Well, it becomes a debate about numbers, maybe its thousands, more likely hundreds, but I think it does exist.
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Some reaction to our fans booing of Balotelli
http://www.oasisblues.com/2012/06/no...premature.html
Quote:
The Irish fans booed Mario Balotelli when he entered at the end, clearly nervous. Congratulations for the "people known as anti-racist"... another false myth. All the Irish people I talked to, they were all racists. Also, the other day fighting against Croatians.
Roy Keane was right, ****e crowd, they're childish. Also, booing when gentleman Pirlo was injured, they don't know anything about football. Go back to your sheep. You can see why in England there are so many jokes about them...someone should teach them some lesson about how to behave in public...
Of course all the people go: oh credit to the Irish... they deserved. Yes, a kick in the ass.
Were they not booing Andrews' innocuous red card?
No matter how cynical one is about our support, that post barely deserves comment. Does Murf really believe Irish fans were booing Balotelli?
Toyed with the idea of not even replying to this, one guy on an obscure 'all things Oasis/Man City & England' forum decided to cry race because an Ireland gallery stacked with Man Utd men boos Balotelli, and decided we need we need a lesson on how to behave in public into the bargain. An England fan, can throw no stones in our direction on that front I can assure you. Just because they haven't wrecked the place yet, this time round over there.
Murf, nothing damaged here but your own credibility as a poster.
Balotelli was quite clearly booed as he entered the pitch, the Andrews red card was 14 minutes later so I'm not sure how you'd get them mixed up.
2:06 on the RTE player, perhaps they were all saying "boo-urns"? Shameful of your character if you try to justify it or deny it happened.
Throwing flares would have been a more suitably ironic reception, albeit it would have been ludicrously dangerous.
I would imagine thats all it is, the rival of our fans "local team".
Given the tensions around Balotelli and what happened in previous matches the rest of the world will not have seen it like that, I don't think it was a wise move for our fans reputation to boo him on the sidelines like that.
I didn't hear it but if it's true it's nothing short of moronic on every count - how it could be perceived and because English /Scottish club football is an irrelevance to following Ireland.
I told my missus before the event that I was worried some of the newer fans wouldn't respect the old traditions and understand the nuances of following Ireland over a club team. Obviously I was right to worry. I think something special was lost in the Swiss home match post-Saipan in 2002.
In general I think the fans were great. I agree that mutual back slapping about being great is naff though, but the fans themselves are not the sinister antithesis of "real" football fans that many make out.
Hi guys - havent posted for a while as been away with work and started family etc - just back from Poland and all in all it was good craic - the football was dire though - we looked like a tired clueless bunch at times - most annoying was the Italy game even though it didnt matter for anything - we've drawn twice and beaten them once in last three meeting but at the tournament we rolled over.
Overall again our fans were superb - one problem i do have though are some of the supporters from the North (Im originally from the North) - some of them are intent in dragging up sectarian crap at every opportunity. The vast majority of Ireland fans dont give a toss about the North, the politics or the sectarian chanting. Give it up lads or please stay at home
A lot of them dont seem to care about anything really only where the next pint is coming from:p
Just wondering who they were trying to offend - in Poland playing against Croatia, italy and Spain - Jeez you couldnt get more catholic,lol!
Does that include a song about the famine as well?:D
(TBH - dont mind the odd rebel song in a bar after a good few beers myself, but its not to everyone taste, but not at a game)
Yes. On one memorable occasion, the stadium announcer indicated that Peter Lovenkrands, then of Rangers, had come for Denmark in a friendly to a chorus of boos. Unfortunately, the announcer had made a mistake and it was in fact a different player.
Yeah, I wouldn't trust a Nordie if my life depended upon it. How on earth have the Nordies escaped our wrath after this Euro debacle? They should be the first to go.
What's a sectarian song these days, 'Come on you boys in green'? 'The boys of the green brigade'? 'A Trap lullaby'? 'I love 442' ?
We spent years debating that here! My own view was that it was a bit different, though daytime RTE made it out to be sectarian. Rangers is an anti-Irish institution, hence the booing, although obviously there was a large element of "we're automatically all Celtic" unfortunately. Look, if Peter Robinson or Maggie Thatcher walked out onto the pitch at half time and got booed would it be sectarian? Or just political hate figures for the Irish? Rangers FC is in the latter category for me - and a huge number of non-Celtic affiliated Scots for that matter.
After the guy who was not Lovenkrands (Madsen?) got booed and the PA announcer told the crowd (not the crows) to be quiet the crowd then booed every Ireland touch and cheered every Danish touch. I think it said it all about the nature of the booing. We also booed the Yugoslav anthem in the early 90s I think - a very rare occurrance but hard to complain about in context.
Not trying to generalise Bucky - as I said Im only back from Poland and in most of my dealing with groups from the North it was FTQ/IRA chants - its not what a proper Ireland supporters about - these things are now on you tube and it gives the illusion that this is what Ireland fans are like - dont like it
Hmm. If anything the Irish support is way too passive collectively these days.
Not suggesting we should boo Balotelli or sing the rebs, but the FOA is the height of it.
Really.
Was in Twickers for the big rugby match a few weeks ago (house party) and there was virtually no atmosphere in the town, was funny for me to experience the difference betweena rugger and football crowd.
You keep mentioning sectarian chanting - without wanthing to go into specific's what were the chants? I just surprised:D
"Ireland's Call" just sounds naff. Even at the rugby.
I checked over on to the Tartan Army forum to see how our neighbours viewed our euro 2012 performance against spain (see link)
As per expected the alot of them think were sh*te, while some were not so hard on us as we were playing spain and others think were worse than scotland (with most of them thinking so cos they still hate mcgeady for declaring from us)
However there was alot of posters (non celtic fans included ) who commented on how great the gdansk version of the Fields of Athenry and that our fans deserved alot of credit.
http://taboard.com/forum/index.php?s...=138130&st=120
Back on point though - I do agree that our song base is limited but dont agree with A.Bhoys point that we are too collectively passive away from home.....Tallinn 2011 , Bratislava 2010, paris 09, bari, 09, sofia 09 , stuttgart 06 , amsterdam 04 just some games that spring to mind when imo when our fans collectively support wise were fantastic
At most of those, but some of them were years ago.
We can make a noise away but too many of our songs are the same 5 or so tired tunes which are starting to sound contrived at this stage. Even FOA.
I See Spain have been criticized for how they've played so far with many discounting their performance against us because of how utterly crap we are. Hard to argue.
I agree that there were very different dynamics at play in the two aforementioned contexts compared to Irish Manchester United fans booing Balotelli in Poznan. So, is it justified/more justified (?) if political so long as it's not sectarian/racist or moronically related to British club rivalries?
What was the sectarian stuff being sung? And can you be sure it was only northerners?
I would say yes if the political context was that a blatantly anti-Irish organisation was the target. If the political context was that the target had a different view on Obamacare or how to fund greyhound racing, it'd just be silly.
I'd prefer for there to be no booing except for cheating, referee decisions etc. but I find it hard to fathom how some people just plainly fail to recognise any difference between sectarian and any other motive.
A laughing stock id imagine, and rightly so. The Defenders of the Great who for so long stuck by and lived in their bubbles on here must have serious egg on their face now. Although they probably don't even realise it and might even imagine that they never said it in the first place.
If a team ever says before a game that they expect to beat us i will no longer get annoyed at the arrogance or ignorance of said team about our team. It can only be a fair assumption.
I think laughing stock is a bit extreme Paul. They'd think we were out of our depth but fair play for getting there.
I'd say they see us as a small nation who were pitted up against 2 giants of world football and one of the best tier 2 teams.*
I'm not sure if you're including me above. I fact I'm not sure if anyone was an unqualified Trapologist. I personally always fight the tendency to say the manager is crap because that's usually the first claim of the ignorant and uninformed.
I always had serious concerns about our tendency to sit back when ahead, persisting with 442 and I thought the clean sheet run was grossly misleading. I refused to criticise Slovakia away because we played well enough to win. I wavered between 60 & 70% in favour of Trap and his methods while they were working. I'm glad we had him away in Macedonia unlike more popular managers. I think lots of people thought like that.
Despite my criticism of Trap now I think there were various unfair accusations thrown at him over the years or certainly situations where he deserved the benefit of the doubt and in those situations I defended him. I'd love if Marc Wilson had 10 caps by now but can anyone catergorically say it's Trap's fault he doesn't?
Even after Poland there seems to be quite a high degree of qualified support for Trap.
Hey, where Dr_peepee these days? C'mon Doc - we want to hear what you have to say.
* Weren't all 3 opponents number 1 seeds in qualifying, or were Croatia a high number 2 in Greece's group? Were we the only no. 3 seed to actually qualify (Czechs?)?
I watched all 3 of the South's games - I certainly didn't hear anything sectarian at the games.
There does, however, appear to be a problem amongst a minority of your support (in particular Nordies) away from the match - add ons to "The Fields", for example, whereby some of your fans seem to want to have sexual intercourse with Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth and to express their support for a terrorist organisation that slaughtered ad maimed thousands of Irish men women and children - quite an irony that the FAI saw fit to remember the victims of a cowardly, murderous, sectarian attack by vermin involved in a terrorist gang but yet some of your fans see fit to glorify equally repulsive terrorists of a different hue.
The Belfast Newsletter carried front page headlines of the antics of some of your sectarian Nordie fans who thought it great craic to have their sectarianism exposed on You Tube.
Fair play to the Newsletter. Quality journalism as always.
The FAI can't legislate for idiots. I have never sang the inexorable dirge that is the TFOA as a result of the addenda.
But if people choose to what can the rest do?
I have noticed that there is a different attitude these days and there is a noticeable reduction of the amount who sing SF and IRA within.