27 years ago today, this happened in Stuttgart.
Ray Houghton kicked off the good times by heading past Peter Shilton and showing us that this association football malarky wasn't that difficult after all. We may not have got out of the group that year but we finished above England and it set us up for Italia 90 perfectly.
Today, the man himself took to twitter to let everyone know just what that meant to him. Kind of.
On this day 27 years ago I scored my first goal for Ireland happy days
— Ray Houghton (@RayHoughton8) June 12, 2015
Well that's not very celebratory at all. Does he not understand what that goal meant to the country? Have all these years of talking about it incessantly taken their toll and he just couldn't be arsed any more?
Not quite, we're going to assume it was all a clever ruse. The bait was set. Sky Sports presenter David Jones was one of a number of people who questioned the understated nature of Houghton's tweet and as soon as he did, Houghton delivered the punchline.
@DavidJonesSky you're right
— Ray Houghton (@RayHoughton8) June 12, 2015
Suitably classy stuff.
