20 years to the day that.....

[Stuttgart88]

Yes, after playing a blinder. The red card put him out of the first couple of games in Germany though Jack would probably not have played him anyway. The red card was worth it for the continental style "fcuk you" gesture he made to his opponent leaving the pitch. Great game, great performance.

The away game in Bulgaria was won by a penalty for a foul outside the box by Moran I think. My cousin was at it and he said the army had their guns pointed very agitatedly at the Irish all during the game.

[Wolfie]

Imagine missing those last 5 minutes They'll stay with me until my dying day unless the Alzeimers kicks in before that .

As for the Rangers players pulling out, don't remember anything about that but since it was an irrelevant game for the Scots I wouldn't have been surprised by their top players pulling out. It was a wet and miserable day in Sofia. I am only now imagining what it must have been like for the Bulgars trudging home in the rain after that game, having fallen at the final hurdle and back to the grindstone of another day under communist rule. Mind you, they were a team of divers if memory serves me correctly and I didn't like them. Did Brady get sent off in our last game against them at Lansdowne in that campaign?

That Bulgarian team were a shower of dirty *******s!! Brady was sent off against the Bulgarians in Dublin when he finally lashed out in frustration to the heavy treatment he got all afternoon.

Moran was done for giving away a peno late in the game in Sofia as well.

I was 12 years of age but I can remember the Scotland v Bulgaria game vividly. I watched at home with my family.

Nobody gave Scotland an earthly of a chance as they had been dismantled by Belgium 4 nil in Brussels in that campaign and the away win in Sofia looked highly unlikely. All we had was blind optimism.

I remember on the build up to the Scottish goal, a Scottish player was absolutely pole axed on the sideline but the ref allowed play to continue. What a moment when the ball hit the net. Incredulous, unbridled joy.

I stand corrected on this, but I seem to remember a Scottish player flicking "V signs" at the Bulgarians in defiance as they ran back to the half way line. The Bulgarians had attempted to intimidate the Scots throughout the game and the goal was partly a gutsy response to that.

The Scottish goal then led a charmed life for the remainder of the game. Still don't know how they survived it.

I was delighted for myself but I was particularly happy for my Dad's generation who had long suffered the campaigns of near misses and heartbreaks.

Brilliant.

[Metrostars]

Yeah it was a Wednesday afternoon, I was at Galway RTC at the time so a few of us went to Flannery's hotel to watch it. It was surprising in those days that RTE would show a non-Ireland game but with the slight chance of an upset, they did. It was a given that our qualification was over and there were no hopes at all ready. Needless to say everyone was in shock when the ball was knocked in near the end. The start of a beautiful journey...

Look at that Scotland lineup that day, some great players in there:

Jim Leighton
Stevie Clark
Maurice Malpas
Roy Aitken
Alex McLeish
Gary Gillespie
Steve Nicol
Paul McStay
Graeme Sharp
Brian McClair
Ian Wilson
Subs:
Gary Mackay
Gordan Durie

[geysir]

Yeah it was a Wednesday afternoon, I was at Galway RTC at the time so a few of us went to Flannery's hotel to watch it. It was surprising in those days that RTE would show a non-Ireland game but with the slight chance of an upset, they did.

RTE did show the France 2 Netherlands 0 game from 1981 live, when the only realistic favourable outcome for us was a draw.

[Wolfie]

That Euro 88 campaign hinged on some memorable moments:

Brady putting away that peno with the last kick against Belgium away, beating Scotland away.

We actually went 1 nil down against Luxembourg at home but eventually beat them 2 - 1. Imagine the campaign could have floundered on that!!!

[gspain]

Graeme Souness never got the credit he deserved for that day. The Rangers players developed Ryan Giggs like injuries and had to withdraw thus allowing guys like Gary Mackay to get a callup.

Just started work in my first job the previous month and nervously joined a couple of colleagues who bunked off for an hour or so that afternoon to watch the 2nd half. Lots were going to Germany that afternoon but in the end none of the others did go. I was never going to miss it.

RTE did show the game but they didn't show the previous 2 Ireland games (v Bulgaria and Luxembourg) in the group if I recall correctly. They did show games like France v Holland 81 (a draw would have sent us to Espana82) but probably got the rights cheaply and didn't have to do much work to cover it. In many cases they only covered home games when it was lucrative for them and the away country wanted a feed.

[Noelys Guitar]

I was living in London (Acton)at the time. About 7 of us watching the England v Yugoslavia game while listening to the rare BBC radio 2 reports of the Bulgaria v Scotland game. With about 5 mins to go radio 2 went over to Bulgaria and the commentator said that If Scotland were to score Liam Brady who was a studio guest would send over a hamper of Champers. Cut back to England game for about 30 seconds then the commentator says and now we are cutting back to the Scotland game. No mention of Scotland scoring. As soon as they cut to the Scotland game and no crowd noise we knew Scotland had scored. Commentator "And Liam Brady will now have to go out and buy a hamper of Champagne as GAry McKay has just scored for Scotland" Cue mental scenes of various pieces of furniture flying around. Just incredible day.

[mypost]

As far as I know, only one home game was shown live that campaign, the Scotland game, but all the away games were shown live. RTE didn't want to cut into it's Bosco repeats on a Wednesday afternoon, when the home games were played.

Bulgaria v Scotland was a 3.30ko that afternoon here. Bulgaria hadn't lost at home for years, and Scotland were long since out of the group. A shock was unlikely, especially as the Bulgars hit the woodwork twice by half time. They seemed to settle for 0-0 in the second half, and Scotland never remotely looked like scoring, even from McKay's shot initally. IIRC, it was Scotland's only shot of the match. The home side didn't take losing very well, and rained shots down on Leighton until the end. Somehow the ball stayed out, and Bulgaria had to wait until scoring in the last minute in Paris, before making it to another finals.

It turned out to be the goal that kept Charlton in a job. Apparantly, the FAI would have got rid of him had we not qualified.

[OwlsFan]

The home side didn't take losing very well, and rained shots down on Leighton until the end. Somehow the ball stayed out, and Bulgaria had to wait until scoring in the last minute in Paris, before making it to another finals.

I swore and swore at the television during those last gut wrenching minutes, not at the ref or the Bulgarians but at George Hamilton! Some day I shall try and find my betamax copy of that game and transfer it to dvd and prepare a voice transcipt of George at his finest. He was using phrases such as "It's time to crack open the champagne bottles -ooooohhh, it's off the post!!!!" and "Let's open our Deutche Reise books (showing off his German) - ooooohhh, it's cleared off the line". I exaggerate not. He had not only counted his chickens but he was eating them as well, as the Bulgarians bombarded the goal. I screamed like a madman at him to shut up but on and on he went. If they had equalised, I believe I would have murdered the man.

[Stuttgart88]

I remember George alright. Excruciating. I think it goes to prove that he's not a fan, just a reporter. As Geysir said, we've been paying for it since, Bratislava being the most recent.

[NeilMcD]

Yeah my first campaign was the qualifiers for Euro 88. I thought it was like this everytime

[Stuttgart88]

We got lucky right at the start of the campaign too, with Jean-Marie Pfaff going walkabout to bring down Stapleton needlessly in the dying minutes in Brussels. Brady's conversion of the resulting penalty just exuded calmness. Payback I guess for Brussels in '81.

The home form was pretty poor that year: 0-0 draws at home to Belgium and Scotland and a late winner to beat Luxembourg 2-1. We then beat Bulgaria 2-0 which was more like it.

[mypost]

We got lucky right at the start of the campaign too, with Jean-Marie Pfaff going walkabout to bring down Stapleton needlessly in the dying minutes in Brussels. Brady's conversion of the resulting penalty just exuded calmness. Payback I guess for Brussels in '81.

Before the peno, Hamo was going on about Brady missing a pen there in the 1980 CWC-final. What relevance it had to him taking a penalty for Ireland 6 years later, I still don't know.

The game against Belgium in '81 was in March, we had 7-8 months to make up the ground. Drawing in Holland in September, and letting France only lose 3-2 in October instead of 3-1, was more important in deciding who went through.

we've been paying for it since, Bratislava being the most recent.

No, the day we paid for it, was when Macedonia scored in the last minute in '99, which allowed Yugoslavia to go through instead of us.

[Wolfie]

Before the peno, Hamo was going on about Brady missing a pen there in the 1980 CWC-final. What relevance it had to him taking a penalty for Ireland 6 years later, I still don't know.

The game against Belgium in '81 was in March, we had 7-8 months to make up the ground. Drawing in Holland in September, and letting France only lose 3-2 in October instead of 3-1, was more important in deciding who went through.



No, the day we paid for it, was when Macedonia scored in the last minute in '99, which allowed Yugoslavia to go through instead of us.

Although some of the balance was restored with our late, albeit totally deserved, equaliser against the Germans in the 2002 finals.

We're still owed for the Croatia away goal in the 93rd minute in 1998.

[geysir]

The game against Belgium in '81 was in March, we had 7-8 months to make up the ground. Drawing in Holland in September, and letting France only lose 3-2 in October instead of 3-1, was more important in deciding who went through.

A 3-1 win against France instead of 3-2 would not have made any important difference to the goal difference.
After their game against Cyprus, France had a 4 goal better goal difference than us.

[RiffRaff]

I remember watching this on tv only because i was on the rock'n'roll and had nothing better to do. It had all the signs of a depressing day, being completely skint, watching the most boring game imaginable on this black and white tv that you could just about make out the out the picture on if you closed all the curtains. Scotland made no effort to get a win for us, the Bulgarians thought the Scots were so bad, they just had to go through the motions. The goal seemed to come almost by accident and set up a frantic finale. Like lots of other people, i thought someone up there had destined that Ireland would never ever play in a finals. I couldnt believe it had actually happened for hours afterwards.

[Metrostars]

My story is slightly different. I watched 85 mins of it in the UCD bar. A few of us had it on, attracting a few odd looks from the rest of the bar.

I left with only minutes to go. I had a date that evening in town with a girl I was after for ages. I walked home to Rathfarnham from Belfield (an hour's walk) to save bus fare money for 10 smokes later on.

I got home and my dad realised I didn't know the outcome. He said "can you believe they (Scotland) missed that chance?" He stuck the tape on, I saw the goal and just panicked for the remaing 5 mins, the ball shootiung across the goaline, hitting the post? and all that happened.

I then went into town for the date and in the same bar I met one of my old neighbours who was also a footy fan and we just talked about it for 3 hours. Needless to say the date didn't work out. Some things are more important.

Valuable lesson learnt by young stuttgart that day: soccer over women!

[gspain]

Before the peno, Hamo was going on about Brady missing a pen there in the 1980 CWC-final. What relevance it had to him taking a penalty for Ireland 6 years later, I still don't know.

The game against Belgium in '81 was in March, we had 7-8 months to make up the ground. Drawing in Holland in September, and letting France only lose 3-2 in October instead of 3-1, was more important in deciding who went through.



No, the day we paid for it, was when Macedonia scored in the last minute in '99, which allowed Yugoslavia to go through instead of us.

As has been pointed out we wouldn't have caught the French on GD. they also had cyprus last match.

Only drawing in Holland against the beaten finalists for the previous 2 world cups was hardly where we let it slip. We lost qualification in Brussels pure and simple thanks to Mr. Nazare. Lets just say it didn't come as a surprise to discover years later that the leading club in Belgium at the time (Anderlect)were subsequently done for bribing referees in european matches.

[geysir]

Valuable lesson learnt by young stuttgart that day: soccer over women!

Even a serious dose of the lovesick blues had an instant cure.

[lowroadrover]

You're making me feel old .I was in Sligo RTC in a lab when the news came through on the radio. Maybe Souness will do us another favour and leave the Ireland job alone