George Best "Merge both the national teams"

My opposition to a 32 county football team has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of Norn Iron at the moment.

One of the best things we have going for us is the cameraderie & unity we have. This is why our away trips are so special. The national team comes first for us and there is no political statement on show - the only statement is that we're Irish & love our football team. Other countries have factions within their support based on club loyalties or regional differences. I don't want to be half the way around the world and being suspicious of my peers or having to hold back and behave all PC in the company of other Ireland fans. And I'm not even a dark green nationalist.

Uniting the two teams would only introduce a fractious influence to our support and would take away the essence of what we're about as Ireland football fans. The Saipan "civil war" was bad enough without having potential differences of opinion on sovereignty thrown into the mix.

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Originally Posted by Littlest Hobo

Best is a fcuking idiot. Can't think why anyone should take him seriously.
He's talkin the gargle again :rolleyes:
The gob****e believes 'a united side could be a force if they pooled their resources'. How the hell did he come up with that one. :confused:
Can't quite see brunt partnering keane in the middle or jones doin us any favours up front.

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Has the world time clock suddenly stopped? Will Brunt and Keane still be playing in 20 years or so? :eek:

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Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

One of the best things we have going for us is the cameraderie & unity we have. This is why our away trips are so special. The national team comes first for us and there is no political statement on show - the only statement is that we're Irish & love our football team. Other countries have factions within their support based on club loyalties or regional differences. I don't want to be half the way around the world and being suspicious of my peers or having to hold back and behave all PC in the company of other Ireland fans. And I'm not even a dark green nationalist.

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Don't agree. Team-wise, we had no problems when Alan Kernaghan - a former NI youth international - was playing for us (well, morale- and spirit-wise anyway! :) )

Fan-wise, the Derry lads currently support Ireland - you'll always see them in the North Terrace in Lansdowne for the competitive games, and they are one of the best for helping with the atmosphere. Many Catholics (correct me if I'm wrong here) in the North support Ireland. It's been happening all the time. You're not going to suddenly get a huge amount of Union Jack wearing Ian Paisley loving trouble-causing people (not suggesting the three are necessarily interlinked, incidentally) heading on away trips.

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Originally Posted by davros

Though DG as a token rep.of 'OWB' is indeed a fashion disaster......he could Definitely go back to his Caledonian roots! :p

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:confused:

Can't be that much effort to type full words, surely?!

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Originally Posted by Eire06

I am completely against a united Ireland team because firstly it would be of no advantage to us at the moment, but if they did have top class players to offer I would still be against it... We would loose our Identity as a nation..

you say loosing a few colours on a flag and a few verses of a song wouldn't be that bad.. If they take that away from us what do we have left :mad: .. What did the people of Ireland fight and die for, for hundreds of years.. just so we can give away our identity so easily..... :mad:

I find you comments ignorant and highly offensive.. just hope your in the minority in this country otherwise were fu*ked :mad:

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Mate, if you rely on a flag and a song for an identity, that's your problem, not mine. If Ireland or Irishness or whatever that means relies solely on symbols for an identity, it's fairly empty, to be honest.

Symbols are only symbols, that's all...If you can grasp that, let me know.

If you want to bring the martyr thing into it, they certainly didn't fight and die for a flag and a song, they fought for the right to live without interference. The song was only written in 1907, it was only adopted in 1924, the flag isn't too much older and does the flag not preach reconciliation anyway?

Let's amalgamate the two teams.
Then put all the Dublin and Beldast politicians against the wall
Then merge the 2 parts of the country into a Peoples Socialist Republic.
I don't mind where the matches are played

indeed, an irish flag of only green is what we should be aspiring to in my book. a la pearse and the boys.

in any case. the point is we'd be selecting players off a p opulation nearing 6 million - in 20 years that would give us a much better pool of players.

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Originally Posted by Donal81

Mate, if you rely on a flag and a song for an identity, that's your problem, not mine. If Ireland or Irishness or whatever that means relies solely on symbols for an identity, it's fairly empty, to be honest.

Symbols are only symbols, that's all...If you can grasp that, let me know.

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They are symbols which are part of our history and part of who we are today.. And I don't see it as a problem :confused: and no my 'Irishness' does not soely rely on the flag and national anthem, but they are part of it...

I can see were not going to agree on this so to stop this from getting all political and stuff we'll agree to disagree..


well said Stuttgart88 :D

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Surely, in the face of the entire Anglo-Irish history, a few things stand out. Firstly, if a few colours on a flag and a few verses of song are the only things we have to give up to get a peaceful united Ireland, it can't be that bad?

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Bóllocks ! A few colours on a flag a few notes in song dont count for much? A national team is the few things we have and I for one dont want to throw it away for nothing. Ripping down a successful team is not going to help bring peace and ur talking through ur rear end if you think it will. Soccer has nothing to do with the peace process.

There should be a distinction between merging the two teams and the north joining the south.

If the north wants to start playing in the existing republic team then thats fair enough. I would be happy to see some of them in the squad (if they are good enough). Maybe we can play a few extra friendlies in Belfast.

However I totally against breaking up a sucessfull Irish team, flag, anthem, manager, for a bunch of northerns, who deep down dont really want to play. Even the FAI are better than the IFA and thats really saying something !

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Originally Posted by eirebhoy

Has the world time clock suddenly stopped? Will Brunt and Keane still be playing in 20 years or so? :eek:

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As the old biddy says on the tv ad for saving energy......................its all a load of twaddle :D

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Originally Posted by crc

You're confusing the concepts of nation and state. There are two different states on this island, but neither one has a monopoly on the concept Ireland, even though Free-staters seem to think they do!

If France and Germany wanted to join together THAT would be a marriage of convenience! :rolleyes:

too true :(

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Excuse me? I know well the difference between nation and state. The two states are the Republic and the UK. This all Ireland national team would cross two states. The two nations are the Unionist and the Nationalist for want of better labels. So we would have an Irish team containing two nations cross over two states. Doesn't make any sense. Other than the fact we all occupy the same island what makes us so much different to joining up for convenience than Germany and France?

jaysis lads, i thought we talking ball here.
Bloody politix should be banned in ere. :mad: Always the same crap about the ireland/uk historical thing hijacking the stage :(

wasnt there a player who played rugby for ireland who used to tear off the shamrock from the jersey before each game?


do we want sh*t like that in football........

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Originally Posted by dynamo kerry

indeed, an irish flag of only green is what we should be aspiring to in my book. a la pearse and the boys.

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My history is not great but did "Pearse and the boys" not raise the Tricolour on the GPO in 1916 or am I mistaken.
This replaced the old green flag with gold harp.
The Tricolour as we know is green for ireland, orange for the boys up north with white reconciling them both in the middle. Am I mistaken ?

The little RA lads have tended to cloud the facts over years and forget exactly WHO fought for independence for this country - Protestants and English Catholics - FACT.

Men like Wolfe Tone, Roger Casement, Douglas Hyde, Erskine Childers and so on.

Poor old Besty. What have you done. I've been unable to see the reaction of the lads on ourweeminds but I bet along with Dougan, the old souse will not be having his face added to that mural on the footbridge near Saxe-Gotha-Coburg Park.

Give Besty a break - if not a new liver. He's living in the seventies when such an idea would have got some support. He's of the belief that a Brady or Giles or Heighway would have meant him going to Mexico, Germany, Argentina, possibly Spain and him never becoming the alky he did.

A few generalisations here. Like all NI fans are scum.

And let's not forget some grade A cojones like this...

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Originally Posted by barglee

wasnt there a player who played rugby for ireland who used to tear off the shamrock from the jersey before each game? do we want sh*t like that in football........

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Oh, and for those that are concerned about the flag, the last time I looked at it a third of it was Orange.

Jonathan Swift wrote a satire about two peoples going to war over which way was best to eat an egg. When people get so wound up about flags and anthems, it reminds me of that.

Lopez, you're spot on about the NI generalisation rubbish going on here.

The french gave us the tricolour, as to when this happened i dont know but i have a feeling it was around the 1798 rebellion

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Originally Posted by elroy

The french gave us the tricolour, as to when this happened i dont know but i have a feeling it was around the 1798 rebellion

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The national flag of Ireland is a tricolour of green, white and orange. The flag is twice as wide as it is high. The three colours are of equal size and the green goes next to the flagstaff.

The flag was first introduced by Thomas Francis Meagher in 1848 who based it on French tricolour.

The green represents the older Gaelic tradition while the orange represents the supporters of William of Orange. The white in the centre signifies a lasting truce between the 'Orange' and the 'Green'.

It was not until the Rising of 1916, when it was raised above the General Post Office in Dublin, that the tricolour came to be regarded as the national flag.

It is now enshrined in the Constitution of Ireland.

For example, assume these were the terms and conditions of a united ireland team, would you agree?

1 The team would be known just as Ireland
2 They would play in the same style jerseys as now, prominently green, with a new crest, which would contain a shamrock.
3 The majority of games would be played in Dublin, with approx 2 each year in Belfast
4 The national anthem would still be played at home AND away games
5 The Irish tricolour would still be flown along with a new united ireland/united fai/ifa flag
6 The headquarters of the new fai/ifa would be in Dublin
7 If it were to happen now, Brian Kerr would remain as manager, with Sanchez in an advisory role if desired
8 Finally if the two associations were combined, the eircom league and the Irish league would also have to be unified-this in theory could be a very good thing for the standard of football in the country.


Personally I could never see the IFA agreeing to the above terms, therefore I do not see why we should form a united Ireland team, if the above were satisfied I would be more than happy.

If this unification was to take place (don't see it happening myself, not that I'm adverse to it) I'd imagine that those who presently follow the north will support England (if they don't already ;) ). I've always thought that nationalists in the Six Counties support the 26 regardless.

Mind you, it'll Be interesting to see if any 'special' chants are sang about this at Old Trafford on Saturday. All the English people that I know who are going are expecting a bit of a 'love in'.