Well the 2018 World Cup has gotten underway unfortunately it is missing one team and one group of fans that would've made it better and going by some of the matches so far deserve to be there more than some of the teams that made it. That team is Northern Ireland, the team that I support, the country George Best was born in and played for, a team of underdogs with arguably some of the if not the best fans in the world. I've supported them from a young age attending matches with my brother and my parents. Often it was a case of Northern Ireland losing by three goals or more and the fans singing that we would win 4-3!
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| George Best |
After quite a long dark period Lawrie Sanchez was appointed manager of Northern Ireland and started to turn things around. He oversaw a brilliant victory over England in a World Cup Qualifier and then came close to overseeing Northern Ireland qualify for Euro 2008 That campaign included a brilliant win over Sweden but more spectacularly a 3-2 win against Spain. That match was fantastic for a number of reasons, it came a few days after a dismal defeat to Iceland at home (a match we attended or rather endured), it was the debut of Jonny Evans and not only did we come back twice against a team of Spain's quality but David Healy scored a hat-trick! Unfortunately having lost four matches by the end of the campaign we did not qualify and Lawrie Sanchez ended up taking over as Fulham manager.
Unfortunately the Irish Football Association made the decision to appoint Nigel Worthington as manager and kept him on even through poor results, performances and campaigns. He only oversaw nine wins out of 41 matches. He finally stepped down after the poor Euro 2012 qualifying campaign. The IFA then appointed Michael O'Neil who had done a great job with Shamrock Rovers. Unfortunately despite there being what I thought was a definite positive shift in the way the team were playing the results did not change and the mood wasn't great after the very poor 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Thankfully the IFA decided to keep Michael O'Neil on as manager but at the time there wasn't a lot of hope for the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign. People may say that we had an easy group but when it was first announced it was hard not to be pessimistic because in the past Northern Ireland struggled against teams at their own level or weaker teams. The first match was against Hungary away from home and at 75 minutes we were 1-0 down and it was hard not to think "here we go again". But then things changed, not only did we equalise but we managed to get a late winner! After the first win Northern Ireland continued playing well and with only one defeat, Northern Ireland managed to not only qualify but finish top of their group!
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| The captain Steve Davis leading by example! |
Around this time two years ago Euro 2016 was taking place and Northern Ireland were drawn in a group featuring Germany, Poland and Ukraine. It was a tough ask and the first match was definitely a learning experience but thankfully one where we only lost 1-0 to a team of Poland's quality. The second match was against Ukraine, a match that was actually interrupted by a hail storm despite taking place in June! Gareth McAuley rose to head home a brilliant free kick just after half-time. Northern Ireland then made it 2-0 with two of the substitutes working well to get a late goal. The last group match was against Germany and they were absolutely ruthless, so fast and powerful, pinpoint accurate passing back and forth and they deservedly went 1-0 up. That said Northern Ireland defended well and Michael McGovern pulled off what was most likely the goalkeeping performance of the tournament to restrict Germany to only one goal. Northern Ireland went through to the knockout stage and were drawn against fellow home nation Wales. Despite playing well and being the better team Northern Ireland were not able to score. Unfortunately Wales had a player of Gareth Bale's quality playing for them and he managed to whip in a nasty cross well into the match and Gareth McAuley was unable to do anything but direct it into his own net in his attempt to stop a Welsh player getting onto the cross. Northern Ireland were looking for an equaliser but there was a very frustrating moment when they were on the attack only for two Welsh players to collide with one another. For some reason the referee stopped play despite there not being a head injury. Wales then showed their lack of class by time wasting as much as possible with Michael O'Neil saying afterwards that the Welsh coaches had told their players to sit on the pitch for as long as possible. It finished 1-0.
It was hard not to think that the team had maybe peaked with Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup Qualifying campaign involved being drawn in a group with Germany and the Czech Republic with only the top team in each group automatically qualifying. Northern Ireland ended up winning six out of ten matches including a late winner away to Azerbaijan which meant they came second in the group and made it to the play-offs. We were drawn against Switzerland and Northern Ireland fans were optimistic which was maybe a mistake given the great qualifying campaign that the Swiss had. The first match was at home to Northern Ireland, a loss of 1-0 due to a penalty that everyone agreed after shouldn't been given including the referee himself not to mention the overall refereeing performance which is one of the worst if not the worst that I've ever seen. This included a tackle that should've seen the Swiss down to ten men early on. Without the pressure of being at home and with nothing to lose Northern Ireland played the second match away in Switzerland much better. Unfortunately it ended 0-0 with a late chance cleared off the line by the Swiss. Given that the Swiss only qualified for the World Cup by scoring a goal from a penalty that shouldn't have been given it was hard not to feel hard done by that Northern Ireland didn't have the chance to go to extra time.
It is fair to say that it hasn't always been easy being a Northern Ireland fan. There have been some dark periods where the football and results have both been poor. The small size of the country, the lack of resources not to mention the issue of the Republic of Ireland taking advantage of the rule of players being able to switch allegiance. Players like James McClean who played for Northern Ireland at under 21 level, who apparently knew in his heart that he wanted to play for the Republic of Ireland but instead played for Northern Ireland before switching as soon as the Republic were interested. There was no compensation for the amount of time, effort and money that had been spent on him by Northern Ireland. There is also the frequent baseless accusation from Republic fans and other people who have never set foot in the NI national stadium about sectarianism despite the huge steps made to change things for the better after problems in the distant past. There is also the frequent calls again from people who don't have a clue (or from Republic fans but only when we are doing well!) for there to be a United Ireland team just because there is a single Irish rugby team. The only change that I think that they could make would be for Northern Ireland to have our own national anthem, at the moment we sing God Save the Queen which is what England also sing. Scotland and Wales have their own national anthems.
I am proud to be a Northern Ireland fan. I am proud of our current manager for turning the team around after performances and morale were so low after the previous manager. I am also proud of the players who although they may not play for top level teams have shown that they can take on anyone in the world. As long as they show desire and effort the fans will always be behind them. It's just a shame we are not at the World Cup given we could definitely compete (beat South Korea 2-1 in their warm up match for the World Cup and drew with Panama away from home), and given how praised the fans were at Euro 2016. There is always Euro 2020!
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| Lovely sky over the national stadium |
