Month: May 2016

Right, forget about the English Premiership; the tiresome nonsense around Mourinho; Leicester’s miracles; Spurs’ calamitous end of season; even forget about Saturday’s Champions League Final. Now is the time to get yourself in the mood for what has always been the ultimate feast of football – the Euros; the European Championships; the European Nations Cup! Of course the best way to get yourself in the mood for football is to go to some more football, so once we’ve waved the lads off from Dublin and Cork this week, have a look here and consider heading along to some local games. But even as the league here heads towards its halfway point and mid-season break, we look forward to France by looking back at the national team’s performances in the 5 major tournaments we have graced in our noble football history! Starting where it all began. Euro 88.

Strangely enough in these days of tightly fixed cross-continental TV scheduling, we had finished our campaign a month before qualifying with a 2-0 win over Bulgaria on October 14th 1987, in front of just 26,000 fans at Lansdowne Road (people seem to have forgotten that it wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops as soon as Big Jack entered the fray). We had no hope of qualifying. We were 1 point ahead of Bulgaria and had inferior goal difference. They would play their last match at home to Scotland on November 11th, who had nothing to play for. And while RTE showed it live, no one really expected anything from it.We had no chance.

Then the most famous Scottish international in Irish football history, Gary Mackay, popped up with a late winner to keep us top. While there were celebrations within the Irish football community, no one – not a single person, and don’t let them tell you any different – could have possibly anticipated that this country would, within a few short months, come to a complete and utter standstill for a few Irish football internationals. No one had any idea of the absolute pandemonium that Jack’s Army would inspire among the Irish people over the coming years, or that a gargantuan, magnificent, monster had been born on a desperate wet night in Sofia. Qualifying for Euro 88 was the last thing any Irish football team would do even remotely under the radar. The Boys in Green have been front page news ever since. And as you read through this, you’ll remember why. Like you need reminding.

June 12th 1988 – Neckar Stadion, Stuttgart. Ireland 1-0 England

“Mis-kick by Sansom. In goes Aldridge. and HOUGHTON!!!! 1-0!!!”. The first in the near-anthology of George Hamilton Irish commentary moments. Honestly I didn’t google that. You don’t have to google information that is hardwired into your brain aged 10. George Hamilton quotes are like the knowledge required to propel your bicycle forwards. Or tie your shoelaces.

Legend has it that from 6 minutes past 2 local time until sometime close to quarter to 4, the Irish goal was bombarded by wave after wave of English attack. This was not actually the case. While Packie Bonner and Gary Lineker may have had their own little private practice session, whereby the Englishman would blast balls from 5 yards out straight at the Donegal giant, there were moments of danger at their end too, most notably when Ronnie Whelan hit their crossbar. Overall, though, it was a bit of a struggle and a toil to the end for Ireland, but we had arrived. And we had beaten England. A truly phenomenal start to the campaign.

June 15th 1988 – Niedersachsenstadion, Hanover. Ireland 1-1 USSR

This one featured heavily in my earlier profile of Tony Galvin. That night he gave one of the greatest individual performances in an Irish jersey in my lifetime, up there with Paul McGrath in Giants Stadium and Richard Dunne in Moscow. Ireland absolutely tore the Soviet Union to pieces. Ronnie Whelan scored one of our most famous goals and Galvin completely ripped their defence asunder. If England’s dominance in the first game has been exaggerated somewhat, it was simply not possible to do so about Ireland’s performance in the second. At 1-0 up, Galvin was unceremoniously upended in the box. A nailed on penalty inexplicably not given. Raid after raid brought more chances for Aldridge and Stapleton.

Then these Soviets; these footballing technocrats; these wonderful athletes steeped in a magnificent footballing culture over decades, hoofed it. As the ball sailed over the Irish defence, Oleg Protasov latched onto it and George Hamilton coined a phrase that has defined Irish footballing panic for two generations – “Danger Here!”. Through Packie’s legs for 1-1. But if the result against the English signalled our arrival, the performance against the Soviets signalled our intent to stay around a little longer than many expected.

June 18th 1988 – Parkstadion, Gelsenkirchen. Ireland 0-1 Netherlands

We were fucking robbed! Not the most memorable game or most memorable performance. With the exception of Paul McGrath’s header, we created little. The Dutch needed to win and we only needed a draw. They were the better side but the goal was so difficult to accept that I’m sure there’s a few out there still having nightmares about it. It came from a headed clearance hammered awkwardly into the ground by Ronald Koeman and going a mile wide. Wim Kieft then got a glancing header to it, and as it bounced about 5 yards out from the goal, it was travelling a good yard or two wide. Then it changed direction completely. Bonner had no chance. Replays show that – according to the rules of the day – Marco Van Basten was several yards offside when Koeman hit his shot. Robbed! Players fell to the ground with exhaustion. 8 minutes to rescue the draw needed to get to the semi-finals. We were done.

(very strange video below. Including a Mr. Boner in goal) 

And that was that. Ireland ascended into a true European elite that summer. Only 8 teams made it to the finals. Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, The Netherlands, Soviet Union, England and Ireland. No Portugal, France, Yugoslavia or Belgium, the latter having been well beaten into 3rd place by Ireland in qualifying. Next month 24 teams will compete and we only had to finish 3rd to get there via a play-off. In 1988 we had to win the group and to contend with the previous World Cup’s semi-finalists – Belgium – beaten only by Diego Maradona in that instance. Getting there was a massive achievement in itself.

To go there and to beat that English side – themselves also only victims  of Maradona’s genius and cunning in the previous tournament – was extraordinary. To so powerfully dominate one of Europe’s footballing giants in the Soviet Union was a clear statement that this is not a team of novices – this team, this country, should have been here a few times already. Then to lose by a bounce of a ball to the eventual winners and Hollands only successful team to this day, was deeply unfortunate. As was said at the time, we won a game we should have lost; drew a game we should have won; and lost a game we should have drawn. So it ended about right. Knocked out by the two eventual finalists. And we did all of this without Liam Brady – our best player arguably – who was suspended for two matches after a red card against Bulgaria in qualifying and was left at home. So we bowed out at the group stages but bowed out with our heads held high.

The best was yet to come in Italy. Euro 88 has often been overlooked, overshadowed by the mania that gripped the nation 2 years later. Everyone remembers Houghton’s goal,  but many may have forgotten or may tend to neglect Galvin’s superman performance; the closeness of the outcome; and the fact that jaysus, if the linesman had got it right, we’d have been in the semi-finals at our first attempt and then anything could have happened. Irish people click when “Italia 90” is mentioned. Not so much “Germany 88”. It was a phenomenal few weeks, and by the time the World Cup came into our horizons, football, for so long the poor relation of Irish field sports culture, particularly outside the cities, was front and centre. We’ll talk about that next time…

For now, say thank you to youtube and take a look at the clip below. It’s just fantastic. Everything, absolutely everything, about this screams 1980’s Ireland.  I never knew that Chris Morris looked so much like a member of a New Romantic band, or that Frank Stapleton looked so much like one of the lads in the crowd at a New Romantic gig… gold…

 

Look forward to France with A Yard of Grass 

Law and order broke down in Hampden Park early on Saturday afternoon. In footballing terms, Hibs broke a century old hoodoo and turned the law and order of Scottish football on its head, by winning their first Cup since 1902, while the pandemonium that followed the late, late, winner from David Gray, was a completely unacceptable display of disorder. A mass pitch invasion; Rangers players assaulted; goalposts destroyed; fights on the pitch between opposing fans and finally that oddly warming nostalgic scene of British police on horseback striding across the green surface. Brings me back to my childhood. But no. That was not right by any means.

I’ve never understood pitch invasions though. Every summer I cringe as I watch GAA fans leg it onto the playing surface and then stand around like small-town teenagers outside the Spar not knowing what to do when they get there. Nonsense, but at least in the native games it rarely gets that violent. The gobshitery that spills over onto the pitches of the League here is small in number and is very, very silly.  I view the pitch in the same way as Billy Connolly views the sea – We don’t belong there. If we did we’d be wearing fucking shinguards and boots to the games, not coats and scarfs. Some of you will disagree, but I respect the playing surface. I’m not a fan of pitch invasions.

I am a fan of a good song, however. And great, great football songs. As a Liverpool fan, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” has had me in tears at times – a song that is part of the club’s very soul, especially since April 1989, given even greater meaning in recent weeks. An anthem like few others.

But this post, based on one I did a few years back for Screw Music, is about a Proclaimers song called “Sunshine on Leith”. It’s the anthem of Hibernian FC of Edinburgh. And after all the madness inside Hampden had calmed down on Saturday, they gave a spine-tingling rendition of it. It’s great to know that in a weekend where hype, bullshit and fully orchestrated near-sabotage brought an odious prick like Jose Mourinho back into the sordid world of the “Greatest League on Earth”, a group of football fans up the road can remind you of the power of the collective. It was also heartening to see so many of the players knowing all the words as well. I’m not for one second suggesting Scottish football is a squeaky-clean antidote to the English version, but there’s something fantastic about this. A 114 year wait ended. Promotion be damned, even for a club of Hibs’ stature. It can wait til next year. In a world where 4th place trumps the FA Cup, it’s fantastic to see how much this means to those fans. There’s no way Saturday will be remembered by most for these couple of minutes, but maybe for a few like yourself it will.

It’s a bit special. And the very, very best of that great country Scotland. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INW-cZSg5xs

Football is not a television programme. As those who attend League of Ireland matches are often heard to say. It’s not something you play as a kid and then head to the couch or pub for the rest of your life to experience. And you don’t need to deposit hundreds of pounds into Michael O’Leary’s bank account and the British Exchequer to experience it either. But let’s make something clear – there is no such thing as a “League of Ireland” fan. Just a football fan. From or with a connection to Ireland. The fact that he or she chooses – often in addition to the couch and pub arenas – to travel up the road, to the next county or cross-country to attend football is not something noteworthy. It’s normal. Or at least it is everywhere else and could be here. “Are you an English Premier League fan?”. Sounds daft, doesn’t it. So let’s drop that ludicrous term as well, shall we…we’re all football fans.

This series of posts aims at highlighting the magnificent experiences that people have had attending football matches in Ireland, mainly club matches. We far too often see the hype generated by the English game, and although less so in recent years, the Scottish game, and see our own as vastly inferior. It is. To the former. The latter debatable give or take 2 clubs. We also hear endless paeans to the wonder of the native games and all they have to offer in terms of atmosphere and (that word again) experience. And they’d be right. At least a dozen times a year anyway. But we hear little about the club football games. The legendary days and nights. Title deciders. Cup finals. But above all else, in my view at least, the days and nights where our League of Ireland boys put it up to the Contintentals. And won. Or almost won.

And we begin with  a match a 13-year old me watched with his jaw on the floor, in which German über-giants Bayern Munich came to Cork. Played on a weekday afternoon – I must’ve been mitchin’, we’d no half days on Wednesday – in Musgrave Park rugby ground, it may still be the greatest result ever by an Irish club. My own memory sees Dave Barry scoring a 30-yard screamer to give City the lead. Youtube doesn’t completely contradict me either. Although it didn’t break the net, it certainly was a great goal. But Bayern, who had a few lads with newly enough minted World Cup winners medals in their lockers – Thomas Berthold, Stefan Effenberg, Brazilian international Mazinho plus a young Christian Ziege, alongside a lot of established Bundesliga regulars, all managed by Jupp Heynckes – fought back to claim a 1-1 draw. With an away goal in the bag they won the 2nd leg 2-0.

But as some of the posts on People’s Republic of Cork show, this match will live long in the memory. And Bayern did well to get a draw, with Dave Barry again going close with a free, while Pat Morley may have got a peno on a better day. As for Stefan Effenberg – remember we “didn’t like” the Germans back then, not like now with the beguiling charm of Jurgen and Didi all over our tellys – it seems he was quite the ballbag saying he would score a goal for every part-timer on the pitch. Well he struggled that day, but got there to equalise in the first half.

While this was not a vintage Bayern side, despite being runners-up and European cup semi-finalists the previous season they’d go on to finish 10th in the league in 1991-92, and exited the UEFA Cup in the next round to Boldklubben 1903 of Denmark (yeh me neither), it still stands as a massive result for Cork City and for Irish Football. There had been similar results in the past, and more were to come. But for that one sunny afternoon, Cork City put it up to one of the biggest names in European football.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROhbjeSYX-A&feature=youtu.be

Dave Barry himself was of course a great Gaelic footballer as well with a couple of All-Irelands and 4 Munster titles to his name. He managed City for 5 years, which included an FAI Cup win. Today he is to be found as a voice of reason on Soccer Republic and covering live football for RTÉ. Fellow pundit Pat Morley was up front that day, alongside current manager John Caulfield. Noel O’Mahony was the Cork City manager. He died aged 73 in 2013, and was described by the Irish Examiner as the only man to have “created a sporting legend at Páirc Uí Rinn, Turner’s Cross and Musgrave Park.” He played for Cork Hibs at Páirc Uí Rinn, then called Flower Lodge, managed City to the title at Turner’s Cross and masterminded this result in Musgrave Park. A great Irish football man.

In writing this series of posts, I’m not afraid to dig around online to put a story together and perhaps weave back the loose threads of your personal recollections. There are a number of games that will spring readily to mind for readers, but please get in touch with some suggestions with comments below or on the facebook page. Particularly decisive league games – we’ve had a few down-to-the-wire classics in recent years alright, or indeed any under-rated or forgotten great international performances. All I’m interested in is the fact that it was a game of football, played in Ireland, by an Irish team. That you or someone like you, was there. And that it deserves to be thought about and written about just one more time to try and balance out the endless and ubiquitous coverage from foreign football and other sports. It’s about showing the uninitiated that they too can be a part of something like that in the clip above. You can say that “I was there”. And you can discover that incredible atmospheres and great football memories are out there to be found on your doorsteps. Because, as I said, Football is not a television programme.