Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Bigger than the Ashes - England v Ireland

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

    Yeah, but I mean, who are they "supposed" to represent. Under the rules.
    Whoever. They’re dual citizens. I believe it’s not unheard of for Ulstermen from a unionist background to represent the republic of Ireland at the Olympics due to most of their teammates being from there. I think hockey does that.

    Comment


      Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post

      Oh I don't know Duncan. It might just have been the perfect form of trolling. The only thing worse than being bowled out at home faster than you've ever been, is being bowled out by a team so bad that they're about to be bowled out faster than anyone ever. The footballing equivalent of this would be England going 3-0 down to gibraltar in the first ten minutes at wembley and bravely battling back to a 6-4 victory.
      Portugal - North Korea?

      Comment


        A lot of them really just don't care very much about that sort of thing, but that's a function of their age. Rory McIlroy is too young to be into that sort of thing.

        Carl Frampton is a former world champion boxer in two weight divisions, from Tiger's bay, which is as loyalist as it gets. He was also one of the most succesful amateur boxers in irish history. But he has said that even if he were given a choice to box for northern Ireland rather than ireland, he wouldn't change, because it's always been this way since he was eleven, and it's nice to have people all over the country cheering for you. (He is also married to a catholic, so I suspect he has a very relaxed attitude towards such matters.)

        this sort of thing doesn't exercise the minds of semi-professional athletes very much. They're too young, and if anything are probably quite hostile to that sort of carry on.

        Comment


          Root described the pitch as substandard, and not a fair contest between bat and ball.

          Comment


            Originally posted by diggedy derek View Post
            Root described the pitch as substandard, and not a fair contest between bat and ball.
            And the Australians considered reporting the pitch at Southampton. So we're no nearer knowing how the Ashes will go.

            Comment


              Originally posted by Flynnie View Post

              Whoever. They’re dual citizens. I believe it’s not unheard of for Ulstermen from a unionist background to represent the republic of Ireland at the Olympics due to most of their teammates being from there. I think hockey does that.
              Oh, I see.

              I didn’t know about the dual citizen thing. That’s handy. Especially now.

              Comment


                Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post

                Oh I don't know Duncan. It might just have been the perfect form of trolling. The only thing worse than being bowled out at home faster than you've ever been, is being bowled out by a team so bad that they're about to be bowled out faster than anyone ever. The footballing equivalent of this would be England going 3-0 down to gibraltar in the first ten minutes at wembley and bravely battling back to a 6-4 victory.
                Batting and bowling are different disciplines, though. Ireland bowled well for most of the match.

                Comment


                  I think golf and athletics are also split, and there are two nations in the Commonwealth Games. Rugby and cricket are more the exceptions AFAIK.

                  Comment


                    The Republic aren't in the Commonwealths.

                    Comment


                      Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post


                      I think golf and athletics are also split, and there are two nations in the Commonwealth Games. Rugby and cricket are more the exceptions AFAIK
                      Golf and athletics are both run on an all ireland basis. I don't know how it worked in the long distant past but part of the quid pro quo of having an all island sporting organization is that you have to have a very relaxed attitude about people in the north competing for the UK when the opportunity arises. It's just good manners.

                      Comment


                        Berba is half right above (OK, maybe a third). Variously:

                        Yes, the majority of different sports played/ watched in Ireland (though nowhere near the majority of sport overall) have a small largely middle-class following. There isn't the scale for 2 sets of admin bodies even were there the interest.

                        His intermittent web connection must have got worse, not to notice the constant stream of drivel on phone ins, chat boards etc. complaining about 'Ireland's Call'. They do it not just because there are plenty of Trolls about, even in unholy post-Catholic Ireland; but also as such attitudes remain pretty close to mainstream. It's the same process when the South regularly fail to qualify for football tournaments, then public surveys show 75% support for an all-Oireland team (translation: getting rid of the existing NI one). Fuck off

                        So the trolls are prevalent on the rugby and football stands, not in cricket's changing rooms. It's hard to concentrate on snides when dodging missiles hurled at you from 20 metres away. The Ireland team lost yesterday because they were rubbish. This is self-evident from being bowled out for 38. The sultry weather/ poor playing conditions etc. are just mainly irrelevant detail.

                        Many if not most of NI's leading performers across a range of sports represent other than all-Ireland sides. Whether for Britain (ranging from hockey and rowing to table-tennis and skiing in recent Olympics), occasionally England, and of course NI by name in the Commonwealth Games and some of the other sports mentioned, like snooker and netball. Major-winning golfers tend to talk up the A-I structures they benefited from but don't seem to have a problem being linked with NI on the honors board.

                        McIlroy is widely admired for his achievements but much of the coverage he gets in the Belfast and Dublin media is little more than puff pieces. As I've mentioned, he's often criticised locally. Not for being irritated about people questioning his nationality, or because he cuts (sorry) the Rio Olympics following the virus scare. Simply, he's seen as arrogant for not relying on or listening to a professional caddy, and as a choker for repeatedly losing tournaments when under pressure on the first day.

                        Boxing is all-Ireland except when it isn't. There's a NI team in the Commonwealths, and with the decline of the gentler lawn bowls etc. fighting and shooting are our main hopes of winning anything. Historically, there was another distinction where all the professionals fought out of Belfast, the South's set up was wholly amateur.

                        At the last Commonwealths, veteran paperweight Paddy Barnes showed his delight at winning the Gold Medal by starting to chunter before they'd even finished the National Anthem (even if on the thick Provo scale he's like John Hume compared with Mick Conlan who encourages his fans to chant 'Up the 'Ra' as he comes on, thanks Fynnie)

                        Again, scale largely explains why so many from NI go South for the Olympics. We're 3% of the population of Britain, 30% of bigger Ireland. The QPQ as Berba says is that our guys have more chances, their teams get extra people able to meet the qualifying standard

                        Tiger's Bay in Belfast is as Loyalist as it gets, apart possibly from local residents that aren't. Apart from Carl Frampton and me, there's Jimmy Galway and Ken Branagh. JG was in a flute band with my uncle, but I'm pretty sure his membership of the Geneva UVF has lapsed.

                        Arguably the real outlier given all the above is rugby union as much as football. NI has effectively its own professional team in Ulster, but the IRFU is very centralised- it employs all the players and puts every priority behind the Ireland side. Which is fair enough, but not allowing Ulster to enter the Commonwealths (say) is vindictive and childish.

                        Which reminds me of long-time Irish Olympics boss and Brazialian jailbird Pat Hickey. Apart from being a shameless machine politicians (he'd not be embarrassed if found in bed with live boy as well as dead woman as our sometime chum Borracho put it), Paudge has repeatedly tried to ban NI competitors from joining team GB. Whatever else characterises the cunt it's not good manners

                        Hot Pepsi: Ireland's cricket team has long been made up of players from both NI and the South, as well as the 'Diaspora' amd foreigners who qualified on residence grounds (or who played as guest professionals when Ireland took part mainly in England's domestic competitions). In this week's game, 8 of the 11 are from Northern Ireland, so I describe them thus

                        George C suggests an all-Ireland side has a larger pool to choose from. Obviously yes, but it's still tiny compared to Sri Lanka or the West Indies, let alone the bigger and stronger countries. And writ larger, by the same process you might as well revert to those domestic competitions I mentioned to HP. We've already established you'll support a multi-national team, so why not one that wins a lot of the time, rather than just occasionally and freakishly against the big boys?

                        If your priority is to watch guaranteed success while waving a Tric that's fine, there's always boghockey
                        Last edited by Duncan Gardner; 27-07-2019, 11:10.

                        Comment


                          The South?

                          Korea or Sudan?

                          Comment


                            Fuck off, there's a good chap

                            Comment


                              But the North of Ireland isn't going to exist for much longer.
                              Plus it's not all of Ulster, so why the paranoia?

                              That and if anyone should go forth and multiply, it's an anti-Irish bigot.

                              Comment


                                And take the thesaurus out of yer hole while at it

                                Comment


                                  Note for non-Irish readers: almost all the anti-Irish prejudice on here comes from Irish posters (nobody else really cares). It's public who contributes most often, and while GC does try to throw us off the scent, that his numerous different profiles on here all have an identical posting style does simplify things

                                  Comment


                                    Says the House bigot.

                                    PS.
                                    Why would anti-Irish prejudices come from Irish posters?

                                    Deluded double thinking, as ever.
                                    Last edited by George C.; 27-07-2019, 13:46.

                                    Comment


                                      I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again, but you two should just get a room...

                                      Comment


                                        No thanks.

                                        Solitary would do just fine.

                                        Comment


                                          Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post

                                          Golf and athletics are both run on an all ireland basis. I don't know how it worked in the long distant past but part of the quid pro quo of having an all island sporting organization is that you have to have a very relaxed attitude about people in the north competing for the UK when the opportunity arises. It's just good manners.

                                          That’s good. I could imagine a world in which blazers on either side of the border worked to hoard athletes and would be willing to stifle their careers out of petty spite toward their neighbors and to protect their own minor fiefdoms.

                                          IIRC, Ireland - in football especially - have had a number of players who are only Irish through their parents or grandparents, so they should be gracious toward players in whatever sport who could play for them but choose to play for somebody else because it’s a better opportunity.

                                          Which reminds me. It occurs to me that sports has an awful lot of people who qualify to play for more than one country. But I don’t know many people like that in real life. So maybe I’m just sheltered in that way, or noticing it a lot out of confirmation bias, or perhaps there is something about coming from a multicultural or immigrant family that helps one excel in sports.

                                          Comment

                                          Working...
                                          X