I think that night it may have been a protest group rather than republic soccer fans .
Ye are very young. I remember watching Ireland V France after school in October 1981. We beat them 3-2 . That was some group, just missed out on qualification.
Rank Team Pts Pld W D L GF GA GD
1 Belgium 11 8 5 1 2 12 9 +3
2 France 10 8 5 0 3 20 8 +12
3 Ireland 10 8 4 2 2 17 11 +6
4 Holland 9 8 4 1 3 11 7 +4
5 Cyprus 0 8 0 0 8 4 29 −25
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Great article for you there @mickee321
Edit: Sorry @Sidney
Never realised you had already put it up.
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Was he anything to former Celtic manager Dr Jo Venglos ?
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my very earliest d say is the 86 WC QF between Brazil and France that went to spotters
also that night didnt Wales play Romania and Paul Bodin missed a penalty in the cardiff arms park
it was remarkable, koostadinov and stoichkov’ s goals in the Parc de Princes were incredible tho, and also you had the whole country trying to figure our what would happen if Denamark scored in Sevile against 10 man Spain…
I agree i hate the week of football crap, wednesday nights was where it was at 100%
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Christ, that is magnificent.
“That blonde man should not be on the pitch.”
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I watched that game in the Squealing Pig in Monaghan. It was, shall we say, tense. I actually learned new expletives that night. Complete confusion at the final whistle. Many rumours of a loyalist attack on pubs that night as well.
We pretty much all forgot there were other countries in the world that night. Except San Marino, we fucking found out about them. I couldn’t believe some of the results when I eventually arose the following morning. Football as it should be. Fuck this Infantino bollocks.
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I’m taking this one very badly, guys. As much as he was quietly such a kind man, I hope he knew he was quietly admired and respected.
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Graham Taylor RIP.
Stories about him really show how little acts of kindness can make such a difference.
Be kind is a great mantra to live a life by.
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Magnificent action there.
England had a load of chances in the first half.
Rijkaard’s disallowed goal was a mile onside.
Ronald Koeman should definitely have been sent off on a straight red. But he should have already been on a yellow after poleaxing Paul Ince in the first half.
Erwin Koeman should have gone too for a Paul Bosvelt-esque studs up late tackle.
Seaman was really poor for both goals.
England were very unlucky to hit the post twice from free kicks.
Shearer didn’t appear to be much of a factor - he had only just come back from his cruciate injury.
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Villa V Wolves this weekend should be an emotional occasion.
Sid Cowans is a proper legend and Gazza is a cunt. Great call again by our Graham.
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I loved it. Brian Moore and Big Ron in the commentary box too. Maybe it’s nostalgia but where did the good English football commentators go? The terrestrial TV stations in the UK have Guy Mowbray and Clive Tyldesley as their main men. There’s nobody coming through the Sky Sports production line to adequately replace the aging Martin Tyler either.
Seaman was brutal for the goals alright. There’s giving the wall responsibility for one side and there’s standing at the bloody post. As Moore said, Koeman only had to “flick” it over the wall and it was in. I’m not sure how you’d even describe the second goal. It was outside the box but there was absolutely no power in it. It was a kind of squirted effort and Seaman got nowhere near it.
Death is busy in 2017 thus far .
I’ll be curious to see what the bould Eamon Dunphy has to say about Taylor. He ridiculed him during those 1992 Euros and was absolutely scathing over the decision to take off Lineker, suggesting that as a man of small character he couldn’t stand a phenomenon like Lineker and felt compelled to belittle him.
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A commentator’s voice is his primary tool. Obviously it helps if they are good analysts of the game, but they need to have character in their voice.
The focus group ideology seems to have taken hold in term of selecting younger commentators, and association football is far from unique in this regard. Younger commentators tend to have very forgettable voices, and to me this appears to be the result of a conscious decision by television stations to pick commentators with neutral, non-offensive tones of voice. I honestly can’t tell the difference between most of the younger commentators on Match of the Day now.
Jonathan Pearce and Ian Crocker are the only two “younger” UK association football commentators who you’d immediately recognise, and I’m taking serious poetic licence by calling them “younger” as both have been around since the 90s.
All the great commentators across different sports have had immediately recognisable voices. But you’d imagine that few of them would have made it nowadays as their voices would be deemed to be either too “harsh” (Sid Waddell, Murray Walker, Ted Lowe, Richie Benaud, John Motson, Michael O’Hehir, Micheal O’Muircheartaigh) or too posh sounding (Brian Moore, Barry Davies, Peter Jones, Bryon Butler, Peter Alliss, Dan Maskell, Peter O’Sullevan, Fred Cogley).
Or maybe it’s just a function of how accents, particularly amongst the cohort of people who do media and journalism courses, have tended to evolve and be neutralised due to the influence of US television?
Broadcasters of the past tended to get into commentating via a more diverse set of routes than from the media and journalism courses that are standard nowadays.
No love for Eddie Waring?
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He wouldn’t pick Chris Waddle either.