I completely forgot we were seeded first for the Euro 96 draw. We were unlucky to get Portugal of the second seeds.
He's always claimed that he was fully fit and that Manchester City refused to release him. He also claims that Jack Charlton should have done more to pressue City to release him and was afraid to do so because he was English and hoped to get a job back in English club footballl.
Last edited by Colbert Report; 21/03/2013 at 9:59 PM.
You're actually right for once.
From an interview with the Mirror in 1997:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/My+Wor......-a061121357Torn cruciate ligaments, sustained in a club game the previous November, was given as the reason for his absence from the squad. But he believes soccer politics also had a part in the decision which left him on the fringes in Florida.
"I didn't play in the finals, not because I was injured but because the chairman of Manchester City, Frannie Lee, didn't want me to play.
"The surgeon who performed the operation and my own doctor said there was no valid reason why I shouldn't have been fit some seven months after the operation.
"But Lee, presumably because he felt I might wreck my knee again, decided I wasn't going to make it. And at the end of the day, his was the voice that mattered.
"Reading Jack Charlton's book I discovered that he had ruled me out of his plans in March, a full three months before the squad went to the States. Now I don't know where he got his info, but that was way off the mark.
"At that point I was working my butt off to be ready. Now I learn that it was all wasted effort.
"That was the biggest downer of my time at City. And it left me with an even greater hunger to play in the World Cup finals again."
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I was astounded when I heard the OTB interview with him. He was spitting anger some fifteen years after the fact. Can't say I blame him. You wouldn't get away with that kind of thing nowadays.
Interesting he's maintaining that line today. This article suggests he was eased back into action with substitute appearances by City a good three months later. I wonder why they'd do that if he was actually fully fit.
http://www.scmp.com/article/87282/quinn-fit-comeback
He was fit according to the player himself and was working out with the World Cup as his goal. His chances were shot down a month before the tournament by Brian Horton who said he would not be released to go to USA. Quinn was gutted. Horton showed him no support at all in his bid to make the finals. And then Horton was gone from the club in a matter of months.
The very ones. John Salako and Andy Sinton were wingers by the way.
Wasn't David Platt in the middle of the park for that side too? And wasn't Palmer shining for a Sheffield Wednesday side who had not long since finished third in the league in 1992 followed by two cup finals in 1993?
You could be right, Townsend may have gotten a couple of caps for England but he wouldn't have made the 1990 squad or team. If he'd really believed he was good enough to play for them, he'd have declared for England.
Around the time he declared for us, he was playing very well. However, I would say that he may well have made the choice of playing for us and being a regular, rather than taking his chance with England. He would have noted that Ireland were a team going places - very good Euro 88 and would have felt that he could have played with us at the 1990 world cup, which he did. I'm sure he saw that we had a lot of excellent players at the time which would have influenced him.
I'm sure Andy grew up wanting to play for England, but feeling very Irish.
I do think that Andy would have won 50-60 caps for England without doubt. He was a top player and when he was at his best for us, England were pretty poor by their standards. Put it like this, he was a far better player than Palmer.
We'll agree to disagree so. Always thought Townsend was a good player but not a top player.
Even taking your opinion as being correct, the fact we had Bonner, Morris, McCarthy, Cascarino/Quinn in our starting eleven under Jack means we were carrything some fairly ordinary albeit committed players. Even Kevin Sheedy or John Aldridge never really stood out for me.
It wasn't like we had a glittering array of players that were the envy of the world. For my money, Jack got a tremendous amount out of them and deserves massive respect for what he achieved.
Agree with you that Jack deserves a huge amount of respect for what he achieved.
You are right that we had a few very ordinary players in our team back then, but we also had a number of really top players. I wouldn't say Andy was in the same level of players that McGrath or Whelan was, but I do think he would have walked into the England team.
Folding my way into the big money!!!
Was it Townsend on his Ireland debut who, after the Irish anthem, turned to a team-mate and said "Well that wasn't too bright; what's ours like?"
Wasn't that Mancini on his debut at Dalymount?
Maybe it's a common plastic paddy experience.
What about the story of Haughey coming in to the dressing room after we were beaten by Italy in 1990 and giving a rousing speech.
Cascarino turned to Quinn and said 'Who the fack is tha''? Quinn embarrassingly said 'Shhhh it's the Taoiseach'
Townsend said to Cas, 'Who the fack is tha'"?
To which Cascarino replied 'I dunno. Quinny says he owns a Tea Shop'.
Folding my way into the big money!!!
Yes it was Mancini
“I went over to Dublin for my first international game to face Poland, they’d just drawn with England in the previous match and knocked them out of the World Cup as a result,” says Mancini. “It was a great honour to be selected and I lined up at the side of the pitch desperate to get playing.
“All the pre-match ceremony seemed to go on forever then the music started playing and it went on and on and I turned to Don Givens and said ‘for f*** sake their national anthem don’t half go on’ and he said, ‘that’s ours Terry’. I didn’t have a clue.”
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