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MATCH THREAD: Northern Ireland v Poland Sun 12 June 17:00 (BBC)

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ToffeeTim

ToffeeTim

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Tomorrow is going to be a great day. After 30 years, WE ARE BACK.

My Northern Ireland take on Poland in our first match at a major tournament since Mexico 1986. Getting out of the group is going to be very hard, but in the new format, one win is probably all that's needed. So why not get it tomorrow?

NI will line up in our usual 3-5-2 with the probable team being:

McGovern
Mcclaughlin Evans Mcauley Cathcart Dallas
McNair
Davis Norwood
Lafferty Washington (or maybe even Grigg).

Poland have a very strong looking team on paper with the key man undoubtedly Robert Lewandwoski. But our strength is our defence and we have only conceded one goal, and that was a penalty in our last 4.

My head says 1-0 Poland but my heart says 1-0 NI.

Gutted to not be making this one tomorrow but looking forward to making the second and third games against Ukraine in Lyon and Germany in Paris. The buzz about the country is great and we have a team that represents the whole of society. Our manager Michael O' Neill is a credit to our country and hopefully no club sides decide to come and pinch him off us.

We may not look much of a team, but I'm hoping we can surprise one or 2. I even have my ticket for the knockout stages sorted already! The Green and White Army are ready. Let's enjoy the ride.
 

Bluerover said:
Best of luck TT but this kind of behaviour should be a thing of the past. There are enough idiots making a show of themselves in France without Irishmen lowering themselves to facile hissing.

The bulk of ROI people want NI to do well.


http://www.independent.ie/videos/sp...h-jersey-in-dublin-airport-34787985.html#play
Click to expand...

Disappointing that. There's banter and there's being stupid and over the top and this is sadly the latter. Thankfully it's a very rare thing at Windsor these days. Not that I'm old enough to remember back to the 80s etc, but I'm reliably informed things have improved massively.

Good luck tomorrow too. I'll be slightly torn in who to support but that's only because I got Sweden in the work sweep lol

A win today and a win tomorrow, after the magnificent win in SA yeterday, and we have quite the irish treble.
 

Bluerover said:
Best of luck TT but this kind of behaviour should be a thing of the past. There are enough idiots making a show of themselves in France without Irishmen lowering themselves to facile hissing.

The bulk of ROI people want NI to do well.


http://www.independent.ie/videos/sp...h-jersey-in-dublin-airport-34787985.html#play
Click to expand...


What a shocker......football fans booing a fellow wearing the shirt of what is the "local rival" team.

I imagine a group of Evertonians in that position would have reacted similarly to a Kopite in an RS top walking past :)
 
ToffeeTim said:
Disappointing that. There's banter and there's being stupid and over the top and this is sadly the latter. Thankfully it's a very rare thing at Windsor these days. Not that I'm old enough to remember back to the 80s etc, but I'm reliably informed things have improved massively.

Good luck tomorrow too. I'll be slightly torn in who to support but that's only because I got Sweden in the work sweep lol

A win today and a win tomorrow, after the magnificent win in SA yeterday, and we have quite the irish treble.
Click to expand...

I am old enough to remember some very dark days at Windsor. Great strides have been made to make it a more welcoming place and I sincerely hope more is done. Northern Ireland fans hissing a Republic supporter in Dublin is poor. I would however suggest that if fans of one country limited their displeasure of fans from another country to hissing then Marseille wouldn't be getting the newspaper coverage it is now.
 
Maybe I am naiive at this hour of my life but I don't think that I, or any of the supporters that I know, would behave in that fashion to a NI fan. We have too much respect for them.

Anyway, I hope Michael 'O Neill's team does really well. My best mate is from the Belvoir and is a Glens man. I know he would not approve of the hissing .....
 

Bluerover said:
Maybe I am naiive at this hour of my life but I don't think that I, or any of the supporters that I know, would behave in that fashion to a NI fan. We have too much respect for them.
Click to expand...


Yes, but you, nor precious few other people in the Twenty Six Counties, has the same deep rooted, indoctrinated from birth hatred of the Six County state that many, probably the majority, of NI fans have for yours.

Those guys in that clip.....the chances are they grew up somewhere like the Belvoir estate in east Belfast where your mate comes from and every year at July 11th since they were small boys would have stood around massive bonfires which would have an Irish tricolour on the top, waiting for the flames to engulf it.


Just like this one.....hundreds of which are currently under construction across NI for this year's performance.



http://www.artworksprojects.org/events/bonfires/


They despise every Irish symbol as a default position ergo that chap in the Republic top triggers that hatred off......despite the fact that he is wearing it in the airport of the capital city of his own part of the island of Ireland and they are passing through as "guests" en route to France.

That is the context that incident must be set in......and although I said in my earlier reply that we would do the same thing if we saw a Kopite in a jersey, the motivation behind it would be of a much different and altogether less sinister hue......football rivalry rather than a still festering political sore.
 

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