We write 'so far' because it's not over yet. We woke up this morning with trepidation. We wouldn't be able to do it, we'd be heading home with the 'win, lose, we're on the booze' criticism ringing in our ears once again. We want to enjoy yourselves but jesus it'd be nice to do it while we actually had something to celebrate.
Then we saw RTÉ's montage for this evening and we started to believe. We've done it before, we've taken on the Italians at a major tournament and come away with three points. It may not be likely but it's possible and as long as that's the case, we're going to believe. We've all been in a bit of a funk since Saturday but it just feels different today, the buzz is back and it's not only Ireland that we're doing this for. We're doing this for France, we're doing it for freedom and liberty.
Okay, we may be getting ahead of ourselves now but you need only look to the two page spread in L'Equipe today to see what Irish fans, both north and south, are bringing to the party.
In particular, there were a couple of standout moments from the feature on the Irish invasion of France. In the 'aren't we great' column comes this:
Nice quote from bar owner on #IRL/#NIR fans (L'Equipe): "Paris has been morose since the attacks. It does us good to see such happy people."
— Tom Williams (@tomwfootball) June 22, 2016
Plenty may be sick to death of the 'aren't we great'-ness of it all but there's a very good point to be made there. The build up to Euro 2016 was a bit shit. It felt like it was being held in, if not quite a recovering warzone, then at least a nation on edge. A nation that probably could have done without the logistical nightmare of keeping hundreds of thousands of football fans safe over the course of a month.
It seemed like a 'get them in, get them out' operation that was failing badly as soon as England and Russia fans started rioting in Marseille. As that Parisien bar owner suggested, maybe Euro 2016 really did need Ireland to be a success.
So that's the 'aren't we great' column covered in full. Now for the 'ah for feck sake' column.
L'Equipe article also has a story about an Irish fan who nicked a bottle of 'wine' from a hostel, took one swig and realised it was vinegar.
— Tom Williams (@tomwfootball) June 22, 2016
That's right, as part of the L'Equipe spread on the Irish fans, there's this short segue:
The next day Michael and Stephen O'Mahony alongside David Quinlan were the only ones in the bar. “We were at the pub in Cork before the match against Sweden when we decided to go. Between the atmosphere at the stadium and all the videos of Irish partying in France we said to ourselves, we can’t miss this’.
Arriving the day before, they haven’t slept. Michael is holding a bottle of vinegar in his hand. “He nicked it this morning leaving the youth hostel, he thought it was wine’ teased Stephen in a great burst of laughter. ‘After one massive swig, he realised'.
All we can say is, why the hell would you still be carrying it around?
