Search: 'Bray Wanderers'

Dermot Corrigan tells of how a player more used to scoring in Drogheda and Derry made his full international debut in Tripoli

On the first weekend in June, most Irish football eyes were fixed on Macedonia, where the Republic of Ireland won 2-0 in a Euro 2012 qualifier. One head though – that of Dublin-born Eamon Zayed – was more interested in Group C of the African Cup of Nations qualifiers, where his Libyan team drew 1-1 away to the Comoros Islands to remain in the hunt for a place at next year’s finals.

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The climax to the 2010 World Cup adds a new name to the trophy, as seen on TV

Round of 16 ~ June 26
South Korea 1 Uruguay 2
There are acres of empty seats for a match played in a downpour. Last week Peter Drury compared chilly conditions to a match at Notts County; we now discover Jon Champion’s benchmark for a rainy day at football: “Weather you’d expect at Port Vale.” Some Uruguayan fans are wearing Óscar Tabárez facemasks. Park Chu-Young has the first chance, his free-kick bouncing off the post with Fernando Muslera beaten. But the Uruguayans might have been three up at the break – Lee Jung-Soo gets away with a handball and Luis Suárez is wrongly flagged offside when clean through. Their one goal is a calamity for Korea, the prone Jung Sung-Ryong swiping ineptly at Diego Forlán’s cross as it flies right across the area to Suárez. Muslera is equally at fault for the equaliser, failing to connect with a defensive header that goes straight up in the air – “Look up the definition of no-man’s land, he’s there,” says Craig Burley – and it is finished off by the “Bolton Wanderers man”, Lee Chung-Young. Uruguay’s deserved winner is superbly curled in by Suárez, “the man they call El Pistolero”, after the Koreans fail to clear a corner. That 49-goal season for Ajax, the most repeated stat we’ve heard at the World Cup, gets another airing while Suárez appears to bounce off a photographer’s head en route to a group hug with the substitutes. Such celebrations are treated as a felony in English football but no one has been booked for them at the World Cup. Korea get a final chance but “Middlesbrough fans will not be surprised” as Lee Dong-Gook’s weak shot is held up on the muddy pitch and cleared.X

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While their footballing principles may stop West Brom repeating 2005’s great escape from relegation, their fans remain steadfastly positive. The visit of the unpopular yet enduringly effective Bolton provides another opportunity to showcase their faith and fragility, and David Stubbs was there

As the West Brom fans enter by the Jeff Astle gate into The Hawthorns, many of them, young and old, male and female, pay tribute to painted images, fastened to the railings, of the hero of 1968’s FA Cup victory that look like they were commissioned by the same artist who does those mirror likenesses of Elvis Presley you get at fairgrounds. One by one, they come up and pat Astle, as if rubbing a rabbit’s paw for good luck. It’s a genuinely moving collective gesture of footballing faith – I’m reminded of the stream of newlyweds who come and pay tribute to the eternal flame dedicated to the Second World War fallen in Moscow’s Red Square.

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It may be no surprise that you can get great English coverage of football in Ireland, but Ian Plenderleith tracks down individual sites that cover Poland, Slovakia and even the whole of South America

Sometimes a Google search of your club’s name can take you to interesting places. Sligo, for example. If I hadn’t been looking for an obscure fact about Lincoln City, I would likely have discovered too late that the Imps were scheduled to play Sligo Rovers in a pre-season tournament in July. As it was, I was able to cancel my summer holiday in Tuscany and reschedule for the Emerald Isle instead (some parts of this paragraph are a lie).

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