Neil Lennon

Very , very few. The only one I know is a guy in my old school who grew up in a unionist town and is a big fan of them. Maybe because his circle of friends went to the games. I generally regard people like that as either people who don't know their history, West Brit types or those who don't mind getting patted on the head as they are conforming to "Brand NI" that the local media is constantly pushing. There is a definite push by local media to try and promote a "northern Irish" identity and some people are happy to identify as that. The push to promote that identify obviously is an attempt to try and shore up the six counties place in the UK. They are frightened of unification.

 

My dad said when he was growing up in the 1980s (bang smack in the middle of the troubles) that he and his ones actually quite liked seeing them do well (for example at the World Cup in Spain) because there was a large section of the team from a similar background to him, but that feeling certainly dissipated when he got older.

When I was at school that sort of sentiment was completely non existent. But equally I always got the feeling that lads were more heavily invested in PL football than the ROI National team, if anything. Which I suppose is a sign of the times….

With regards to northern Irish fans who attend Windsor park on a match day, it’s obviously well documented and common knowledge that there is an element of scummery in amongst it but I also imagine a large portion of the support are just normal unionist or middle of the road families who identify with the northern Irish National team, which I have no problem with because they’re supporting the team for the right reasons. They aren’t all using it as a means of displaying their ‘staunchness’ or bigotry.


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no

 

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Surely players such as MON, NL and Rory McIlroy etc. must have had a conflict of interests playing for them, especially when James McLean said that "Catholics feel as if they are not wanted when playing for the north"?

 

I would regard Rory McIlroy as a unionist even though he may be Catholic. He goes to their games, sees himself more as British etc.
It was only fairly recently that people from the six counties could play for the Ireland soccer team. I think Darren Gibson was one of the first to make use of the rule that you could play for whichever team that you wanted. That was around 2008/2009 from memory. Since then the NI IFA have been taking legal cases about getting players 'poached' from the FAI but they have lost every case as a players choice is protected under Good Friday Agreement.

So Lennon and O'Neill wouldn't have had a choice back in the day...it was their only way of playing international football.

 

Rory McIlroy would love to play for them

 

Obviously in the Judas mould

 

Shame. They would have been great additions to the Republic team back then

 

True. George Best was always in favour of an All-Ireland team. Even though he grew up in a loyalist area.