Another Nordie thread

[RogerMilla]

1. ROI fans booing Rangers players when they represnt their National teams in Dublin;
2. ROI fans stoning NI fans as they departed Lansdowne the first time the two teams ever met;
3. ROI fans abusing the Israel team and fans over Palestine etc, when they came to Dublin (How did the thread on this forum go? "Today I felt ashamed to be Irish"?);
4. ROI fans singing "anti-Brit" songs when out in Germany;
5. ROI fans wearing Celtic tops and adding "Up the Ra" to TFOA.:

1. daftness alright
2. ah jaysis you might as well trot out everything that occured during the troubles. an irrelevant point.
3. yup definitely out of order but surely a minority to say the least , there are idiots in every support.
4. yes , and i was one of them.
5. two seperate points surely ??
5.a. its green and white , why not wear it? , just like a bray or a rovers or a kerry top or even pnanthanaikos or werder bremen that i have seen at ireland games.
5.b. much prefer the "oh ahh up the GAA" add-on myself.

EG look you obviously have issues with our support , just as guys here have issues with yours. personally i will take your point that no-one has been to a NI game , i certainly have heard that it has improved massively and gspains opinion of course carries weight.I will wait until we eventually draw each other and make the trip north myself to see how things have improved. in the meantime hope you get pumped in every game!

[Stuttgart88]

I take issue with the comments of our treatment of the Israelis. The match atmosphere was fair throughout, booing for timewasting & cheating for example (Dudu Awat).

There was an anti Palestinian march in town & quite close to the ground. That was an organised political demo, nothing to do with football fans.

Maybe I missed something on the day.

The booing of Rangers players was never much more than pantemime booing. The way that the Denmark (Lovernkrands / Madsen) game panned out - with our fans booing our own team every time we touched the ball and cheering the Danes - showed how dumb but benign the whole thing was. Nobody could seriously say it was sectarian. Lopez, who I would be a long way from agreeing with on domestic political matters, is right to point out that Rangers has a long tradition of anti-Irishness, so it's fair to expect a reaction vrom, eh, the Irish. People in the ROI generally don't like Rangers. Irish fans, stupidly, have been known to boo Liverpool or United players 'cos they don't like those teams much either.

In Stuttgart in '06 an there was some 'RA chanting near me when a passing English bloke in very good nature shouted "Ingerland, Ingerland...". Personally I was disgusted by the response, albeit from a table of only a few lads.

On nothing other than TV evidence, supported by GSpain's comments, it appears that WP is a fun place to watch an international place these days. Irish home games have been a fun occasion for donkey's years now, my only gripe being that the stadium is too big for a big match atmosphere and there are twits who start a wave every game on the 20 minute mark. Isolated muppetry will take place amongst any team's support. Our support is rightly regarded as being good natured and well behaved. My main criticism these days is that it's almost become a bit naff.

I usually think EG's posts are fair and well made but the Israeli thing rankles with me.

[RogerMilla]

Dudu

[paul_oshea]

Dodo ATW@T

In Stuttgart in '06 an there was some 'RA chanting near me when a passing English bloke in very good nature shouted "Ingerland, Ingerland...". Personally I was disgusted by the response, albeit from a table of only a few lads.

Id say the chanting wasn't venomous, im not so sure an Irish lad could chant Ireland going by a group of English supporters when they are away from home...at least I wouldn't be the first to try it.

[The Fly]

I was born in NI and have lived here most of my life, apart from a long past but never forgotten 4 years in God's own country - the Republic, in the late 80's and early 90's . I have supported ROI all my life, as indeed have all my family and friends on this 'side' of society up here. This was simply a natural course and did not involve any conscious rejection of NI or indeed any contemplation top support it. I must say that I have never come across any different - on this 'side.'

However, in the new and welcome spirit we find ourselves in up here - in comparison to the dark times of the past, I have found myself - with great effort - at a point of trying to wish NI well. This is even though, firstly and primarily, I would have felt great antipathy towards them in the past, for obvious reasons, and secondly, they have made it hard to so at times.

The support in general and the atmosphere at WP have changed for the better - this can't be denied, though elements of the old loyalist knuckle-dragging do still remain, hopefully this will go in time. Many of them seemed to have changed allegiance to England!

It was only natural and morally right for this change to happen, and credit is due to those who endeavoured to change it (and continue to). I do feel sorry for those genuine supporters, of which there are many and probably make up the bulk, who have felt tainted by association or tarred with the same brush.

The anthem and flag will remain however and this is a no-go area.
.....I can just about hear a can of worms being opened!

The change in the support reflects the changes in society here and it will continue to change as NI moves further away from it's past. The NI team will never be, in my opinion, in a situation where it attract's the natural widespread cross-community support and proper fandom that other 'normal' countries do. There was and is a certain naivety amongst some NI fans that it would and that it should. The whole player eligibilty row kind of bleed into this for me.

Firstly, I was taken aback by the IFA's stance. The idea that I could have been denied what to me is a birthright in representing my country - had I been good enough to - because I wasn't born "there" is inane and farcical. Under the "old rules and the IFA interpretation of them" I and two younger brothers could have because we lived in Dublin for 4 years in the above stated period. However my youngest sibling could not have, having been born after this period despite being no different whatsoever in his Irish identity to me or the rest of the family.
I hope this highlights the particular stupidity of that argument.

I don't believe that any serious parallels were trying to be drawn between the NI support and ROI support in previous posts. There are no parallels, not presently and certainly not historically.
(not presently - perhaps on more than one level)

...my two cents

[kingdomkerry]

For the record EG I dont think anyone on this site would entertain the belief that you are a bigot. You are clearly a rational, articulate and passionate NI fan. I think that you do however have a slight blind spot that prevents you seeing the extent to which the NI team has been appropriated as an emblem of hard line unionism and why this alienates potential Catholic / nationalist supporters.

Maybe overtly sectarian chanting and songs have been stamped out, but you are wrong to suggest that the current fans favourites (GSTQ and Rule Brittania) are being sung "ironically." I suggest that they are being sung because they are current fans favourites at Ibrox, and because they are unequivocal assertions of unionist identity. You argue that the antics of loyalist thugs wearing NI shirts is nothing to do with the IFA. Well I think that the IFA could do a great deal more to wrestle back ownership of its brand if it really wants to. They could do what I previously suggested and adopt a neutral anthem and flag. They could ban union flags and banners with overtly unionist and partisan slogans from Windsor Park. They could ban the singing of other obviously partisan / anthems or songs and enforce that with the same zeal that has seemingly been successful in stamping overtly sectarian chants. The reason that they will not do this is because they dont really think it needs to be done. This would alienate and antagonise too many existing NI fans, and anyway what's wrong with "our" flag and "our" anthem, this is Northern Ireland and we are part of the Uk at the end of the day. Well maybe that's fine and dandy, but then accept the fact that most nationalists will never identify with the NI team and some of them will probably not want to play for it either, and dont pretend that the IFA is somehow trailblazing a new and inclusive culture that respects and embraces the nationalist community. It does n't and because of that it is perfectly natural and inevitable that hard line loyalists should rally to the NI team as one of the last fading symbols of supremacy. As the banner said, "Our culture is not a crime" - God bless Sir David!

He's not interested in the truth.

[geysir]

The aftermath of Lansdowne game in Sept '78 was marred by a riot in the ground behind the East stand when the Guards had to restore order by repeatedly baton charge a group of hostile NI fans who were throwing missiles. And that is the only reported violence from that game.

The Stuttgart square singing of if 'stand up if you hate the Brits' was referenced at some stage in some thread. by Gspain as evidence of racist or bad behaviour by our fans in public.
My clear understanding that it was in context of a humorous rapport with all the German supporters there around the steps and more so to do with a solidarity in the memory of the vicious riots of English fans on the very same steps a few months previous.
Then I find that the OWC are ranting on their board about some youtube video of racist irish fans. All very juvenile and beboesque

Generally I am very suspicious of quotes taken out of context and little YouTube snippets
and when forwarded to support a retaliatory argument makes it sound even more hysterical and desperate.

[paul_oshea]

The aftermath of Lansdowne game in Sept '78 was marred by a riot in the ground behind the East stand when the Guards had to restore order by repeatedly baton charge a group of hostile NI fans who were throwing missiles. And that is the only reported violence from that game.

The Stuttgart square singing of if 'stand up if you hate the Brits' was referenced at some stage in some thread. by Gspain as evidence of racist or bad behaviour by our fans in public.
My clear understanding that it was in context of a humorous rapport with all the German supporters there around the steps and more so to do with a solidarity in the memory of the vicious riots of English fans on the very same steps a few months previous.
Then I find that the OWC are ranting on their board about some youtube video of racist irish fans. All very juvenile and beboesque

Generally I am very suspicious of quotes taken out of context and little YouTube snippets
and when forwarded to support a retaliatory argument makes it sound even more hysterical and desperate.

very well said geysir, and i highlighted the main point of what it was for. The hermans were initially suspect about our fans, based on what had happened some months before in the world cup, I think that this chant was a show of solidarity and an outlet to actually show that we weren't anything like them and were just here to behave and have some fun, whilst also involve the local people. This is exactly what it did as loads of germans started drinking in the square and buying "those scarfs" and wanting to get pictures with Irish fans. If you were going to say "racist Irish fans", equally you could say "racist germans"....

[lopez]

Generally I am very suspicious of quotes taken out of context and little YouTube snippets and when forwarded to support a retaliatory argument makes it sound even more hysterical and desperate.

Of course a clip of film can be taken out of context, but I think the argument that NI fans are a happy, non-sectarian bunch these days is undermined by a film of them singing 'The Sash', even if this group of 50 - 100 chaps are what's left of the bigots that once followed NI.

As for 'Racist Irish fans' on Youtube, all I'm getting a lot of clips of Rangers fans for some reason when I type that in.

[Dassa]

I dont understand this continual obsession with NI fans. I'm an NI fan who hope the republic do well like us. Its quite disappointing for many on here to continually bring up the past and to search to find a reason to try and paint all Ni fans in some bad light. I fail to see how the hundreds of thousands deserve to be painted with the same brush week after week. It feels like that no matter what us fans do we just cant win.


I really thought Irish football on this Island had moved on.

[paul_oshea]

Dassa! Don't despair, I think you will find that the majority of people on this site, do not think that ALL NI fans are bigoted racists who discriminate against anything and one other than their own. We haven't a continual obsession with NI fans but when certain members of the forum try to say that those that wear, sing, whatever NI and try and automatically deny that a contingent of the support is still stuck back in 1690 we take issue. I for one, along with many members here I believe wish and like to see NI do well(maybe thats our own-you and I-naivety), I don't know whether or not many NI fans feel the same as you, and I don't know either way but from glancing over forums related to NI I honestly don't think they do, and there is still an inferiority complex, whether thats an inverse snobbery or not I dont know, but all the same a complex when it comes to ROI and their fans as though we are below you.

Anyhow point is, we don't obsess we simply point out and more importantly we enjoy to see others views, beliefs and opinions on this forum - as fans and individuals

[paul_oshea]

mommys alright daddys alright, they just seem a little weird.

[Dassa]

mommys alright daddys alright, they just seem a little weird.

[paul_oshea]

Cheap Trick.

[Guidedbyvoices]

mommys alright daddys alright, they just seem a little weird.

What are you on about man? Yes! I would also like to query as to what sort of dribble you sometimes post? Take a breath my son and put in the odd full stop here and there. It may make you look a bit more eduacated.Anyhow Mr O' Shea, you told me a wee fib didnt you? You are the auld pronane that posted on SC sometime ago and also on here if i am not wrong? I was going through some old posts in the Fans forum when i spotted your photo and it brought back some memories of our meeting in Dubland a few years back.Still not able to handle your drink i see sir. Am i correct? Have to be unless you have an identical twin and no one but no one could be that unfortunate.

[RogerMilla]

I dont understand this continual obsession with NI fans. I'm an NI fan who hope the republic do well like us. Its quite disappointing for many on here to continually bring up the past and to search to find a reason to try and paint all Ni fans in some bad light. I fail to see how the hundreds of thousands deserve to be painted with the same brush week after week. It feels like that no matter what us fans do we just cant win.


I really thought Irish football on this Island had moved on.

I dont think the majority of NI fans want us to do well and i for one dont look for NI's result in the hope that they have won their game. That being said all of the NI fans who come on here seem dead on , massively knowledgeable on football and fellas you would enjoy having a pint with. I , like most of the fellas here used to actually cheer for northern ireland , maybe that day will be back , lets see.