we beat them in a friendly a few months previous) but we got played off the park.

No contest: Macedonia away, 1999.

Portugal away 3-0 was the most miserable. Almost got crushed to death trying to get into the stadium. It lashed rain for most of the game and there was no cover. The second half was a disaster. We couldn't find our bus and had to walk into town in the lashing rain. Some of my mates were on a day trip and had no change of clothes and had to get on the plane soaking wet. Only good point. Norn Iron had beaten Austria 5-3 that night so we got a play off place. A miserable night tough.

Romania 1-0 was a great performance. We outplayed then and David Connolly had a stormer (believe it or not). Saipan missed a peno that night - has he ever taken another one even for Man U ? I remember coming back and watching a video of the game and the outrageous attacks Dumpy, Giles and Laughing Bill had made on Big Mick before the game - that sickened me as Laughing Bill tried to pass the comments off as "obective criticism" when people phoned in to complain.

I suppose the most disappointing performance was Switzerland 2-0 away and the worst competitive game ever was Iceland at home 0-0,

I was gutted by the Holland defeat in 88 and the Italian defeat in 1990 but even though we performed well in both matches the results were fair enough and I believe we were beaten by better teams. The loss to Spain in 2002 was the worst for me as I thought we were the better team and really felt we could have gone on to progress much further if we had won.

One of the saddest moments for me was when Liam Brady was sent off against Bulgaria in the last game of the Euro 88 qualifiers (which meant he would miss the first two of our games in the finals) and then through an combination of the ban and injury he didn't get to play in the finals at all. It was a terrible blow for our greatest play ever IMO. I've always felt that if he had played we could have done better in that final game against Holland.

macadonia 99

cant see anything ever comparing to it

Turkey in the play-off
1-1 at home 0-0 away, gutted!

1.macedonia
2.kilbane missing rebound to harte's penalty vs Spain.
3.harte missing penalty in same game

Sooo many near misses come to mind, but Macedonia 99 has been mentioned a few times already, and that was definitely one of the worst. I was marooned in South Wales at the time so the chances of seeing the game were nil, and it wasnt even live on the radio. So i had to make do with vague and infrequent updates via teletext or BBC radio. I knew all the permutations- particularly the scenario that if Croatia won and we drew we were out (i think). So deep into injury time my mates thought it would be funny to tell me that they'd heard exactly that had happened. Virtually in tears, i ran back upstairs to check teletext... to see that Macedonia had indeed equalised. Gutted. On seeing what had really happened, my mates decided to make a quick exit.

For me what made it worse (watching highlights later) was that the Macedonians celebrated as if they'd won the feckin Cup.

Otherwise, all the usuals, cried as a young lad italy 90, cried as an older lad holland 94 (esp as we were so bad that day), drank myself into oblivion belgium 97. Spain 02 i could cope with coz we'd given it everything and i was too exhausted to cry, although i probably didnt speak for a few days.

But i consider myself pretty lucky to have grown up knowing us to qualify for at least some tournaments. God knows what the constant failures must have felt like- i was too young to remember Belgium 81, but i've read about it. Was anyone there??

Macedonia away and belgium especially with all those muppets singing OLé Olé and telling me to cheer up.

Hands up I'm a bad loser

1)For me it was Hartes penalty miss against Spain in WC2002.
2)Euro 88 against Holland
3)Macedonia away.


The 3 worst moments for me. :(

Cant think of anything that tops Macedoia away in 99, 13 seconds left ffs!
Never felt so depressed in my whole life and drank myself stupid.

Notable mentions though must go to:

Holland in USA'94, felt really confident and had gotten some great results in the period leading up to the World Cup. Before the game everyone was saying how great its going to be to play Brazil in the quarters on Independence Day!

Following that would have to be Turkey in the Euro 2000 play-offs. The TV rights werent sold to any Irish TV station/SKY etc and couldnt find a pub showing the away leg so was huddled around a radio with crap reception trying to figure out what was actually happening. After some great results in the qualifying group and two games lost deep in injury time it was a sickening way to go out.

Spain 2002 and Basel 2003 then.

Remember being gutted about the way the Holland game in 88 finished but was too young to realise just how big a deal it was.

1) That floating Macedonian cross in the last minute

2) Holland, 1994. The bloody Dutch again! Bonner's fist... Why was McGrath's goal not allowed ?!?!?

3) Belgian play off, they were cráp, we should have won, we should have been at France 98.

4) Turkish play off, we should have put them away in the first leg, they got that lucky penalty. The second leg was poor, and UEFA should have done something about Cascarino getting lynched at the end.

5) Swiss at home. A very poor result for us, coming after a fairly decent show at the world cup, after that it was bye bye Portugal '04.