12/22/24
March 29, 2007
March 2004, FIFA ranked us 124th in the world. Now we're 47th. We've come a long way since losing our first ever international match 13-0 to England in 1882.
posted by JJ at 06:58 AM on March 29, 2007
Healy is a goal-scoring machine and no mistake. Glad to see Sanchez doing well as manager, he managed my local team a few years back.
posted by Fence at 08:23 AM on March 29, 2007
For those of you who might want to sing along...
posted by JJ at 10:04 AM on March 29, 2007
Go on Norn Iron! I have several friends in Houston from both sides of Belfast and they couldn't be happier at the moment. Do you think the 1 nil over England, even though it meant nothing in the WC qualifying tables, was the start of what we're seeing now?
posted by Texan_lost_in_NY at 11:30 AM on March 29, 2007
Tex, your link's borked. I'll add this one and eagerly anticipate yours!
posted by JJ at 11:33 AM on March 29, 2007
Northern Ireland 1 nil over England. I think that should work. Should have known to link to a blog instead of B 'effin BC.
posted by Texan_lost_in_NY at 12:13 PM on March 29, 2007
Awesome videos. I believe there's something in my eyes after watching the montage.
posted by Texan_lost_in_NY at 12:20 PM on March 29, 2007
Guinness?
posted by JJ at 01:19 PM on March 29, 2007
How freaky the internet is. The penultimate comment on that blog you linked to, Texan, was made by an English friend of mine whom I haven't seen for the guts of six months. He's coming to Oxford tomorrow (from Nottingham) to play volleyball and basketball with me as part of my Olympic challenge. How incredibly odd that a link - your second choice no less - posted by a Texan in New York about a football match in Northern Ireland should lead to a comment by and Englishman in Nottingham who I consider a very good friend.
posted by JJ at 01:34 PM on March 29, 2007
So who's going to bring up the controversy and ask should Northern Ireland and the Republic combine to have 1 football team? After all if the rugby lads, and the cricket fellas, and (I think) the hockey peoples can do it, why can't soccer? Actually, it'd probably be a lot better if the IFA took over the FAI.
posted by Fence at 02:54 PM on March 29, 2007
Looked offside to me in the montage, but then again you play the whistle and Cashley Cole is a jerk... who stopped marking his man. *runs for the hills*
posted by scully at 02:57 PM on March 29, 2007
Good work, Norn Iron. There are no easy games in international football, as Andorra found this week.
posted by owlhouse at 10:11 PM on March 29, 2007
as Andorra found this week I just spat cornflakes.
posted by JJ at 04:04 AM on March 30, 2007
Fence, I reckon in an ideal world, it should be one football team - in fact, in an ideal world, it should be one country (which is easy for me to say now that I live in England!) - but I don't know that it could ever work. Soccer seems to bring out the biggots in a way that none of the other games you mentioned do. I used to live in Northern Ireland. I was born in Johannesburg, but my folks are both from Belfast, so I'm Northern Irish pretty much. As a golfer, had I ever been good enough to do anything other than collapse in fear at the national trials I played in, I would have played for Ireland as one country and been proud to do so (although, oddly in a way, because when it comes to team events in professional golf, the same thing applies, when I turned pro, I was classed as NIR and not IRE). I just get the feeling there would be too much fighting about things like where the soccer team would play, the religious make-up of the team etc. I gather that the 1982 NIR world cup team was remarkable for the religious mix, but I was only seven at the time and more worried about running around in the back garden with my green and white football shouting "McIlroy!" at the top of my lungs before kicking it agains the neighbour's fence than I was about which church the players would have gone to if they were religious, which most of them weren't.
posted by JJ at 09:32 AM on March 30, 2007
How incredibly odd that a link - your second choice no less - posted by a Texan in New York about a football match in Northern Ireland should lead to a comment by and Englishman in Nottingham who I consider a very good friend. I have to add one more leg to your Magical Mystery Tour, JJ: I've returned to Texas. You're right...this never would have happened 20 years ago when we didn't have the Internets. It really does make the world a smaller place. Heh.
posted by Texan_lost_in_NY at 10:02 AM on March 30, 2007
I'm not going to touch the one country comment, not even with a barge pole :) but I tend to agree that for some reason football brings out the worst in people. We all remember the wonderful reception that the Republic got when they played NI under Jack Charlton. Still, stranger things have happened (you know, like Paisley and Adams actually talking to each other)
posted by Fence at 10:48 AM on March 30, 2007
Paisley doesn't talk to people, he talks at them. And then he does the big bug-eyed thing and they melt into a sticky goop at his feet.
posted by JJ at 05:13 AM on March 31, 2007
Our Wee Country is the place for all your Norn Iron crowing needs. I always follow the footie threads at Slugger where the vast majority of irish folk posting from either side of the border manage to keep it civil and friendly by and large.
posted by Abiezer at 09:34 PM on April 01, 2007
Wow. It was only a few years ago when they were scoreless for a year (or something) and winless in 16 matches. Quite a turnaround.