Urs Meier - the english are some sore losers I tells ya

surely this is taking it too far:

money.msn.co.uk/mymoney/n...efault.asp

...wrongly or rightly refs for the last couple of years have been giving frees for the slightest brush against a keeper and this was just another instance...its a terrible rule altogether, hang on a minute, its not even a rule, more like another unwritten code that gives benefit of doubt to defending team...so yeh there was nothin majorly wrong with the goal, but the precedent is there and if it had been allowed against the English we would never hear the end of it, but regardless of your opinion, the above link is surely taking it too far...unless its 1st April and I have'nt noticed

As Ger Gilroy said on Off The Ball/NewsTalk 106 last night maybe some Portuguese retail chain should offer to give English tourists free footballing lessons!

Laughing at the misfortune of the English really is all quite petty and almost farcical when you consider that Ireland didn't even qualify

What misfortune? They drew the match and lost on penos fair and square. The disallowed goal was a correct decision.

I know there's a tendancy for the Irish to desperately want the English to lose but in fairness they do bring it on themselves.

They build the whole thing up so much in their press and with their commentators that it's always bound to come crashing down around their heads...and I guess that is funny (a little).

In my book, its little more than spite.

The Irish media similarly built up the hopes and expectations of the Irish people back in the Jack Charlton days, but only the most ignorant of English people would have thought our loss was amusing.

Why is it in this country that we define our self pride in such negative terms ?

We don't tell ourselves we're going to win every competition we enter though.

..

I think our reaction to England getting beaten stems for our exposure to the English media.

If they won something and we weren't forced to witness the never-ending celebration it wouldn't be too bad, but let's face it we're still hearing about 1966 as if it happended last week!

I find it hard to have sympathy for them when things go against them simply because I believe that what goes around comes around. In 1966, they benefitted from the most outrageously poor decision (the ball that didn't cross the line) and IMHO, what's happening since is mere payback.

More to the point - they were This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language and deserved to go home!

..

And they STILL go on about the hand of God goal like it was a war crime!!!!!

The decision was a difficult one and the ref erred on the side of caution, everyone knows that goal keepers get a lot of protection. It wasnt a blatantly bad decision. Even if you had video reffereees it could have gone either way.

..

> Even if you had video reffereees it could have gone either way.

Ah but ITV got retired referee David Ellery to say that it should have stood and everybody knows that the word if a fine upstanding Englishman is worth more than that of those cheese eating, cuckoo clock making, neutral Swiss bankers...

Re: ..

They do the same thing with poor old Tim Henman too god love 'im.

Every flippin year it's the same. Will Henman win Wimbledon for us this year?...when the sad fact is he never will, because he's just not good enough. Doesn't stop them banging on about it though. Every year without fail...harping on about a the first British victory since 1936!!!

...

NoelC: My post was not in anyway laughing at the English team's demise, though I'm curious why you jumped to that conclusion. What I was merely pointing out was the childish manner in which their media, and general public it seems (see news story on ireland.com for story of the ref getting death threats, and my earlier post), reacted to the referee's decision, which was in line with the general precedent that has been set by free kick's being awarded whenever the keeper is challenged, rightly or wrongly.

In the same way the Italians annoy me with their conspiracy theory, the English belief that they have the moral high-ground (see post re: David Elleray, the worst ref around, declaring it should have stood - we are supposed to take that word as bond) whenever they perceive they have been hard done by, yet when decisions go their way they rejoice and take credit for it (e.g. Michael Owen's two penalties won by blatant dives against argentina in the last 2 world cups which were treated as deservedly beating them at their own game, yet any foreign players that dive are cheats) is quite annoying and deserves criticism.

Don't know why you felt the need to bring the issue of Ireland's qualification (IMHO due to McCarthy's unfortunate decision not to resign after the world cup, as he had lost the players, and plot e.g. bringing on phil babb at left wing against russia, and the absence of the world's most influential player. I believe if Kerr was in charge for the full campaign we would have qualified). Its not a case of moaning about England and saying we are better than they are, its a case of pointing out how out of order this behaviour is - the referee is now in hiding due to death threats!

Cop On Yal

Do you think that the English cry when Germany goes out , do you think that the Greeks weep when the Turks get ousted , the Swedes and Norse , the French and the Brits , the Scots and Eng........you are all very typical of the Irish cynicism that has crept into our society today , just because Irish people have a laugh and a joke about the Brit's does not mean that they are anti English.
This necessity by the cynics where by they have to label someone , they just gotta, it stupid and shows the lack of witticism within todays society , i feel they need to label as so it makes sense.....try being a little bit philosophical now and then folks.

They deserve

to be laughed at. When their media builds them up and up and then watch the whole thing crumble. I watch the whole of the Tim Henman V Mark Philippoussis tennis match on Monday. Henman was winning 2 sets to 0 and the commentators were saying such things as "Tim is sending out a message to the opposition", "I think he can go all the way" etc etc. Then when Mark Philippoussis pulled a set back the commentators started back tracking - it was bloody hilarious - quality stuff.
I have no problem with the English or Tim Henman but watching all English sports stars/teams getting beaten is usually a good laugh as they have normally be built up to be world beaters prior to the event. I also found the French getting beaten by the Greeks quite funny.
BTW. Tim Henman is the Spurs of the tennis world.

This is a very serious matter

The question of That Goal has of course been elevated to the political arena. Forget Iraq, forget NI, forget the EU, all the journos wanted to know was what was the Geo-political stance on That Goal.

Bertie (you know the guy in the banana suit) stated categorically that it was valid and HE was top dog in the EU at the time, that's practically ex cathedra.

That Goal is undoubtedly going to be an agenda item at next year's Party Conferences and it is all so predictable.

Sinn Fein - definitely no goal
PDs - definitely a goal
FF - Bertie has spoken
FG - against their instinct No Goal, just to look like strong opposition

The day soccer becomes politically correct, fair and rational is the day that most of the fun goes out of it! Anybody who doesn't like these aspects of the game might be better off following something more imbued with Corinthian ideals and values...

I was in a pub in Epsom watching the England-Portugal match and after some of the comments made at half time by these so called civilised people, I was delighted that England lost.
2 of the upper class monkeys were planning on 'doing' a portugese lad in front of his girlfriend (to take away his dignity they said) for having the cheek to watch the game in an English pub.
Fair play Urs Meier! The Euro championships should be reserved for humans! Animals shouldnt be allowed enter.

We don't tell ourselves we're going to win every competition we enter though.

Click to expand...

Perhaps that explains why we failed to qualify for this one and failed to match out previous World Cup performances when we got to Japan.

The Truth is that if you look at British Comentators and Pundits they see Ireland as one of the "Home Nations" and along with Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland, and England, they wish us well and hope we win.

Similarly with many "Ordinary English people, especially those who have friends here. They like to see Ireland do well, they certainly don't support whoever we play against, or chear when we get scored against.

We're a sad bunch the Irish. We've not only resigned ourselves to the fact that we can't win a tournament. We also want the icing on the cake of seeing our nearest neighbour lose in the most embarrasing way possible.

That said. The British Tabloid Media don't make any friends with there coverage of Sporting Matters. But I don't think that explains all of the Anti-BRitish vibe that comes from this part of the world.

Bottom line folks. They don't cheer when we get beaten.
If we had any self respect we'd at least act similarly.

-Rd

> Perhaps that explains why we failed to qualify for this one and failed to match out previous World Cup performances when we got to Japan

Coincidentally, interesting hypocricy last night on RTE when the panel were slating Arjen Robben for being This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language and a cheat particlarly compared to the player he's supposed to be replacing, Damien Duff, conveniently ignoring the fact that we nearly equalised against Spain in the last World Cup due to a Duff dive in the box that Michael Owen would have been proud of winning us a peno that Harte missed... :|

> Bottom line folks. They don't cheer when we get beaten.

If you believe that's true across the board then you have obviously never met some of the many hard core anti-Irish football supporters who regularly frequent English internationals and club games... :\