After ranking the worst years in Irish sport yesterday, we're looking at the glorious side of things today, as we rank the best ever years in Irish sport.
Some years Ireland have been good at some sports but poor at others, good at soccer but terrible at rugby (1992) or vice versa (2006). Some years, we have seen some towering individual achievements, such as Padraig Harrington in 2008 but we have struggled in the major team sports. Here are the years we were closest to doing well at everything. Any suggestions, make sure to comment...
5. 1987
The Irish football team won eight games on the trot during 1987 (still an Irish record) on their way to finishing top of the European Championship group ahead of Bulgaria, Scotland and Belgium, the only time Ireland have topped a qualifying group (they were seconds away from doing it in Euro 2000).
The rugby team weren't that bothered about the new-fangled World Cup in them days and put a half-arsed effort into it. In the Five Nations, they beat England 17-0 in Lansdowne Road and the Welsh in Cardiff. They lost the other two games but a reasonable effort given that they were wooden spooners the year before.
Cycling isn't in fashion, but Stephen Roche won everything all the same. As usual an Irish golfer "won" the Ryder Cup for Europe with Eamon Darcy beating Ben Crenshaw in a crucial match in Ohio.
4. 2001
Blasted foot and mouth disease wrecked us. Ireland, still new to winning rugby matches after many lean years, might have won the Grand Slam but for a mystifying loss in Murrayfield to a bad Scotland team. The Irish football team also hit a bit of a peak, knocking Holland out of the World Cup running in September. The qualifier series got its first run in the football championship and proved a success.
3. 1994
Anyone who began following Irish football in the first half of 1994 (as this writer did) got a very misleading impression of what it was like supporting the team. Ireland sat in the top 10 in the World rankings, prepared for the World Cup by beating both Holland and Germany away from home in pre-tournament friendlies and then beat Italy 1-0 in the opening match of the tournament proper. Despite finishing the World Cup badly, they started like a train in the Euro 1996 qualifying, ending the year by utterly hammering Northern Ireland 4-0 in Windsor Park.
The rugby team were still in the middle of their decade long slump but this was one of the better years of the 90s with this great try (below) helping us to famous win in Twickenham.
Sonia O Sullivan won the first major championship of her career, winning gold in the European Championships
2. 2009
Ireland won the Grand Slam, Bernard Dunne became World Champion on the same day, the football team had rallied after a few bleak years and almost qualified for the World Cup. The rugby team went unbeaten throughout the year, beating South Africa in November and supplied most of the Lions players for the decisive 2nd test in Cape Town. Leinster won the Heineken Cup.
1. 1949
Ireland became the first foreign team to defeat England on English soil when they beat them 2-0 in Goodison Park. Typically, the English often forget this, and it has taken a long and strident campaign on the part of Irish football journalists to implant the idea in the English football mind that the Magical Magyars were not the first foreign team to defeat England at home.
The rugby team won the Five Nations championship for the 2nd year running, continuing the run of the greatest Irish rugby team in history.
Near misses:
1988 and 1990 are famous omissions, but nothing much else happened in those years. Ireland won a grand total of zero medals at the Seoul Olympics, while the rugby team came last in the Five Nations. In Italia 90, Ireland didn't actually win a match, the rugby team were still crap and were beaten 23-0 in Twickenham, and it was a dull year in the GAA, unless you're from Cork.
In 1993, Ireland reached no. 6 in the World rankings, their highest ever spot, but didn't really beat anyone significant and stumbled in the last couple of months of the year and were lucky to make the World Cup. The rugby team beat England and Wales in the Five Nations. Paul McGrath won PFA Player of the Year.
