Welcome to a new feature that we are going to tentatively call Crowd Watch, as we want to write about last night's game in a way that doesn't talk too much about the football because, hey, we all deserve to be happy at some point.
There were around 1,200 Irish fans corralled into the corner of the Cardiff City Stadium last night, and to their credit, they sang until the bitter end. That said, the last ten minutes were mostly dedicated to an elegiac 'Fields of Athenry', which will forever be tied to E*** 2**2.
The last genuinely rousing 'Come on You Boys In Green' came in around the 75-minute mark. No matter: it was to the Irish fans' credit that they kept on singing in spite of the exploding clown car in front of them, and Wales Online were impressed with our throaty resolve:
To their credit, the 1,500 who made the trip over from the Emerald Isle continued to give their vocal backing despite seeing the hosts dominate as well as going two goals up so early on.
The Welsh fans, naturally, had plenty to shout about, and their opening goal after five minutes was met with a '1-0, to the Sheep Shaggers'. Another of their favourite refrains was 'We know what we are/We know what we are/ Sheep Shaggers/ We know what we are'.
Although given to self-deprecation, they had no problem taunting the Irish fans, either. 2-0 brought chants of 'You're just a shit Northern Ireland', to which the Irish fans responded superbly:
You're just a small town in England, a small town in England....
By the time Wales were 3-0 up, the Welsh fans had changed their tune: perhaps in response to the Irish response, or maybe they realised that calling their opposition a 'shit Northern Ireland' was too complimentary. Cascades of 'You're fucking shit' followed, which was a fairly wretched experience for every Irish fan in the stadium.
From there, Wales fans settled into showering Gareth Bale and others in praise, although they did reserve some scorn for the Irish assistant manager when he appeared on the touchline.
What's the score? Keano, Keano, what's the score?
It was 4-0.
The Irish fans, at least, bucked received wisdom that you only sing when you're winning.
