World Cup Spread Betting

20 years ago this very day was arguably the Irish football team’s finest day. In the city of Genoa in Italia 90, Ireland had made it through the group stages to the last 16 for a meeting with the much more experienced Romanians and their talisman Geogi Hagi. For a small nation like Ireland this was seen as a major achievement and with big Jack Charlton at the helm he had led us to the promised land of World Cup football. Although at the time he was appointed manager there were some who felt it was wrong to appoint a “foreign” manager and an English one at that. All was soon forgotten as big Jack whipped the Irish lads into shape and got them playing to the best of their abilities. Granted, it wasn’t like watching Brazil but it was effective none the less. As the Irish world cup song of the time was titled “put them under pressure” and that’s exactly what big Jacks team did.
Ireland’s streets resembled something of a ghost town that day with hardly a person to seen on the streets as the game kicked off. It was no classic as I recall as the 90 minutes elapsed and extra time got under way. This was no better in quality than the match and after many near heart attacks the ref put us out of our misery and the game went to penalties. The first 4 penalties for each side were duly dispatched to the back of the net and next up for the Romanians was Timofti who didn’t look very confident as he approached the spot kick, and Packie Bonner diving to his right managed to save it to the delight of the Irish fans all over the world. I remember the horror from everyone around me when who should we see trundling forward to take our fifth spot kick only David O’Leary. The main comment was, “why the f*** is David O’Leary taking a penalty. From the look on big Jacks face I think he was thinking the same thing, he couldn’t even bear to watch.
So there we were sitting in a pub (imagine that in Ireland) hardly daring to watch as O’Leary stepped up and smashed the ball into the net to send Ireland into the quarter finals and a match against the hosts Italy. There were easily 15 pubs in the town of Ballyjamesduff in Co Cavan, Ireland and approximately 30 seconds after the ball hit the net, the doors of all of them burst open and everyone that was inside ran out into the street and the World Cup party of a lifetime turned into a street party. Packie Bonner was on Irish radio this morning and the thing he said he remembered most was Ireland’s kit man who was only about 5ft tall, trying to jump on top of the mound of players that had built up over O’Leary after he had scored.
There were many sick heads the following morning but nobody seemed to care that much, all we could think of was a match against Italy in the quarter finals of the world cup. Sadly Toto Schillachi who was the form player of that world cup put an end to dreams of the semi final, scoring the only goal of the game and sending the boys in green home. For a small football nation like ours it was an amazing achievement to get at far as we did and listening to people recounting their memories today exactly 20 years after it happened, brings it all back to like it just happened yesterday. One fella rang in and said every time he looks in the mirror he remembers that day because when O’Leary scored he jumped up and hit his forehead on the canopy that was overhanging the bar and had to go and get it stitched. Hopefully one day soon Ireland will be able to return to football’s biggest stage and then we will be able to show the rest of the world how to party all over again. Mind you the South African’s are doing a pretty good job in our absence.