Watch The FA Cup Final on TV in Kansas City
I remember being furious with the FAI. Within 12 feet of where I sat, English boots and fists laid into Irish bodies.
It was 1991 and Niall Quinn had scored against England at Wembley. That was the Irish end, and the Irish fans duly celebrated the goal scored in front of them.
I, however, was at the other end. Did I buy my ticket on the streets? Or from an English source? No.
For Ireland’s home matches at Lansdowne in the period before the English World Cup winner Jack Charlton invented Irish football, I sometimes used to buy my tickets from Elvery’s Sports Shops, but mostly I would buy them from the Irish Travel Agency because the people in there were so nice, and because I have a visual aversion to tracksuits.
But this was Charlton’s team, and for a ticket for this Ireland game at Wembley, a European Championship Qualifier, I walked in Dublin to Merrion Square and the headquarters of the Football Association of Ireland. And the FAI sold me a ticket that saw me seated in an entirely English section.
Every other Irish fan - a very small minority - in that section, had bought their tickets in England like the English fans. Because these were the London Irish. English accents with Irish parents.
Whether the FAI sold some seats for the section I was in and returned the rest to the English FA, or what exactly happened, I don’t know, but having hidden my Irish scarf successfully as I journeyed through various Tube stations and the trains themselves packed with English fans, I was disappointed to find myself a cliched sitting Irish duck.
This is the only time in my life that I watched a game praying for my team to score but please god not to win. Such contradictions are born of self-preservation and fear of a riot. Luckily a goal by England’s Lee Dixon saw to it that Ireland didn’t win, and a riot didn’t take place in the stadium. Later that night Kilburn, an Irish area in London, was attacked by gangs of English thugs.
The next time Ireland played England was in 1995 in Dublin. It was only a friendly but Ireland scored first and the England fans responded by riot, and the game was abandoned as I left Lansdowne Road hurriedly. Although the majority of England football fans are not thugs (I have drank with them, gone on holidays with them, some of my best friends are, etc.), at their away games in those times there was always a sizeable minority looking to fight.
My first time at Wembley to watch Ireland had been back in 1985 for another friendly. If I remember right it was the first game when England’s Lineker, Waddle and Hately played together. Ireland had very small traveling support that day, and I was wary as I tried to hide an Ireland scarf I borrowed that was way too long.
As luck would have it, Liam Brady’s goal notwithstanding, Ireland didn’t believe they could give the mighty England a game, and so lost easily to goals by Lineker, who was making his debut, and Trevor Steven.
Wembley Stadium in London, or Old Wembley as I imagine we’ll now call it, was one of the world’s great football stadiums. With its large-stepped terraces you always had a great view even when seemingly overcrowded.
So I have great visual memories of being among crowds of 100,000 and cheering on the losing side in the two all-Merseyside FA Cup Finals, and I’ve also attended four Charity Shield games there, and a Littlewoods Cup Final.
Several years ago Wembley was demolished. And in its place now is the brand new Wembley stadium. Tomorrow for the first time since re-opening, Wembley hosts the FA Cup Final, a competition which dates from 1872.
The BBC, in a feature that includes - at long last - embedded video, has some information on the new Wembley particularly the extortionate prices and the major pre-match entertainment. The video is a very interesting two minute introduction to the new stadium - which has for example more toilets than any other building in the world, and watching them put that arch up is very impressive.
Chelsea play Manchester United, and I don’t care who wins - but not watching it was never an option growing up in Dublin. Just like not rushing outside to play football immediately afterwards wasn’t.
Eddie Delahunt’s Cafe & was going to show the game, but alas is not able, so in Kansas City you can watch the 2007 FA Cup Final live all the usual ways - if somebody has a Time-Warner thing or if you venture to the dark side of online p2p television, specifically PP-Live, TV-Ants, or SopCast.
Kick off is at 3pm London time, which is 9am in Kansas City time.
Meet ya for a game of three-and-in afterwards.
UPDATE: Chelsea win 1-0 by way of a Drogba goal. And? As is traditional for FA Cup Finals, it was a most boring occasion after a massive build up. Like Bock I fell asleep.
The BBC has a follow-up article on the success or otherwise of the $1,600M stadium’s first FA Cup Final.
Other Football News and Nostalgia:
• Irish Lose: O Dear, O-dear O-dear O-dear
• Person of the Century was Irish Sportsman
• Meeting Diego Maradona in Ireland
• Watching Soccer in the USA
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Surely, Eolaí, with your mother’s heritage you should be supporting Manchester United? or does that go against your Scouser instincts?
Good God - supporting Mancs! Are you stark raving mad?
Given that Waterford United aren’t playing I suppose one could look elsewhere in my mother’s heritage, but that only technically pops out from the city of Liverpool to Kirkby - a move Everton themselves are about to make - but it doesn’t travel down the East Lancs Road.
Absurdity of absurdities! What next? That you believe herbal tea exists, and worse, that I should drink it?
I suppose you do have a point though, I mean too many people I know are so upset by Russian money in London that they want Man U to win as if one of the richest clubs in the world is some sort of plucky underdog about to indulge in a classic FA Cup giant-killing act, and not league champions on the verge of another boring double.
So thank you for reminding me of my heritage. How could I forget that I really hope Rooney does a Gascoigne and then cries on the touchline not because of his self-injured leg from his red-card inducing tackle, but because he’s watching Essien lord it and Drogba take the glory and the winners medal.