The Nation Holds Its Breath...

[Athens]

One for the SCM's Irish contingent. 30 years ago today...

 

[Rosco]

Everyone knew Timofte was missing that based on his run up.

 

[Athens]

Also, how old does the Romanian keeper look?

There's a funny twitter account which has photos of footballers from back in the day looking 30 years older than what they are.

 

[The Nomad]

Cascarino against 'this fella'

What kind of commentating is that?

 

[Atlas]

I remember on Koptalk where there was the livechat thing on the side..
I think it was Pete who used 'Packie' Bonner as an example of why it's ok to say Paki on the chat... and that it wasn't racist at all.

Look the commentator said Packie so hahaha it's ok.

I've spend way too many years on these forums.

 

[tombrown]

Jack Charlton took great footballers like Whelan, Houghton, Aldridge, O'Leary, Townsend etc and then sold a tale they they weren't good enough to play football and so had to resort to the Wimbledon style ... and a nation lapped it up.

 

[LeTallecWiz]

I remember on Koptalk where there was the livechat thing on the side..
I think it was Pete who used 'Packie' Bonner as an example of why it's ok to say Paki on the chat... and that it wasn't racist at all.

Look the commentator said Packie so hahaha it's ok.

I've spend way too many years on these forums.

WOW - I remember that too ... damn, that's a long time ago.
How's Anita doing?

 

[Athens]

Jack Charlton took great footballers like Whelan, Houghton, Aldridge, O'Leary, Townsend etc and then sold a tale they they weren't good enough to play football and so had to resort to the Wimbledon style ... and a nation lapped it up.

See, I never thought of this until I read it recently and there's a lot of truth to it.

 

[Richey]

Jack Charlton took great footballers like Whelan, Houghton, Aldridge, O'Leary, Townsend etc and then sold a tale they they weren't good enough to play football and so had to resort to the Wimbledon style ... and a nation lapped it up.

Weren't they mostly non-Irish players as well?

 

[tombrown]

No issue with the players who qualified to play for Ireland - that's using the diaspora, but what got me was the excuse that Ireland was a small nation (at that point conveniently forgetting the enormous diaspora) with limited resources and so had to play industrial football. To me it was a waste of the talent available to them, and there was no plus side as they won fuck all anyway

 

[Pesam]

Jack Charlton took great footballers like Whelan, Houghton, Aldridge, O'Leary, Townsend etc and then sold a tale they they weren't good enough to play football and so had to resort to the Wimbledon style ... and a nation lapped it up.

Nah not having that Tom; we had Steve Staunton, Chris Morris, Mick McCarthy, Niall Quinn, Tony Cascarino, Packie Bonner, Andy Townsend etc...........most of them were thoroughly average top flight players i.e. not good enough for top 4 teams let alone the latter stages of a world cup. We had 2 bona fide top quality players Ronnie Whelan and Paul McGrath..............Aldridge was never as good for Ireland as he was for Liverpool (but then he didn't get the same service).

Our strengths were; team spirit, physicality and good old fashioned CB's. McGrath was the key CB but he always had 2 others beside him.......2 from O'Leary, McCarthy and Moran. We were very hard to score against and we relied on long balls up to Quinn or Cascarino and knock-downs for Aldo.

I am sure we were dull to watch (as were Greece when they won the Euros with a similarly limited squad and in a similar style) but we didn't care.

England (in recent times) have had the luxury of a squad containing Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes, Ferdinand, Terry, Shearer, Owen, Wright, Beckham, Ashley Cole, Seaman etc and still couldn't win anything so it's a bit rich criticising a very limited Irish squad for trying to nullify stronger squads and actually reaching the last 16 of a world cup.

C'mon Chelsea!!!!

 

[Gerry_A_Trick]

A nation is holding its breath again now.