Rumours abound that a hard core mob of morons are ready to go ballistic when the English team sing their National anthem before the game.
Many years ago, the Black and Tans drove into a match here and opened fire on the crowd, the original Bloody Sunday. A tragic chapter, among many, of Irish history.
Two weeks ago the Irish team gave the game away to Italy in a way that was shameful at best, and utterly stupid at worse. Many of my English buddies were watching the game and they all had one thing to say, and that was not about the game but about the size and quality of the stadium. Many of the English boys had been to Dublin for games, which were played in the now redundant home of Irish Rugby.. Landsdown Road.
Landsdown is on the south side and Croke Park is on the Northside so the visitors would have been nowhere near the place to begin with.
One of our best kept secrets - well us Northsiders anyway.
I hope and pray - to a God that I don’t believe in anyway - that the singing of Anthems goes off without any hassle.
Then let the battle commence…
and may the best team win.
Slan,
D.
edited to correct a shameful grammatical error - and a typo.
Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion’s laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
'Neath thy mild and gentle reign.
Praise for every good they grant;
Let us, with devotion tender,
Minister to grief and want.
Quenched be hate and wrath forever,
Pardoned be our mortal foe—
May our tears upbraid him never,
May our game bring him low!
Courage, ne’er by sorrow broken!
Aid where tears of virtue flow;
Faith to keep each promise spoken!
Truth alike to friend and foe!
'Neath the pain frowns manly spirit!—
Brethren, noble is the prize
That the victors only merit!
Rugby, part the men from boys!
OK, the both of you back away from your keyboards. Take deep breaths, perhaps a sip of brandy and chill out. Chant to yourself, “it’s just a game, it’s just a game, etc.”
In the quelchy quaggy sogmire,
In the mashy mideous harshland,
At the witchy hour of gloomness,
All the grobes come oozing home.
You can hear them softly slimeing,
Glissing hissing o’er the slubber,
All those oily boily bodies
Oozing onward in the gloam.
So start to run! Oh, skid and daddle
Through the slubber slush and sossel!
Skip jump hop and try to skaddle!
All the grobes are on the roam!
Joy, thou spark from Heav’n immortal,
Daughter of Elysium!
Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing
Goddess, to thy shrine we come.
Thy sweet magic brings together
What stern Custom spreads afar;
All men become brothers
Where thy happy wing-beats are.
Is it getting stuffy in here or what?
And does Schiller look like a Cardassian or what? Gul Dukat to be exact.
I was really impressed with the atmosphere for the France game at Croke Park. Hopefully it’ll pass without incident today and they realise the best thing will be to destroy them on the pitch instead.
I was under the impression that there was some sort of understanding that, following Bloody Sunday, no game of English invention would ever be played at Croke Park. Wrong?
It has taken years of talk and endless discussion but the G.A.A. have finally come around to allowing “foreign” games to be played on their turf. Since the I.R.A. ceasefire and the end of the violence in the North the G.A.A. had no real choice but to take a step back and make a contribution to the new society that exists in Ireland today.
It was not all that long ago since any member of a G.A.A. club was banned from attending a rugby/soccer match, let alone play those games.
There has never been any trouble at this game when it was played in Landsdown Road so I fail to see the point of causing any today in Croke Park.
99% of the Irish fans will be there for the game, it’s the other few morons I worry about.
According to the story in today’s Boston Globe, the Gaelic Athletic Associationn temporarily relaxed the rule banning non-Gaelic games at Croke Park while the stadium where they are normally played is refurbished.
I hope the day goes smoothly. The game is getting attention here too.
- and a typo.
