In memories of days past

For the football purists looking in......

FIELD OF DREAMS

The Lansdowne Roar.......yes I've been part of that many a day.....

Going, Going, almost gone.....

All that remained a few weeks ago was the West Stand, the railway tracks underneath causing the delay....

How many millions of memories are caught in this place above?

....I know I have hundreds stored in my memory banks if not thousands and not all football either!

Like the day a wag told the late arriving Larry Mullen of U2 and his gorilla like minders, "we know who the F**K you are but what do yeh call your monkeys?".

I remember Oleg Blokhin charging up the field for the USSR (or in those days, Dynamo Kiev & 1) with Chris Hughton in tow and a Cork voice telling Chrissy boy to use a rather sharp pointed stick to catch him -that was my first encounter with racism. I remember it just heightened my dislike of things Corkonian even more.

The images that are most vivid though are the players that graced the park.....

Maradona, Guillit, Van Basten, Rikjaard,Michel, Butragueno, Blokhin, Belanov, Cuellemans, Gerets, Pfaff, Rummeninigge, Voeller, Klinsmaan, Platt, Whiteside, Armstrong, the Laudrup Brothers, Poulsen, Figo, Brady, McGrath, Giles, Platini, Tigana, Rocheatau, Zimako, Fernandez, Rats, Kutznetzov, Boniek, Stoichkov, Zuker, Boban...the list is endless

I remember Niall Quinn taking time for every kid with autographs...simply a class act of a person.

Paul McGrath's master-class of reading a game, and now knowing of the demons he had to struggle with makes it all the more incredulous of the games he gave in that green shirt....if ever you have a chance, get his biography as told to Vincent Hogan.

Roy Keane's tigerish displays in midfield....people never give him credit for what he was...the engine - the boss ! ... Perhaps the greatest Irish player ever. Saipan was a sad episode and will forever taint his memory in the green shirt with many but his display versus the Netherlands put us there in the first place...McAteers wonderstrike in that game regardless. I empathised with him as I saw first hand the mickey mouse organisation that the FAI can be many years ago...I wished he could have gone onto Japan, I believe honestly that we would have been at least in the final four in 2002 and who knows......still what ever good came out of Cork, eh? .. :-)

Anyway, back to the future....

Lansdowne is being demolished and then "Phoenix like" will rise in it's new incarnation...

It looks absolutely stunning and a worthy home to our wonderful rugby team, here's hoping our Footballers can do it proud also.

Goldenballs & all that!

Chelsea visited California last month and the NY blues paid a visit to a well known landmark high up on the Hollywood hills.

We had intended to go but the new house or rather the new A/C & furnace looked after that!

As it turns out the missus had one of her premonitions about going to LA. In the heel of it, She became dangerously ill & was hospitalised the day of the first game. I shudder to think what may have happened to her had we been in LA.

As for the game or the glamourfest that was Beck's first day on the job, it was a pile of shi*e, the lads could have won by a barrel-load but must have been told to lay off.

Peace!