good article from gene kerrigan today - http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-top-people-milk-system-while-we-suffer-2982492.html
Football seemed to matter more back then, International Football anyway. A great great read and some good memories.
[size=7]The forgotten story of ⌠17 November 1993[/size]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWZUMO4QJDo
eature=related"]he says wistfully[/url]. âIf I could take one with me when I go, thatâd be the one.â
Not everybody gets to take the glory game with them. For most of the Wales team who had their hearts broken by Romania in 1993, this was the game they will remember forever. âI played almost 850 matches as a pro,â said Dean Saunders, âbut that Romania match still lives on in my memory.â In 2003, Gary Speed called it âthe most painful match of my career. I was devastated by it, to be honest, and I wish Iâd handled it better because it affected me for a long time afterwards.â
Those were halcyon days for Wales. They were 28th in the Fifa world rankings, a position they have not achieved since, and they were the subject of rare goodwill before the game. They received hundreds of telegrams, including ones from John Major, Princess Diana, George Best and the Welsh Rugby Union, and many people in England were more bothered about their fate than that of England. The BBC even switched from the England match to Wales early in the second half.
Terry Yorath, whose contract was due to expire the day after the game, had worked wonders with a motley crew, described in the Independent as a âhotch-potch of disparate talentsâ. Itâs rare to see such a mixture of great players and journeymen. With Mark Hughes suspended, the team for the Romania match was Neville Southall, David Phillips, Eric Young, Andy Melville, Kit Symons, Paul Bodin, Barry Horne, Speed, Ryan Giggs, Ian Rush and Saunders.
In another complex group, Wales needed to win by two to be certain of qualification, but any kind of win would do provided the RCS (Republic of Czechs and Slovaks) were not victorious away to Belgium. The RCS also needed a win to qualify, while Belgium and Romania required only a draw. Belgium held the RCS to a 0-0 draw in Brussels despite the sending off of Philippe Albert early in the second half; Wales, although they did not know it at that time, just needed a win. That was still an arduous task against a brilliant Romania side who had stuffed them 5-1 in the return fixture.
The clash of styles could hardly have been greater. For once, it would have been offensive not to resort to stereotypes. This was a case of valiant endeavour against temperamental flair. Not that Wales were without talent, but the tension of the occasion â and an amazing atmosphere that mixed fear, pride and desire â inevitably led them to embrace more classically British qualities. After the game, a Romanian journalist asked Yorath, almost out of sympathy, âWill you never change from kick and rush?â Florin Raducioiu, the Romanian centre forward, said Giggs needed to escape English football to fulfil his talent.
Wales so nearly achieved a monumental triumph of the human spirit, but Romania were much the classier side. Of course they were. In the first half Dan Petrescu hit the post from three yards and Ilie Dumitrescu smashed over the bar from 12 yards after an exhilarating counter-attack. Gheorghe Hagi was his usual influence, drifting in dangerously from the right flank to send a number of long-range shots high or wide. After one such effort, the peerless BBC commentator Barry Davies sounded a warning. âHe hasnât found the accuracy but I must say it worries me that heâs running at people and heâs finding space.â
It seems truly absurd with hindsight, but at the time Hagi was playing in Serie B for Brescia, a stop-off between spells at Real Madrid and Barcelona. His superior class was not in doubt, despite that, and he punished Wales in the 32nd minute. Hagi took a familiar, sinuous route infield from the right and then, from 25 yards, drove a low shot that slithered under Neville Southall. In the build-up to the game Southall, 35, was telling anyone who would listen that he was as good as he had been 10 years earlier. He could not have picked a more inopportune time to make the biggest mistake of his magnificent international career.
Walesâs response was splendid, and they put fierce pressure on Romania either side of half-time through a number of set pieces. Youngâs looping header was tipped over acrobatically, then Melvilleâs header was cleared off the line in first-half injury-time. Another set-piece brought the equaliser after an hour[/url], when Saunders flicked the ball in from a couple of yards. Almost straight from the kick-off, Wales were given a penalty when Speed, by his own admission, [url=âhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/feb/15/www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWAx5hS36sk#t=4m08sâ]went down easily after a tug from Petrescu. âWhat Iâve always wondered is what would have happened had I stayed on my feet?â said Speed in 2003. âWould I have scored if I hadnât gone down? Would that have made the crucial difference and taken us to the World Cup finals?â
The BBC switched to the Wales game just as Bodin prepared to take the penalty. (Tediously, 32,000 people phoned up to complain, and you can just imagine the faux outrage on Twitter were it to happen nowadays.) He was an excellent penalty taker; six months earlier he had scored at Wembley to settle a crazy play-off final[/url] and put Swindon into the Premiership; he had scored three out of three for Wales. But this was a whole new level of pressure, the kind you donât imagine when you sign up to take penalties for your team. For so many people around the ground, he put the âBodinâ in âforebodingâ. [url=âhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/feb/15/www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWAx5hS36sk#t=5m00sâ]He hammered the penalty against the bar[/url]. In 2007, Observer Sport Monthly judged it the [url=âhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/jan/07/features.sport13â]46th most heartbreaking moment in sport history.
Wales continued to push forward, but something died in them in that moment, and Romania stealthily took control of the game once more[/url]. After a couple of near misses, Raducioiu slipped an 83rd-minute winner through Southall, who was arguably culpable again. Wales had lost at Cardiff Arms Park for the first time since 1910. A miserable evening became evening darker when, just after the final whistle, an elderly fan was struck in the neck and [url=âhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/flare-kills-football-fan-at-world-cup-qualifying-match-1505057.htmlâ]killed by a flare launched from the other side of the ground.
âAt first there was a feeling of disbelief, of numbness,â said Yorath, who never managed Wales again. Within a year, Wales were a rabble, losing in Moldova and being thrashed 5-0 in Georgia. âIt was only at about four in the morning in my hotel room that I sat down and started crying. I knew it had gone. All that work had been for nothing.â
The scapegoat, inevitably and harshly, was Bodin. He did not so much have his 15 minutes of fame as his 12 yards of infamy. Unlike with Englandâs failures from the spot in the 1990s, there was no safety in numbers for Bodin, no Pizza Hut adverts. Just abuse from a load of pizza-faced idiots.
âAfter the game I can remember a group of students out in the streets of Cardiff giving me lots of abuse,â said Bodin. âBut thankfully that was the worst it got.â He may not have read the interview in which Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers called him a âcuntâ. âI became a better person for what happened,â Bodin said, âand Iâve never lost my temper if anyone brings the subject up because it did happen.â He is a sensible, dignified man who eventually found peace with what had happened.
And then there were France
At least Bodin can laugh about it now, as this video shows. David Ginola canât. Itâs 6,664 days since he was part of the France side that failed to qualify for USA 94, yet the fallout is still going on. The 2-1 defeat at home to Bulgaria sparked a bitter feud between the manager GĂŠrard Houllier and David Ginola. It was reignited late last year when Houllier called Ginola âa bastardâ in the book Coachesâ Secrets; Ginolaâs response was to issue legal proceedings.
It had all seemed so straightforward for France. To qualify, they needed only to win at home to Israel or draw at home to Bulgaria. Israel were the worst team in the group, and had not won a single game. France had beaten them 4-0 in Tel Aviv. France had also not lost a World Cup qualifier at home for 25 years. It was such a formality that nobody even bothered to ask whether the fat lady needed a lozenge. The magazine Le Sport sent a print run to newsstands with the simple headline âQUALIFIEDâ.
After 82 minutes in Paris, France were 2-1 up, the second goal a majestic long-range curler from Ginola. But goals from a young Eyal Berkovic and Reuven Atar, both created by the marauding Ronnie Rosenthal, gave Israel a sensational smash-and-grab victory.
Even then, it seemed only to have postponed the inevitable. A month later, France needed only a draw at home to an erratic Bulgaria. Eric Cantona hammered them ahead in the 31st minute, but Emil Kostadinov equalised six minutes later with a smart header from a corner.
The second half passed in a blur of nailbiting and clockwatching, and before anyone knew it the clock read 89:42. Then Ginola, the substitute, eschewed the chance to keep the ball by the corner flag and instead launched a long cross towards Cantona[/url]. Sixteen seconds later, Bulgaria had scored. Luboslav Penev flicked a speculative pass over the top, and Kostadinov controlled it before scorching the ball in off the underside of the bar from a narrow angle. It was so unthinkable that the [url=âhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpwNv29XbbQ#t=1m35sâ]French TV caption read France 2-1 Bulgarie. The whole of France was in shock. Dider Deschamps, a tough man, was almost overwhelmed by anguish.
It was an awesome finish from Kostadinov, who had no right scoring from that angle and even less right to be in the country. The same was true of Penev, the man who created the goal. For some reason, Bulgaria had forgotten to apply for visas for both men before the game. By the time they realised, it was too late to get them in time. But Borislav Mihailov and Georgi Georgiev, who both played for Mulhouse in France, knew of a border-post where security was not as tight as it might have been. The two men sneaked in and stayed at Georgievâs house before heading to Paris.
Itâs fair to assume that Ginola has never been welcome in Houllierâs house since, and vice versa. âHe sent an Exocet missile through the heart of the team,â said Houllier after the game. âHe committed a crime against the team. I repeat: a crime against the team.â Houllier has always denied suggestions that he called Ginola an âassassinâ or âa murdererâ. He did, however, call him a salaud (bastard) in a book last year. He also said âIâll never say anything good about Ginolaâ in Philippe Auclairâs biography of Eric Cantona. Ginolaâs crime was not just to try to score a goal; in the buildup to the game he had complained to the press that Cantona and Jean-Pierre Papin were given preferential treatment by Houllier. Ginola was the darling of PSG, while Papin and Cantona were Marseille alumni. For much of the Bulgaria match, which was played in Paris, Papin and Cantona were booed.
âIt affects my personal life, my children, it affects a lot of things, itâs intolerable,â said Ginola a couple of years ago. âNow itâs enough. Iâm so sick of it. Until my death they are going to talk to me about this.â He was not the only man whose career had its defining moment on 17 November 1993.
⢠Rob Smyth is co-author of[b][i] Jumpers For Goalposts: How Football Sold Its Soul[/i][/b]
super piece that. The Gary Speed bit is particularly poignant.
Felt that myself, showed a bit of an insight to him and how things got to him, but I guess we can only but surmise.
Football has destroyed itself, play-offâs favour the strong in all competitions now and we can never go back to nights or qualification tournaments such as those. I realise everything is rose tinted to a degree, but those truly were different and special times.
I donât think Iâve ever been as sick with tension as I was that night - it was a horrible experience. Those four minutes we were behind and hearing the utter hate in their voices and seeing it on their faces made we want to join the RA. I skipped school the next morning, got the train to Dundalk, headed over to Crossmaglen on the bike and took my Green Book test on the Friday. The legendary sniper Micheal Caraher was teaching me how to shoot Brits on the Saturday. Ah, great days, great days.
Looks a good article that - will give it a read later.
Was at the airport the day of that game. Irish team only flew up mid-afternoon. Got all the autographs but not McLoughlinâs because I wasnât bothered with him. Think that was as nervous a game as any of those in finals tournaments.
Thanks for posting article mbb but speak for yourself on the above point mbb. I donât think our current crop of players care less about qualifying for a major tournament than Charlton group. Speaking personally, this is probably the highlight of my sporting viewing career thus far!
While many are fascinated by English club football above anything else I think there are still significant group who have Irish soccer team as their primary interest. While quantity of fans may have decreased (and this is a matter of some dispute) I think it is very hard to judge individuals or groups levels of interest.
Youâre welcome Larry. We differ greatly there so and I would firmly believe youâre in a minority on that one.
What would it be for you so?
Are you talking about a single moment or âthe journeyâ? For a single moment I would imagine you are speaking about the away leg to Estonia? For a single moment of viewing, in relation to the Rep of Ireland side I would take either home to the Netherlands watching in Slane or Gelsenkirchen for nostalgia purposes of my childhood.
As for general sporting terms personal GAA ones will top much of it for me.
While it pleases me to see this Irish side do well, Association Football just doesnât grab in the way it did back then. Perhaps we were all more innocent, there was less TV, what was rare was special. It was different times, players exploded onto your screen in big tournaments or qualifier games, you caught glimpses of them, whispers, you didnt see them all over SKY in the Champions League and highlights shows across ESPN etc. This isnt a bad thing, its just different.
I am not taking from this current side, I would like to make that clear, as stated here many times, they are a great bunch of lads, its just not the same as it used to be, the game, or the emotions. Personally speaking. Reading that article just reinforced that feeling for me.
No Iâm talking about the upcoming European Championships. Estonia away game was great obviously but if talking about individual Irish games the match against Holland in Lansdowne probably a highlight. Subsequent World Cup was a letdown though with all that went on prior to it. This coming championships should be magnificent imo and it is a a fantastic achievement to qualify alone.
I agree with what your saying about association football and the abundance of television and hype. When I was a kid I would have watched any football on television be it club or interntaional football. In them days thereâd only be a match or two a week. We then got Sky into my home and initially I watched everything on it but then became little sick of it. Have found I enjoy it far more now when I only watch a few club games a month (mainly Celtic, odd Norwich game as have financial interest there and La Liga) and all the international teams games.
I think Iâve always held the same excitement leading up to any tournament, its just human nature. Even after Saipan the anticipation grew again in the lead up to the Cameroon game, eventually. Weâre optimistic creatures naturally, weâll always hope and believe. This is no different. The Euroâs tend to be far more exciting anyway given the smaller number of teams and greater quality of games. Just great to be involved as things stand.
Respond to my question in the Sunday game thread pleaseâŚ
Yeah agreed. Have set up a thread on this theme
Sad to read of the death of Marie Colvin in Syria today. Used always think her articles were good when I used to get the Sunday Times. Particularly remember she was in Zimbabwe in the lead up to an election and did some good articles detailing how ZANU-PF were intimidating the population in areas where MDC were popular. RIP.
+1, she was a brilliant journalist, I was listening to one of her reports from Homs yesterday, talking about watching a 2 year boy die of his shrapnel wounds. She was comparing Homs to Srebrenica and asking why the international community were not taking action, considering the investigations into what happened in Srebrenica. She lost an eye in Sri Lanka in 2001. People like this are vital and she is a large loss to journalism. RIP.
Using this thread to wish the best of luck to forum friend Ewan MacKenna who has been nominated for Sports Reporter of the Year, TFK is behind you Ewan 
[font=Helvetica]
Sports Reporter of the Year
Dion Fanning, Sunday Independent
Martin Breheny, Irish Independent
Malachy Clerkin, The Irish Times
Keiran Cunningham, Irish Daily Star
Ewan MacKenna, Irish Examiner
Philip Quinn, Irish Daily Mail
Sports Columnist of the Year
Neil Francis, Sunday Independent
Eamonn Sweeney, Sunday Independent
Keith Duggan, The Irish Times
Dion Fanning, Sunday Independent
Roy Curtis, Sunday World[/font]
[font=Helvetica]
Winners announced next Thursday at an awards ceremony at Dublinâs Four Seasons Hotel,
[/font]
Iâd give it to Malachy Clerkin myself - heâs really upped his game in the last year.
Keith Duggan as columnist always has a humourous yet insightful view of the latest sporting talking-point
This deserves to be in here. Thereâs some crackers of articles in there including the one I posted on another thread by David Walsh about Heffoâs Dubs.
http://freepdfhosting.com/3a995efbca.pdf]http://freepdfhosting.com/3a995efbca.pdf
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]Article from Times about Gazza - George Caulkin
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]Pink, pudgy and dipped in chip-fat â I remember Paul Gascoigne. Hair shorn above the ears, gurning grin where teeth should be, shorts too tight â I remember him. As ugly as sin and as sexy as it, too, because with a ball at his boot-tips and running at full tilt, Iâve never seen football so muscular or beautiful. I remember Paul Gascoigne and, by God, I love him.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]Close to the touchline, an off day at St Jamesâ Park, I remember a shout of exasperation from nearby: âPull your finger out Gazza, man, you fat bastard.â And he did, first one finger and then another, holding them aloft in a rigid V, with a âf*** offâ and a wink thrown in. I donât recall complaints to stewards, demands for an arrest, front-page exposĂŠs or questions in the House. I remember laughter.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]I remember seeing him sprint forward from the centre circle. He looked too big for the pitch, let alone his strip, but when he moved, the ungainly became poetic, although it was a violent sort of artistry â elbows and sharp edges â that took him around, past and occasionally through defenders. It looked like human bagatelle, the ball clacking between his feet, and yet somehow under control, the only aspect of his life that was.
<p><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, âTimes New Romanâ, Times, serif;font-size:15px;text-align:center;]</span></p>
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]The North East could not contain him, but talent drained away frequently back then and when he moved from Newcastle United to Tottenham Hotspur, an axis shifted with him. He was such a draw, such a force. When he burst into Sir Bobby Robsonâs England squad and refused to be ignored, I remember feeling differently about my country; it wasnât just Thatcherâs country, it was Gazzaâs. And he was ours.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]That era of Robsonâs; Gascoigne, Beardsley, Waddle, Robson, men from a region of coal, steel and shipbuilding. That felt like some sort of affirmation. I remember those tears â âthe tears that watered the Turin pitchâ as Sir Bobby would refer to them â because for people who adored football it brought a wider acceptance that our sport could bring emotion of a warming kind, even if the source was sadness. He brought change.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]I remember a kind of role-reversal, Sir Bobby wiping moisture from his face when, in his last, ailing months, he spoke of Gascoigneâs mountainous heart, of how heâd tried to buy his former manager a disability scooter, an absurd act of generosity that he could ill afford. âPaul cried in the service of his country, but itâs far too soon for us to be shedding tears for him,â Robson said then. It still is.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]âNewcastle saw the start of him, red-faced and chubby though he was back them,â Sir Bobby once wrote. âHe could head the ball, pass it, dribble with it, shoot and heâd train all day. He drove his managers mad, of course, because he never lost that precociousness, his cocky stupidity, his willingness to do anything in search of a quick laugh. But he remained so popular because he was such an innocent.â
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]Iâve read about the daft stories. The sweet and heart-melting ones, like when he reported for training at Newcastle as a kid, found nobody there because the session had been cancelled and went carol singing to earn his bus fare home. The daftness that became a mania, a compulsion, the addictions which left his body wracked and mind addled. But I do not know if they are fact or legend and do not remember them, because I was not there.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]I do not condone the lapses, the appalling behaviour, but do my best not to offer judgments on the private lives of others, for the simple reason that I wouldnât want judgment on mine. There are exceptions to that, because Iâm a hypocrite â Nile Ranger makes my every pore ache â but I try to disassociate Paul Gascoigne the player from whatever âGazzaâ now represents.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]Iâve written before about the temptations Tyneside offers. I grew up with footballers and flirted on the fringes of that extraordinary life and can remember how it felt to have a drink in your hand with faces turned in your direction, how money and alcohol and testosterone and danger can provide a headlong rush. How being close to home can also feel like Hollywood. It was a blast; less so, when I woke up in a hospital, scabbed and reeking
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]Iâve been thinking about Gascoigne this week, and it is only partially because of the latest series of photographs and tales, the drinking, and the slurring and another last chance. I thought of him because of Danny Graham, the centre forward who joined Sunderland from Swansea City last month and has been newsworthy because of his boyhood allegiance to Newcastle and the careless way he once expressed it.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]I thought of how a career, a life, can be shaped by one action, one comment, one sip, one grave error or, in Gascoigneâs case, one horrendous tackle which led to a compendium of grief. âGod knows what he would have gone on to achieve if he hadnât flung himself so recklessly at Gary Charles, but I think people would have talked about him in the same breath as George Best, Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish,â Robson said.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]The connection with Gascoigne is tenuous, at best, but you donât always know what sets something off and I like the fact that Graham wanted to come home, that he pushed for it to happen in the knowledge that it might cause himself a ripple of difficulty. A story does not have to be set in stone, not yet, and an indiscretion about Sunderland in a Watford fanzine does not have to be his; I wish him a bucketload of goals.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]It is difficult not to think about Gascoigne, because he still forms a frame of reference. As Ian Bothamâs absence hung over Englandâs cricket team until the Ashes were claimed and a different standard set, Gascoigne is still the comparison we make; his potential and personality linger. When Jack Wilshereâs performance against Brazil is examined, it is for echoes of his predecessor.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]Sir Bobby was a mentor and became a friend, but Iâve never met Gascoigne. I came close to it last May when the statue of Sir Bobby outside St Jamesâ, looking out towards the city and Co Durham, was unveiled. He was being interviewed there and I wanted to say something, about the memories he had given, but shied away. He looked shaky and wizened and I doubted he craved saccharine from a journalist.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]As Gascoigne has diminished, he has continued to nourish my profession and I do not like that. This is not much of a blog and I apologise for it, because I have nothing to add about alcohol or refueling or treatment centres. I hope he gets well, but cannot begin to understand what responsibility lies with him or where others might have intervened. Iâm not interested in casting blame. As Iâve made plain, tediously, I just remember him.
<p style="font-size:15px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;]Gascoigneâs narrative is there, in black and white, and it cannot be altered, but I remember him from before then, shirt streaked in the same shades, sun-lamp tanned and shiny, barging across the grass, boisterous and bossy and delicate. I would give a lot to stop the clocks and plot a course back in time for one more of those moments when he hinted at unshackled possibility, but less for his sake. Him doing his job made me want to do mine.