"home" internationals?

bizmark

Apparently N Ireland want to revive the "home" internationals with Wales Scotland Northern Ireland and either England or the republic of Ireland should England be busy pretending to be a football super power...what do you think about this would it befit Ireland? it could cause a lot of problems with some of the fans also it will end up being dominated by England or the republic of Ireland

link

knobbles

can't see them agreeing on the calendar.
- maybe every 2nd odd year in early June when there's no international tournament like that crap tournament thing in London last June with Nigeria and Jamaica...shouldn't have been classified as full internationals, we fielded youth/'B' teams in both games.

anyway, feck all benefit to ireland,
they'll have been playing Scottish and Welsh players all season in the Premiership, Championship and Scots Prem.
want to be testing ourselves in friendlies against continental teams like Portugal and Italy.

Jivin Turkey

It would definately be of benefit for which ever teams dont qualify for the WC. All teams are of an equal (enough) standard and all though they would be "friendly" games, Im sure they would be anything but with all teams going out to win.

It would give the friendlies the exact edge they need.

A Dub in Glasgo

It will never get off the ground as the clubs who pay the wages will not like their players playing in more competitions.

The EFA, SFA and WFA should be joined to form a British team and the IFA should follow the Rugby path.

_blank_

Jivin Turkey wrote:

All teams are of an equal (enough) standard

Have to disagree with this.

There's five tiers.

Rep Ireland.
England.
Wales.
Scotland.
Northern Ireland.

KdjaCL

England. 8 751 points
Rep Ireland. 12 716 points
Wales. 68 554 points
Scotland. 86 515 points
Northern Ireland 109 (LOL) 442 points


Not even close.

kdjac

Jivin Turkey

Im going on the assumption that we will qualify for the WC, and I suppose England will too.

Hence:
Scotland
Wales
Northern Ireland

Equal enough if you ask me.

The Rooster

Certainly Norn Iron were slightly better than Wales when they last played.

The tournament would be great fun, and would be competitive, especially if there was a trophy for the winners. Calendar might be a problem - every second year would make sense. Personally I'd far prefer to play competivie games against Scotland and Wales than meaningless friendlies against the likes of Australia and China. And playing England would be super.

The biggest problem of all though is - could we trust the scumbag soccer "fans" not to fight.

Pigman II

For the majority of the home nations tournament 100 year history it was operated in an era when England/Scotland/Wales/NIreland were amongst the 16 or so strongest teams in the world (all four actually qualified for WC58 and probably would have done so in 50 and 54 as well except for the fact that the home nations comp actually doubled as a qualifying group those years with only 2 qualifiers.)

However by the 1960s it was a apparent that the pecking order in world football had changed and that there was a vast gap between what the best and worst of what this quartet could offer in footballing terms. Hense this increasingly irrelevant competition was eventually abandonded in 1984.

Until it can be proven conclusively that all 4 countries are once again at roughly 'the same level' it will be a waste of time reinstating the competition.

The Rooster

That'd be a fair point Pigman, if England were winning it easily every year. But thats not what happened, I dont think. Anyone be able to dig up a list of who won the trophy in say the last 10 years of it?

I think Northern Ireland won the last one, and Wales were second.

Pigman II

Prior to 1960 England won 22 competitions outright, closely followed by Scotlands with 19. Wales won a respectable 7 and Nir only 1.

Post 1960 England won 12 competitions outright compared to Scotlands 5, Nir 2 and Wales 0. A clear divide was forming.

I'd predict that if if the competion were played in this era (and taken seriously by all involved of course) England would have an almost Rosenburg-esque domanance of it for generations to come.

por

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

The EFA, SFA and WFA should be joined to form a British team and the IFA should follow the Rugby path.

If by that you mean that the FAI and IFA should merge and play as one team 'Ireland', then no F**king way.
The last thing I want to do is stand at a WC and listen to some S**t like 'Irelands Call' being play as an anthem just to please a shower of Ulstermen.

The best move the FAI ever made was their first move, spliting from the IFA....

thejollyrodger

well said por, totally agree with you

Pigman II

As much as I'm not a fan of the clear militant sentiments of 'Amhán Na bhFiann' I think 'Irelands Call' is nothing more a cynical piece of fluff lacking any true sentiment or meaning. No coincidence then that it was written by walking bag of **** Phil Coulter.

If the two football associations ever join (and I can't see it ever happening outside of a unified Ireland anyway) hopefully there will be a new (and decent) anthem on offer at the time.

d22ontour

Whats the point of changing the anthem if both associations merge,there would hardly be many players from the north good enough to make the squad let alone start a game

eirebhoy

d22ontour wrote:

Whats the point of changing the anthem if both associations merge,there would hardly be many players from the north good enough to make the squad let alone start a game

Shouldn't you just have said whats the pointing in joining together?

d22ontour

eirebhoy wrote:

Shouldn't you just have said whats the pointing in joing together?

Well they could have some decent officials in the IFA, could hardly be any worse than the ones we have already

Guy:Incognito

theres always a chance another george best could come along.