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Thread: Best Supporters in the World?

  1. #1
    Neil
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    Best Supporters in the World?

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    Green Army's ugly aggression just depressing
    Tuesday October 22nd 2002

    HIS days are a kind of documentary now as Mick McCarthy closes in on the end game.

    The panes of his world have begun to snap and splinter. He may be on holiday in Portugal but, most likely, a fax machine will be busy.

    McCarthy has long protested that he doesn't read newspapers and it has always been his least convincing line. Truth is, the media ended up mattering more to this Irish manager than they ever should.

    And now, as some try reading him his rights, Mick must feel like a man with a bounty on his head.

    He left Lansdowne Road last Wednesday to a symphony of idiocy and toilet-wall language. One chap ran alongside the team coach as it pulled away from beneath the West Stand, wailing obscenities through a plastic megaphone. McCarthy, head bowed, sat at the front alongside his wife, Fiona.

    We watched from the top of the lane, a gaggle of journalists and two National League managers, Pat Dolan and Stephen Kenny. As the bus braked before entering the night traffic, megaphone man found himself virtually face-to-face with McCarthy.

    "F**k off home you English c**t," he spat, his brain then seizing up, presumably from exhaustion.

    "Jeez guys," gasped Dolan. "This can be one mean game."

    Even some of McCarthy's most strident critics have expressed dismay at the ****-eyed belligerence he encountered in Wednesday's immediate aftermath. There was an ugliness to Lansdowne that night, a putrefying aggression that had to depress anyone with more between their ears than gurgling sounds.

    And it was an ugliness best noted by those now sneaking covetous glances at the Irish job.

    Eoin Hand could write a book about the dark underbelly of 'The best supporters in the world'.

    Hand's management of the Irish team was conspicuous for a lack of kind fortune. Sure, he had his good days (plenty of them) but it all ended in a shower of spittle and fizzing hatreds after Denmark won a World Cup qualifier 4-1 at Lansdowne Road in 1985.

    Hand had been incessantly thrashed by one particularly virulent critic and this was the mob's response. Phlegm.

    Others like John Giles and Mick Martin could give citations on the chameleon ways of a certain silt-eyed brethren still managing to contaminate the 'Green Army.'

    So, Wednesday was no startling aberration. It was merely a reminder that we, too, are susceptible to caveman acoustics. We, too, have adults among us who consider spitting at someone to be a form of legitimate expression.

    The bulk of Irish supporters know the score here. They understand. Some see McCarthy as a good manager, some don't. Some believe all our troubles will cease the moment he abdicates. Others suspect the matter may be more complex than that.

    Only the morons resort to bile.

    In all probability, McCarthy will not be around to endure their taunts much longer. I can't imagine, given the brewing storm, that those spring-time assignments in Tblisi and Tirana hold much lure now.

    I am certain that he regrets not bowing out after the World Cup finals. I don't doubt that, if he could rewind to that restaurant in Saipan again, he would do so.

    But the notion that, with McCarthy out of the way, Roy Keane will stroll blissfully back into the Irish dressing room seems hopelessly simplistic. Too much has been said and, more pertinently, written for that to be a simple commute.

    No matter what manager takes the reins, Roy still needs to explain himself. Not to you or me. But to the players he has, effectively, derided.

    The greatest footballer in the world (and Keane may well be that) won't win a game for you if surrounded by disaffected team-mates.

    There is an illuminating passage quite early in Niall Quinn's autobiography that hints at the cursed dynamic between Keane and his Irish team-mates.

    It recalls the night before the friendly against Nigeria. Quinn is literally getting into bed when Mick Byrne knocks on his door. The physio tells Quinn that Keane (who has just arrived in the hotel) wants to see him.

    "Well, why doesn't he come here then?" asks the big Dubliner. "Just go will ya," answers Byrne.

    The newspapers have become a chattering waterfall of innuendo regarding Roy's absence from Niall's testimonial. Some suggest Quinn is fuming with his Irish colleague. So, he dutifully follows Byrne to Roy Keane's room.

    Niall takes up the story thus: "He's sitting there, tense and uncomfortable and he says to me 'No hard feelings, I thought Mick (McCarthy) knew'.

    "I'm a little bit surprised. I thought this was something about which nothing would ever be said, but Roy is obviously making an effort and I appreciate that. 'Yeah, Mick did know', I say. 'It's not a problem, Roy'.

    "I can see he's embarrassed about this whole conversation so we keep it short, very short. 'Cheers' I say and leave him sitting there."

    However conciliatory his intent, the image of Keane effectively summoning a senior Irish team-mate to his room is informative. Why not go to Quinn himself? Did he consider knocking on a colleague's door somehow beneath him?

    Keane was, as Quinn observed, "making an effort". It may just be that he now needs to make a bigger one.

    Vhogan1@hotmail.com



    Vincent Hogan - Time out

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    egotism?

    Very admirable piece of comment there. Just have one question though. Would, for instance, asking a friend to pick you up to go out or getting someone to make you a cup of tea when 'you're nearer the kitchen' mean that you consider doing the same turn for them beneath you? Hardly. Suppositious nonsense, that part.
    "I don’t want to tempt fate, but Thierry Henry is not having one of his best nights." - RTE co-commentator Jim Beglin, minutes before TH struck the stunning winner.

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    very well written, and it does indeed belie the ridiculous myth that the irish are the best supporters in the world.

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    Best?

    The Irish abroad earned the title of best supporters, I for one still think this is the case. As for the morons identified above they couldn't even find Rosslare, never mind travel to an away match.

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    Re: Best?

    Originally posted by Wizzard
    The Irish abroad earned the title of best supporters, I for one still think this is the case.
    Yeah, how many of them are REAL football fans who go to REAL matches? Unfortunately I´d guess that at least half of Irish fans who travel think a season ticket is somewthing you get for your telly, or if you live in Britain

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    Re: Re: Best?

    Originally posted by Éanna


    Yeah, how many of them are REAL football fans who go to REAL matches? Unfortunately I´d guess that at least half of Irish fans who travel think a season ticket is somewthing you get for your telly, or if you live in Britain
    Why bring REAL into this.

    Do you have a season ticket for the Bernabau?

    Real Football Fans go to matches.

    They don't let little things like location get in the way.

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    Re: Re: Re: Best?

    Originally posted by Wizzard
    Do you have a season ticket for the Bernabau?
    What?
    I never claimed to be a Real supporter- I have said I´ve followed them for years, but City are my team. I´m talking about who people´s first clubs are, and as I´ve stated time and again, IMO REAL football fans support their own, not a TV corporation.

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    Moving swiftly alone from the hole Eanna has walked into...

    The type of "people" who (wearing a $eltic jersey makes them think they are some sort of republican) jumping on the bandwagon first are probably start the most vile comments towards managers as they jump off the bandwagon...



    Best Supporters in the World *LOL*

    Irish people have pretty much no history of supporting anything in large numbers - its handy to support foreign teams as makes thr band wagon hopping easier.
    http://www.forastrust.ie/

    Bring back Rocketman!

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    Originally posted by pete
    Moving swiftly alone from the hole Eanna has walked into...

    The type of "people" who (wearing a $eltic jersey makes them think they are some sort of republican) jumping on the bandwagon first are probably start the most vile comments towards managers as they jump off the bandwagon...



    Best Supporters in the World *LOL*

    Irish people have pretty much no history of supporting anything in large numbers - its handy to support foreign teams as makes thr band wagon hopping easier.

    agreed apart from the first line- though maybe thats cos when you walk into a hole you don´t usually see it

  10. #10
    Neil
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    Re: Re: Re: Best?

    Originally posted by Wizzard

    Real Football Fans go to matches.
    So do Barca and Depor fans!

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    what about the REAL Sociedad fans??
    "I don’t want to tempt fate, but Thierry Henry is not having one of his best nights." - RTE co-commentator Jim Beglin, minutes before TH struck the stunning winner.

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    Enough bitching about the Spanish soccer awhile lads. Question is, are the Irish 'fans' the worlds best supporters or not? I would venture that they are as long as the team is performing relatively well. Last Wednesday showed the truly ugly opposite side of the coin.

    Murphy Out Now!!!
    McCarthy Out Now!!!

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    Originally posted by Shed End John
    I would venture that they are as long as the team is performing relatively well. Last Wednesday showed the truly ugly opposite side of the coin.
    you mean no then

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    Originally posted by Éanna

    you mean no then
    I suppose I do. Thanks for pointing that one out.

    Murphy Out Now!!!
    McCarthy Out Now!!!

  15. #15
    Neil
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    Originally posted by Shed End John
    I would venture that they are as long as the team is performing relatively well.
    Quote of the Century!
    Absolutley brilliant!

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    Originally posted by Neil


    Quote of the Century!
    Absolutley brilliant!
    Thanks. Myself, Gunther and Mick McCarthy really had to get our heads together to come up with that gem.

    Murphy Out Now!!!
    McCarthy Out Now!!!

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