League of Ireland vs The National team.

[Stevo Da Gull]

I've got nothing against the national team, but like micls I'd choose Bray winning their next game over Ireland qualifying for the world cup.

[dcfcsteve]

Tell your mates in the North the English have a bias towards players at the big clubs, not the South. A player from West Ham is more likely to get picked for England if he transfers to Liverpool or Man Utd for example

Agreed.

SunderlandBohs - I think it's safe to say your friends are talking sh!te, and have been feeding from the whorry breast of 'victimhood' for far too long now.

Firstly - I've been living in England for 18 years, incl Newcastle, and never once have I heard anyone complain that southern players got deliberately picked over northerners. If I could be arsed to look into it, I'm sure it wouldn't stack-up historically either.

Secondly - one area I'm sure it doesn't stack-up historically is in terms of the managers. The vast majority of English managers have not been from the south. Keegan, Robson, McLaren, Revie, Greenwood, Mercer - all from the Midlands or North. I can only think of three southerners in-fact : Venables, Ramsey and Hoddle (all londoners I believe). So ask your friends why would Northen managers - incl some fiercely proud Northerners like Robson, Keegan and Revie - turn their back on fellow Northerners and pick southerners purely on the basis of where they were from ? Chip-on-shoulder Mackem nonesense.

Re EL v ROI : I used to follow the Republoic a lot. But since City's big Euro adventure in 2006, I have to say that Ireland games just don't mean that much to me any more. They can never mean as much as DCFC does.

It doesn't help that I had to listen to pr!cks with English accents at the Columbia game trying to start Celtic and IRA songs There's just to many cnuts at Ireland games for my liking.

[pixiehead]

Its simple... As long as people and daft consortiums keep pumping money and support into the English leagues the National team will remain rubbish.
when we start to build are own league and get money and suppport to help home grown talent the national team will flourish. Look at the Englands National team which began to deterioate as they introduced more and more forengnors to the game. Its the same idea different concept.
Club over Country any day especially when its riddleled with plastic paddys looking for notice and a cap to show the grand kids in some future comfy home in the English Country side !!!!!

[chipsahoy]

definitely take ANY eircom league team in the champions league group stages over any irish national team sucess. i dont know how anyone who follows eircom league football would say otherwise, its probably the best thing that could happen to the league

[Mr A]

Or the worst thing, as it could lead to one club having enough money to make the league uncompetitive for years to come.......

[sullanefc]

Or the worst thing, as it could lead to one club having enough money to make the league uncompetitive for years to come.......

Irrelevant. Bohemians' ground sale, yer man kelleher at Pats have made these two clubs quite rich already. Is a team getting to the CL group stages going to make things all that different to the way it is now?

[Ceirtlis]

Well, we have the U-23 squad now and lots of el players get called up for the underage squads.

I don't really know if el players are better than those in the national team. I would like to see them called up for friendlies and given a run out then, just to see how they do.

What really annoyed me about the Ireland squad was Kevin Doyle. Transfered to Reading and before he'd played a competitive match he was in the Ireland squad. That is insulting to the el.

Is this true?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/foot...ls/4287096.stm

[Dodge]

No, Doyle was a regular with Reading before being called into the Ireland squad

[bigmac]

Is this true?

no - he moved to Reading in June and was called into the Irish squad in October - not sure how many games had been played at that stage but he made his competitive Reading debut in August. While I agree with the general thrust of the argument, let's keep the facts as facts or else the next thing will be someone on here saying that Kevin Doyle was told that he'd be capped if he moved to England but not if he stayed at Cork.

Paddy McCourt is a different matter however - Nigel Worthington saying he could be called up before he had even arrived in Glasgow.

[Fivesilver]

definitely take ANY eircom league team in the champions league group stages over any irish national team sucess. i dont know how anyone who follows eircom league football would say otherwise, its probably the best thing that could happen to the league

Simple - you don't like your closest rivals doing better than you. If that's spite, then grand, I have no problem with the lower order of emotions when it comes to being a football supporter.

Sligo Rovers in the Intertoto or Ireland in the World Cup? No contest. But Ireland in the World Cup or Bohs/Derry/Shams/take your pick in the CL? I have some connection to the Irish team, being Irish, but other LoI teams are the enemy and their success is inevitably bound up with our failure.

As for the best thing to happen to the league as a whole? Get the morons off the barstools and filling LoI grounds week in, week out, and the extra cash used to improve teams and infrastructure. High quality football in packed, comfortable grounds. A fantasy maybe, but probably not much more of a stretch than a single LoI team distinguishing themselves against Europe's top sides.

[SunderlandBohs]

Agreed.

SunderlandBohs - I think it's safe to say your friends are talking sh!te, and have been feeding from the whorry breast of 'victimhood' for far too long now.

Firstly - I've been living in England for 18 years, incl Newcastle, and never once have I heard anyone complain that southern players got deliberately picked over northerners. If I could be arsed to look into it, I'm sure it wouldn't stack-up historically either.

Secondly - one area I'm sure it doesn't stack-up historically is in terms of the managers. The vast majority of English managers have not been from the south. Keegan, Robson, McLaren, Revie, Greenwood, Mercer - all from the Midlands or North. I can only think of three southerners in-fact : Venables, Ramsey and Hoddle (all londoners I believe). So ask your friends why would Northen managers - incl some fiercely proud Northerners like Robson, Keegan and Revie - turn their back on fellow Northerners and pick southerners purely on the basis of where they were from ? Chip-on-shoulder Mackem nonesense.

Typical of someone who lived in both Newcastle & Derry not to think before he types something. Read my post again. I said that they might be a little paranoid & if you look closely you would have notice that both Phillips & Richardson are Cockneys. And I'd like to point out, just like I did to my three friends, Don Revie played for Sunderland. But that isn't point I'm getting across. The point of the post was do we feel the same way towards the our national team? I don't care less how many northerner or southerners play for England!

[superfrank]

no - he moved to Reading in June and was called into the Irish squad in October - not sure how many games had been played at that stage but he made his competitive Reading debut in August. While I agree with the general thrust of the argument, let's keep the facts as facts or else the next thing will be someone on here saying that Kevin Doyle was told that he'd be capped if he moved to England but not if he stayed at Cork.

Kevin Doyloe was called up for a friendly in August that year but he got injured and didn't play so his debut was delayed.

[EalingGreen]

Paddy McCourt is a different matter however - Nigel Worthington saying he could be called up before he had even arrived in Glasgow.

That's misleading, imo. NW was responding to a journo asking about McCourt, in the context of a forthcoming friendly in Glasgow.
In the end, either he rates Pat or he doesn't. If he doesn't, he's hardly likely to discourage him by saying so publicly. That said, even if he does rate him, he won't want to have his hands tied a couple of months in advance by comments at a Press Conference.
Therefore, what he actually said was that if Pat settles into Parkhead and makes an early impact, he will come into contention.
And my own guess is that while the game being in Glasgow means he might come into contention sooner than would otherwise have been the case, it will still come down to how many regulars are available to NW when the time comes. In particular, if Brunt is fit and getting Premiership games for WBA, he'll be clear first choice and Pat and the rest will likely have to wait their turn.
But if not, Pat might get pushed nearer the front of the queue.

[chipsahoy]

Simple - you don't like your closest rivals doing better than you. If that's spite, then grand, I have no problem with the lower order of emotions when it comes to being a football supporter.

Sligo Rovers in the Intertoto or Ireland in the World Cup? No contest. But Ireland in the World Cup or Bohs/Derry/Shams/take your pick in the CL? I have some connection to the Irish team, being Irish, but other LoI teams are the enemy and their success is inevitably bound up with our failure.

As for the best thing to happen to the league as a whole? Get the morons off the barstools and filling LoI grounds week in, week out, and the extra cash used to improve teams and infrastructure. High quality football in packed, comfortable grounds. A fantasy maybe, but probably not much more of a stretch than a single LoI team distinguishing themselves against Europe's top sides.

when your closest rivals are craptown you dont have to consider such an idea!!!!