Euro '88 - 30 years on

FREEWHEELER wrote: Correct Gary, Italia 90 was the clueless Ole Ole competition winning, big event junkie beginning.   Our last qualification match for Euro 88, we were still in with an albeit slim chance of qualifying, but this was our LAST qualification game where we HAD to win, 26,000 turned up  (you could pay at the stiles).   Less than two years later, the House Full sign was up on an all-ticket WC90 qualifier against Malta.

Edited by Borussia - 12 Jan 2018 at 2:19pm

Yes, I couldn't get a ticket against the mighty Malta, 50,000 sold out whereas two short years before that I was one of the 17,000 that turned up to see us beat minnows Brasil.

Gary McKay wrote: Yes, I couldn't get a ticket against the mighty Malta, 50,000 sold out whereas two short years before that I was one of the 17,000 that turned up to see us beat minnows Brasil.

Similar only for the Hungary game. We were getting student tickets through the college in Dundalk back then as we were on the college team. Got one between three of us. One of the lads was playing LOI for Home Farm at the time and thought he could get another pair as he'd done that for Malta the previous week but got let down. We ended up selling the ticket for the price of a regular ticket so we could blag into a pub during holy hour as it was a Sunday and get a couple of pints. Only time I've ever sold anything over face value, felt a bit bad doing it but we were fairly broke and the lad said fair enough once we weren't looking for more than a standard ticket.

Managed to get sorted for the Nordie game later in the campaign but that was the start of tickets being tough to get alright. The Spain game was a nightmare, blagged some sort of FAI pass for that rather than a ticket.

Scotland and Belgium were the only two sell outs in Euro 88 qualifying and they were still handy to get tickets for up to the day.

Edited by Drumcondra 69er - 12 Jan 2018 at 3:11pm

reddladd wrote: Was only living in London 4 or 5 months before the Euro's. That game made such a difference. That and Italia 90 meant you could actually talk to English lads about something as opposed to them just thinking you might be in the IRA! It was like in their eyes that Ireland could suddenly play football whereas before we didn't even register. Tri colours hanging off lamp posts outside Irish bars. The Russia game is still the biggest disappointment as we bossed them that night.

Holland was more disappointing for me. So close to a semi final. Width of a post away from going ahead and a flukey offside goal even though we were hanging on by then. Dutch would have gone out, it was up for grabs then. Had we beaten Russia the Holland defeat would have knocked us out on GD ANYWAY after England imploded.

Drumcondra 69er wrote: Holland was more disappointing for me. So close to a semi final. Width of a post away from going ahead and a flukey offside goal even though we were hanging on by then. Dutch would have gone out, it was up for grabs then. Had we beaten Russia the Holland defeat would have knocked us out on GD ANYWAY after England imploded.

baresi41 wrote: Cabra Hoop wrote: Stayed in Karlsruhe, Hameln and Dortmund.   The old one shilling coins came in very handy for smokes - and for the following Drinks machines, U&S Bahn kiosks and a certain letter that was banned from selling in Ireland at the time? I think all the Funtrek buses were full of them for the lads back home.

Would this have been a bigger upset than Ireland beating Italy in 94?

i remembered former WC champion  coach Cesar Luis Menotti..was an analyst for the tournament down here and he also wrote  in a magazine... SUPER FOOTBALL ...now gone

Aldridge wasn't a lone striker Javier, it was two up front, a rigid and effective 4-4-2 but I agree, Stapleton had a great Irish career and was our captain at Euro 88 where he played really well.