Thursday, September 08, 2005

Oh What A Night / Glory, Glory Northern Ireland / We're Not Brazil, We're Northern Ireland

Now, how do I do this... What can I possibly say about last night? Obviously the first thing to say is the result:

NORTHERN IRELAND 1 - 0 ENGLAND

Our wee country did what seemed impossible, pulling off a sensational victory - our first home win against England in 78 years, our first victory against England in 23 years, our first two home victories in a row since dear knows when...

But anyway... the teams trained before the start:

Then they lined up for the one National Anthem, sung by Belfast's Peter Corry:

Then the game began. After an early shock, when Beckham hit the post/crossbar with a free kick, Northern Ireland settled in to the game, with some confident passing, and dangerous attacks into the England half. Yet early on it seemed as if the danger would be from the combination of Beckham hooking the ball out to the right winger Wright-Philips. But thankfully Capaldi was able for him.

Then came the second half, and Northern Ireland came into their own, with plenty of attacks, and they looked the better team. In fact, and no disrespect to Scotland, but the Kop started singing to the English team 'are you Scotland in disguise?' In fact, England looked so bad that from near the start of the second half, the Kop also started singing 'We're going to win 1-0' - what a bunch of prophets!

And then came the goal. What a goal! From where I was sitting it almost seemed offside, but of course, it wasn't, and Healy turned, moved into the box and... GOAL! We just couldn't believe it, and the crowd erupted! Singing, shouting, dancing, cheering, bouncing, hugging, crying - we had it all! And from then on, Windsor Park was even more of a party than before. The photo is of a Gillespie corner not long after the goal:

And at the final whistle? Well, no one wanted to leave - the perfect night, with 2 wins in a row, and beating England - beating the likes of Beckham, Gerrard, Ferdinand, Carragher, Rooney, Owen. It's not every day you do that! (Incidentally, Northern Ireland are now only the third team to have beaten England in a competitive game under the management of Erikson - the other two being at the finals of the World Cup and European Championships). Here we see the Kop after the final whistle:

And the players did a lap of honour - recognising their fans and us applauding each other... Well done boys, you did us proud!


The full set of photographs will be available by clicking here

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