McFaul

Zombie by The Cranberries?

Well my understanding is that the bigotry at Windsor Park has improved markedly since the days of Neil Lennon. McCourt is a bit of a hero to them. I partly agree with your belief that you should be born in a country to play for them, but I think direct parentage should be allowed to. I mean the classic case is Terry Butcher, as English as they come, his fatha was stationed in Singapore for a year and he was born there.

I'll watch those shows some time Ewerk, but do you not think Northern Ireland fans have a right to be pissed off that they can nurture and pay for players to develop through their own system only to see players stolen by the ROI because of the Good Friday Agreement? Do you see their point of view?

"Normal service resumed". Ant you're not Brazil, you're not even fuckin England. It's fair to say Northern Ireland's tournament highs, are as high as ROI's are. Beating Spain in Madrid, at their own World Cup eclipses anything the ROI have ever done imo. That's why I'm puzzled as to why you're so condescending about them. They've had long periods when they've been better than Ireland. The Steve Staunton era being one, and also the mid 70's to the mid to late 80's. When the fuck would a player from ROI decide to play for Northern Ireland ffs. There's nee prods there for starters, and aye they'd be disowned.

It's alright saying they're far behind you in the rankings, but it's not too long ago they were well, well, well above you, you were 60th and they 30th, them beating England and Spain, you losing 5-2 to Cyprus so there's no point getting snobby about them.

He certainly doesn't support England, and laughs when we're shite. How do you know definitively what his starting eleven is? In a squad of 23 players. Six English, two Northern Irish, and one Scottish. Unbelievable that.

There is loads of Northern Ireland flags in there. I can only see two Union Jacks. I don't think that's bigoted to be honest. They're Northern Ireland's main rival. Is it bigoted for Scotland to want England to lose? Bitter aye, but not bigoted.

Hmmm Paddy McCourt has no problem playing for Northern Ireland, from a Republican family from the dodgiest place on these islands County Derry. England has bigoted supporters too, so does Scotland, and most definitely so does the Republic of Ireland.

My mate. Great kid, not a bigot at all neither.

Weldy ‏@weldy1980 But most Irish players play because they werent good enuff to play for England or refused to play for NI. And the 'fans', foreign n'all Weldy talking a lot of sense on twitter this morning.

Backward cunts. As soon as you cross the German borders east, they're 100 years behind the rest of Europe. Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Poland etc... they're far behind the west in attitudes.

Easy money this the neet.

Joan Collins was mint! I love the old Joan Collins line, ye see them oot take them back and they look like Joan Collins, wake up the next day and they look like Phil Collins. We've all been there.

This is the first time ever, no one expects us to do anything at all. I think we'll be hard to beat, they're all Premiership players and if we were another country we'd probably be saying, they're not great, no flair, but fuck me they're no mugs and it's true. Four 1-0 wins out of five.

That's not a great pic of her neither. 80s people were generally ugly too, she broke the mould, her Fallon off the Colbys, and Joan Collins.

The first time I saw him about 7 or 8 years ago, I thought he was the best yank player in history. I still think that, and he's wasted his career, if he was from a country of bigger stature in football, he'd have played for a very big club, he's been wasted at Fulham. He'd be a good addition but he's not coming here.

Think the Poland, Russia double is immense. 7/2. I might open a betfair account and lay Germany against Portugal, could be Ronaldo's finest hour.

Euro 2012 Football Focus on BBC1 right now, Rooney talking to Shearer, Sheva, looks a canny show up to now.

Aye I donno if you've been supporting the toon long enough to remember this Ant, but Newcastle had a very similar problem with Southampton too which we overcame eventually.

What was their explanation for losing to France, conceding three against Ukraine, and five against Switzerland recently then?

I went to Euro 2000, and I saw England 2 Portugal 3 in Eindhoven, what a fucking exhibition Figo and Nuno Gomes gave that night. We could've been 4-0 up at one point, but even in between our goals they were all over us. I enjoy the Euro's as much as the World Cup me like, better quality games generally. We do Asia a favour really letting them play in the World Cup.

Portugal should be no where near 10/3 to beat them imo. Then they face Holland who individually are better in my view. Will be the best group by a mile. On paper one of the best groups in living memory. Germany are as mentally strong as any country, we know that, it's because they're brought up like robots, they're a robotic nation as Parky regularly confirms. They don't show emotion they just do it, and that's it. However their recent games against France, Ukraine and in particular conceding five against Switzerland show any side if you have a go at them you can do what you like. They have the players to play counter attacking superbly though as we know as well as anyone. That group could go any way, I think Portugal and Holland will get through though.

Aye I was in the toon watching that. Me mate had £20 on Holland HT/Czech Rep FT, and I never even got an extra pint off the cunt, despite him winning best part of £600! 2-3 I think it was.

Aye, I think the Ukraine game will be the tougher of the two. Their recent form is abysmal and points to the fact they're shite, I saw France dry bum them a while ago, but I remember being quite impressed by their intensity when they beat us 1-0 in the WCQ a few years ago. We had a good side out too and were flying at the time.

Would you not be better just giving that to charity though? You're betting on something that's only happened once against England in a competitive game on foreign soil in 140 years of football history.