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I've never been but after the first half it felt alot like the Iceland match in Rekyavik. We won 4-2 on a terrible pitch and we dominated the match. It must've been about 8 years ago but it's still fresh in the mind. I remember Roy Keane scored twice and at one stage we were 2-1 down.
I know this is a weird post but after watching the match last night I kept thinking of that Iceland match. :confused:
Remember McCarthy roaring at McAteer.Quote:
Originally Posted by superfrank
"JAAAAYSON......JAAAAYSON...JAAAAYSON KEEP THE FCUKING BALL WE'RE WINNING 4-2 YA STUPID C#NT"
I remember it was during the McCarthy hunting days by the panel and Giles made the astonishing statement: "What's important Bill, is the performance not the result". Strangely against the Faroes he had changed back to the result being more important than the performance.
It all depends on who you want to attack I suppose.
I remember the game well. We were hopeless and looking doomed but someone managed to get a 4-2 win and a vital 3 points. Have we scored 4 away from home since ?
Did we not get 4 goals away in Cyprus in qualifying for WC 2002 - Harte, Roy Keane (2) and Kelly or was that before the Iceland game???? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
think kilbane made his debut and was awful - taken off at half time - nearly went really pear-shaped that day
Iceland was before that I think so I think you're correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by KarlosIRL
I was thinking the exact same during the Faroes match.
The iceland game was part of the qualifying series for the 1998 World Cup whereas the Cyprus away game was part of the qualifying series for the 2002 World Cup.
Wasn't the Iceland game just after Princess Di died and the lads wore black armbands during the match :rolleyes:
Possibly, it was late '97 anyway.
The Iceland match was 6th September 1997
That was a week after her death so it must've been. But why were they wearing armbands in rememberance of an English woman? :confused:
exactlyQuote:
Originally Posted by superfrank
At that time most of them were English anyway! :mad:
Sigh!Quote:
Originally Posted by superfrank
Iceland 2 Ireland 4
Shay Given (Newcastle United), Jeff Kenna (Blackburn), Kenny Cunningham (Wimbledon), Ian Harte (Leeds United), Steve Staunton (Aston Villa), Gary Kelly (Leeds United), Alan McLoughlin (Portsmouth), Roy Keane (Manchester United), Andy Townsend (Middlesbrough), capt., Kevin Kilbane (West Brom), David Connolly (Feyenoord).
7 Irish born, 3 1st generation Irish and 1 2nd generation. I suppose that makes "most of them" English. Keep perpetuating the myths :(
Was this one of the games where Baaaaarnsley Mick had Harte playing at CB? No wonder we made it difficult for ourselves!! :eek:
As it was kinda local for me I was at the game, I sat with the natives in the old stand. It was a bit like Flanagans Ball, they stood up I sat down, I stood up they sat down. There were a few hundred Irish supporters there in the new stand but with the acoustics of that stand the sound they made vanished up into the air. Ireland score, the Irish support jump up and down but you can't hear a thing across the field.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish_Praha
But no matter where you were you could hear McCarthy shouting abuse at the team. At least he cared. I have no particular agenda for or against McCarthy but that Irish team were very poor in that campaign. IMO It was one of the poorest Irish teams since early 70's. Was that Mc Carthy´s first campaign? He did not make it any more difficult for that team. Romania were streets ahead even with their limited quality. They stripped Iceland bare with a 4-0 victory there.
There was nowhere to go with that team. It was a miracle they came so close in the end to a barely average Belgian team. To anyone who followed Ireland through that they were just biding time until Keane and Duff made it through.
Actually they were much the better side in Romania where we lost 1-0 (Roy Keane missed a peno) and the better side at home where we drew I think. If you see the team posted above it wasn't a bad side - just badly missing a decent striker, although Connolly had his best game in a green jersey away in Bucharest. And yes Mick was experimenting with the 3 centre halves, with Harte as one of them. Giles, DUnphy and Laughing Bill were launching vicious personal attacks on him on the national TV station with no balance in the panel. It was so unfair it used make my blood boil - no one to put a contrary or even a balanced opinion. Same in Italian 90 ("I agree with John". "I agree with Eamon" - scandalous stuff).Quote:
Originally Posted by geysir
Rose tinted spectacles?Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
They had a good game in Romania. When Romania came to Dublin they were cruising, already had topped the group & qualified and still they did enough. Of the team that went to Iceland, Staunton was stiff and slow, (recovering from injury?)
I thought McLaughlin, Kennedy, Connolly, Kenna and Kilbane were average grafters then. As I say the team were not qualification standard and that was clearly seen against an average Belgian team (who later lost their 3 group games?)
The panelists are for the brain dead. I would rather discuss the games developments with my dog.
Yes, maybe but our fate in that campaign was sealed in Skopje. Macedonia 4 Rep. Ireland 1. Oh, it was awful!
And that was just the new away jersey...... :cool:
Oh dear! :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by superfrank
Well what I heard was that Andy Townsend (who to be fair to you Frank is English: one Irish granny, travelled across Mallorca to support the scum against us in 1988, etc.) who was captain, was pretty devastated about Britain's top slimmer's death that he cajoled the rest of them into this token recognition of the bimbo. I wasn't present at the game but I heard many players ripped off the black armband as soon as the football started.
Anyway, the GAA in London caused a few seizures amongst its membership by lowering the Tricolour the day after, as I heard too the flag above the GPO. Personally I thought the world (well my world in London at least) went mad. Many people who hate the royals had black armbands on that Saturday at work, simply because 'she p*ssed them all off.' My own fondest memories of it all were the Irish Post photographer who got handbagged by combined membership of the local chapter of the Womens' Institute near the GAA at Ruislip for taking pictures of the hearst leaving Northolt Aerodrome. And a Gay manager telling a joke about Tommy Steele replacing Elton John as the singer at her funeral, which was overheard by almost everyone on the platform at Wembley Park tube station (He, btw, also wore a black armband on the day :confused: ).