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come on, is that the best you can come up with? us could easily, and probably does mean, "us pundits" or "us people" not us as in "us english". he couldve written that article about any player in the world and used the word "us" the way he didQuote:
Originally Posted by Drumcondra 69er
Yup, completely agree. He doesn't even have any Irish grandparents.Quote:
Originally Posted by tricky_colour
It's quite simple; Ireland needed a midfielder, Townsend wanted international football, the bandwagon supports a winning team. Everybody's happy?
I'm always amazed at the way some people just don't get the "dual" bit of dual nationality.
25 years growing up in England and he's to be condemned because he used the word 'us' in a commentary. Never mind he gave sterling (no puns) service to Us (that's us Us not them Us), played out of his skin, turned up for B Internationals when he was captain of the first team just to give a bit of leadership and consistency...
short memories.
Legally -and it's all that matters -Townsend is as Irish as the biggest sean bean bocht gaelgeoir, hurley swinging, timber-showing schkelper out there ...and if they don't like it -F*** 'Em.
God I missed you! :):DQuote:
Originally Posted by lopez
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfie
Lets get further bogged down in somantics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Murfinator
Read my original statement again - I pointed out that Townsend was "far more commited" as opposed to Stephen Ireland never having any commitment whatsoever.
In summary - Townsend never walked out and f*cked around the team and fans with coy interviews about a possible return.
Can't a person have dual nationality? If a person has an Italian mother and a Swiss father, can't he feel he is a Italian and Swiss? What if this same person was born in France and grew up in France -does that him French?Quote:
Originally Posted by backtowalsall
Just because a person has played professional sport for a country doesn't mean that they must exclusively belong to that country from that point onwards. Similarly, they're not forced to revoke their citizenship for other countries. The fact is that Andy Townsend is both English and Irish. Only sport forces you to choose one over the other, but just for sporting competitions of that code.
I think we can all agree that Sheringham is a w**ker!
Well he has not gained any Irish admirers with his childish remarks.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Legend
He was a good player and if he was able to run(fast) he would have been really top class.
No, they don't understand. The people who don't understand are all born and raised in Ireland and have never lived anywhere else. Yours and my experience (born in Ireland to Irish parents but moved overseas as a young kid) is frankly beyond their comprehension.Quote:
Originally Posted by irishfan86
But there are 1 million Irish passport holders living overseas (mostly economic refugees from the 1980s and their kids) who understand exactly what you mean.
Townsend captained the Irish team at the World Cup in 1994 when England stayed home and watched on the telly. It's obvious that he put loyalty between the two teams aside and chose to play for the stronger team. :D
Steady on Brine. While obviously some people will always be a bit unimaginative or narrow minded, I'm sure most who lived all their lives in Ireland can well understand why others had to move, and why their kids feel a connection to the old country. Would you say that the experience of those who have never left is beyond your comprehension?Quote:
Originally Posted by brine3
Anyway, I've the hump with Townsend. Nothing to do with international football, I agree he was one of your top players. It's just his claim to have given Chelsea "three good years", when as all fans know he was phoning it in for the last season and a half :mad:
Its important to remember that Townsend, Cascarino and Sheringham are really good friends - thick as thieves and all that. sheringham knows Andy well enough to get away with saying things like that and not to cause Townsend offence.
Personally I think Townsend was a terrific player for Ireland and always gave 100%. If he uses the 'us' word occassionaly who gives a sh!t? He was with us when it mattered
He made a smart comment about Sheringham and got one back, who gives a **** really. If anybody has their mind changed about him regarding the whole "we" issue then that is just sad. He is more than entitled to call England "we" having been brought up there.
Andy Townsend is only slightly more Irish than the Queen. He played for the Irish football team to enhance his career. There is nothing Irish about him. And yes I know he gave 100% how does this make him Irish ffs? It's because that was his style of play and he was a good player. He also gave 100% on the pitch for Villa does that make him a Brummie? Being a good football player doesn't automatically qualify you as being Irish it's not a question on the passport application. Cascarino is cut from the same cloth. Anyone claiming either is Irish because they put on a football jersey a handful of times a year is deluded.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shelsman
I make a clear distinction between the likes of Cascarino, Townsend and Lawrenson to people born here that moved abroad or people born to Irish parents abroad who have always had some affinity towards Ireland such as the likes of Kilbane. The latter are Irish the former are footballers advancing their careers because they were either too sh*t to play for England or we nabbed them at a time when they looked unlikely to get into the England team. Try to understand the difference.
Andy is an Irish citizen, undisputed fact.
He is a dual national, also an undisputed fact.
The exercise of quantifying and comparing what that "Irish" means, is delving into the irrelevant and sometime ridiculous realms of individual subjectivity.
A Gaelgoir can assert that you are not fully Irish unless you are fluent in Gaelic.
"We" and "us" is on Today fm as i type talking about "we" and "us" (ie Ireland)
Like many others, Townsend was approached and 'recruited' by Jack Charlton as a pragmatic method of strengthening the team in a key area when there were no real Irish-born prospects coming through. Townsend may not have been fully conscious of his Irish background, but Charlton would argue that his job was about results, and to get the best players available to us, by hook or by crook. If any fans back then had a moral dilemma about that, they were in a quiet minority.
Houghton, Aldridge, Townsend and Cascarino may not have been as 'Irish' as we'd have liked them to be, but their contributions to the team, and the resultant success, helped to bring football to a new level in Irish public consciousness, and helped increase the numbers playing at youth level. In doing so, Charlton and his 'mercenaries' did a great service to Irish football, something that neither Hand nor Giles could achieve with their mostly Irish-born sides.
Following on from the Charlton years, the U-18 and U-16 teams that won the ECs in 1998 had relatively few 'recruits' (Alex O'Reilly, Shaun Byrne, Liam George off the top of my head), and last Saturday, we only had two English-born players in the starting XI, both with stronger Irish lineage than Townsend had. I think that the 'recruitment' of players like Townsend was a necessary evil - one I would not like to see repeated (like in Jon Macken's case), but was probably needed at the time.
I worked with aer lingus, so kind of...Quote:
Originally Posted by reder
Anyway, here's Irish legend Owen Coyle on the Scotland game v macedonia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...urley-scotland
Nothing wrong with dual nationality. Just make Ireland #1 ;)Quote:
But I was at the game on Saturday and in the second half I thought we were outstanding against Macedonia
Great post Supreme Feet, that's pretty much how I feel too.
re your example of dual national Owen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dodge
Maybe you were unaware that Owen turned down a chance to represent Scotland in order to declare for Ireland and his first game shortly after was against Scotland.
Or maybe you were aware and using it as an example of plain simple dual reality.
If the Gnomes of Zurich say they can play for us and they genuinely want to, who cares?
Townsend wouldn't be my favourite Irish player, but compared to the likes of Sheringham, he's virtually a saint.....
It's even more than genuinely wanted to.
They were invited to play and they played for the team to the best of their professional standards, they applied themselves 100% to that duty and so it went until they were no longer wanted. Afterwards they go back to living out their lives. The Ireland football team was their nr 1. and still would be their nr 1.
Where connections to Ireland were tenuos to begin with, they developed to varying degrees. I would say it would be an impossibility for a player over a 10 year period not to develop some sense of appreciation of that nationality and some sense of what they were representing on the pitch.
We know what they were, we asked them to play, they did it and now some are applying a paddyometer in a topic inspired after one of the players is subject to public mock ridicule some 10 years later.
Great player though. A bit like Stephen Ireland in that respect.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Legend
I recall Townsend receiving many cortisone injections in the toe before Irish games just to keep going. I really don't doubt his commitment & it was plenty there in the Giants Stadium where he was outstanding against the Italians.
What a difference he would make today..................
Aside from the actual debate over the Townsend / Sheringham / Nationality / Them / Us debate:
The type of player Townsend was - does it even exist anymore? Does that type of 40% skill, 60% putting-yourself-about, 110% effort midfield bustler, so common in the 80s and early 90s, get to play at top levels any longer?
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Originally Posted by Bluebeard
I've just done the math and there seems to be an error in your figures!:D
Seriously though I don't think there are any players like that at the top level anymore and as we live in a blame driven culture I'm gonna lay the blame at the feet of the foreigners......they changed the shape of the game and the way people view midfielders and their role, it wasn't enough to be just commited anymore
You know what else "the foreigners" are responsible for? Making the English League the best in the world.
Always something those foreigner-hating-pundits fail to consider.
You want a "more English" league? Watch a few Championship matches and you'll be begging for your foreigners back, trust me.
Would the likes of Mascherano, Makelele, Darren Fletcher of today not fit into that mould?
You've got me wrong man, I actually agree with you, 100%....British football is undoubtedly better not just because of the influx of foreign players into the leagues but because of the influence the imports have had over domestic players too.Quote:
Originally Posted by irishfan86
Point I was trying to make is that the old fashioned "typically British" mdfielder has become almost redundant in favour of the more well rounded European style player.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluebeard
Jenas maybe... I see what you're saying though
I've heard Sheringham a few times and he really strikes me as not been very bright at all. He's a terrible pundit with an incredibly limited vocabulary. Just a thought.
Niall Quinn has a story (most likely embellished, if true at all) that following the Italy game in Rome in 1990 - Charlie Haughey (as was his wont) embarked on a lap of the stadium and then paid the team a visit in their dressing room.
Haughey proceeded to praise the team and their efforts and made his exit.
Apparently, Townsend then asked "Who was that old Geezer?" and Cascarino said "Don't know - but one of the lads says he owns a Tea-Shop??". :)
I've already posted how highly I rated Townsend contribution to Ireland but I can remember cringing through an interview where he described the Irish Tricolour as the "Orange, White and Green". Wrong order, dumbass!!! :D
I don't know if that's true or not. Possibly coincidental, but the exact same joke is in the closing credits of an episode of Drop The Dead Donkey.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfie
[QUOTE=ArdeeBhoy;1231257]If the Gnomes of Zurich say they can play for us and they genuinely want to, who cares?
.[/QUOTE]
would they then be called plastic leprechauns....
sorry I'll get my coat....taxi:)
Doesn't surprise me. Niall Quinn featured in a cut price "Jacks Army" cash-in DVD featuring Colum Meaney (I sh*t you not) a couple of years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
Quinn recounted that story on the DVD which, while a little amusing, seemed a bit far fetched to say the least.
Haughey was certainly there and did a lap of honour after the game. Funniest bit was Frank Fahey (then minister for sport I think) appearing out of an underground tunnel, looking for Haughey like a lost schoolkid and then putting his hand up in the air as Haughey was on the opposite side of the stadium halfway through his lap of honour. Fahey with one hand in the air proceeded to run across the pitch just as the sprinklers came on. He got soaked and had us in fits of laughter as he kept going despite getting wetter and wetter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolfie
Didn't Gnomes of Zurich qualify for the second round of the Inter-Toto about 12 years ago?
What's the problem in referring to two teams as "we"? The word is not mutually exclusive. I am also a US Citizen and I have no problem in supporting the US team as well.
What we have Whelan, Andrews, and Miller instead - those paragons of the beautiful game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bluebeard
All put together I don't think they would make the footballer Townsend was.
Hardly a 'good' weekend for us. Losing a 2 goal lead in the last 20 minutes against a depleted Dutch side.Quote:
Originally Posted by dr_peepee