Claret across the water

Over the past few months I have found myself becoming increasingly disillusioned at the England national team.  At the same time I have had a growing interest in Northern Irish football, both at domestic and international level. 

Northern Ireland and Burnley FC have gone hand-in-hand throughout our history.  What, with Jimmy McIlroy, Billy Hamilton and the like representing the national team, obviously our current trio of internationals and our links with Glentoran FC.

Having watched the national team on a few occasions I was starting to fall in love with them, the passion that both the players and the fans have for the team is fantastic.  Such a massive difference from the England team, where the players look more interested in picking up their pay packet than representing their country, whilst the fans, who rarely create anything resembling an atmosphere, are quick to jump on the back of the players and managers.

When it came to the Iceland game last month, I sat there really wanting NI to win.  They didn’t, in fact they got trounced 3-0, but the my attraction towards the national game grew some more despite the poor result.  After the Spain game I found myself ordering a Northern Ireland hat from the official IFA website and a few week later that was followed up by an official green Northern Ireland shirt. 

I also found myself signing up to the premier Norn Iron messageboard at www.ourweecountry.co.uk and joining in the discussions on there, whilst my computer and mobile phone were soon showing Kyle Lafferty celebrating his first international goal. Despite all this I felt like I wanted to do more, and decided that the next step was to visit Windsor Park and view an actual live game take place.

Me at the Windsor

With a little help from Darren Irvine, poster in the Longside Lounge, I checked out the upcoming fixtures.  Ideally I wanted to find a Saturday game in the not too distant future, I was to be disappointed though.  It appeared that the next finalised home Saturday international was not until November 2007, and there was no way I was going to wait anywhere near that long. 

The next home international was a Euro 2008 qualifier against Latvia on Wednesday 11th October.  That sounded quite good, I thought, Wednesday is my day off College and although I would probably have to take Thursday off too, it would be worth it.  Latvia was a winnable game too, and although a defeat would not spoil my experience, a win would make it all the better.

Then was the case of getting tickets.  After a little research I found out that all tickets had sold out, however, any tickets that were left over from the away end would go on general sale to home fans.  This was my chance and  a week or so later I received an email telling me that a ‘small number’ of tickets would go on sale the coming Wednesday, just a week before the game.

8:55 and I was sat eagerly with my house phone glued to my right ear and mobile phone fixed on my left, a finger from each hand on the respective redial buttons.  “Beep, beep, beep, the number you have dialled is in use” was the message I got through both ears for the next best part of an hour, but when, 40 minutes after my first try, I heard an enthusiastic “Hello” in that gorgeous Irish accent and heard that there were four or five tickets left my anxious face expression turned to one of sheer delight. 

My mood was slightly dampened when I learnt that those tickets were for the ‘Viewing Lounge’ which I would have to pay £40 for but nothing was going to bring me down as I gave my credit card details to the woman on the other side of the phone line.

With my tickets and flights booked it was just a waiting game.  On the Saturday I sat down to watch the Denmark vs. Northern Ireland game on TV, whilst having my PC in view for updates on the Latvia game.  As the game went on I noticed a popup on my PC: “Latvia 1 Iceland 0” it’s okay, I thought, Iceland have too much quality to stay behind for long.  As the game in Denmark trailed on, Latvia just kept on scoring: 2-0, 3-0 and then 4-0.  Suddenly Wednesday became so much harder.  Northern Ireland also managed a great result, however, with the score in Copenhagen finishing 0-0.

The day of the game…

Isn’t it an unwritten law that when you are in a rush the traffic lights will always show red when you approach them?  That certainly seemed so on the morning of the flight where every single set of lights signalled for us to wait or so which culminated in the train leaving Colne train station without me. 

What was to follow was a frantic race against the train to Burnley Rose Grove station.  Again the lights came up red, but thankfully only once this time around and as I jumped out of the car the train was just coming in, phew I’d made it and my journey to Belfast was well and truly under way.

Two trains and a shuttle bus later I arrived at Liverpool John Lennon airport where I was meeting Aaron, a Northern Ireland fan who was travelling over to the game on the same flight as me.  We had a good chat about the team and the Burnley trio before heading off to departures and onto the plane. 

It was quite an exciting time for me anyway, I haven’t flown for years and I can barely remember anything about my last experience in the air so I was really looking forward to this.  It was all I expected it to be really, and looking at Liverpool from the air was great, watching all the tall buildings reduced to little specs in the distance as we flew away.

Upon landing in Belfast, we took the bus into the city centre where Aaron directed me towards the IFA headquarters where I was to go and collect my tickets.  Until the morning Aaron and I had gone our separate ways, but he had been a great help, I’d never have known where to go without him.  Tickets in pocket, I wandered down Windsor Avenue towards Windsor Park but before heading into the ground I had a chat to a few of the fans at the pub and took a few photos for College.

For my Graphics at College we are current working on a ‘Street Graphics’ project and Belfast is renown for it’s wall murals and so my camera was out taking lots of photos.  Just by the ground is a footbridge over the railway which was completely decorated in paintings for the national team.  It really is a fantastic spectacle. 

The Railway Bridge

One site of the bridge reads “Our tactics have always been to equalise before the other team score” and the other has paintings of several players from the past.  The end of the bridge by the ground is the most impressive part, with all the little sections of the wall having either pieces of text or paintings of legends like George Best. The centre-piece of the end wall was a massive IFA badge in green on the blue background, with players from the past surrounding it.

Into the ground I went, then, and into the viewing lounge, where I had a lovely pre-match meal- all paid for in the price of my ticket, before collecting my free programme and taking my seat in front of the massive viewing window.  The Latvia fans, a number of whom Aaron and I had met before the game, were making lots of noise despite their small numbers but the GAWA (Green and White Army) were also in fine voice getting behind the team.  Kyle Lafferty was the only Claret to start, Michael Duff picked up his second booking of the campaign against Denmark so he sat out through suspension whilst Steve Jones again took up his place on the bench.

Kyle had a solid game, nothing spectacular but put himself around and worked selflessly for the team.  He had one good chance in particular where he chested the ball around the defender but could unfortunately he couldn’t connect with the ball as well as he would have hoped and the ball trickled wide.  Steve Jones was about to come on as a substitute in the dying minutes but the final whistle went before he got on the field.

The Viewing Lounge

The game was fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and was won by a brilliant David Healy goal.  Former Blackburn winger Keith Gillespie chipped the ball up, where Healy was on hand to flick the ball behind himself, turn and fire the ball into the bottom corner.  The 1-0 was more than deserved and the team moved up into joint second in the group, behind only Iceland and Sweden.

Everything about my trip was just fantastic and I plan to go over again as soon as possible.  It was a shame that only one of the Burnley three got on, but I was still proud to tell the Norn Iron fans that I was a Burnley fan, and tell them of our lofty position in the Championship.  I even met a group of fans that are planning on coming over here for the Birmingham game, so I hope we put on a display for them then.