When Ireland got to Giants Stadium to play Norway at the 1994 World Cup, Jason McAteer was still trying to get his head around the fact he was starting.
McAteer and Gary Kelly were rooming together in New Jersey and neither of them slept properly.
Before the match, McAteer went outside the ground to give his family their tickets and told them he was playing.
His mum could see what state he was in, so she tried to calm him down.
“You’ll be fine.”
Then he went back in and lined up in the tunnel.
John Aldridge was in front of him.
Roy Keane was behind him.
During the national anthems, McAteer saw a whisper starting to come down the Ireland line from Andy Townsend.
He thought it must have been something important.
Maybe some last instruction from the manager before the game.
Eventually it got to Aldridge.
He turned round to McAteer.
“Row F, bird with the Viking hat.”
McAteer looked back at him.
“Yeah?”
Aldridge carried on.
“Look at the size of her f****** knockers. Pass it on.”
McAteer had the cameras on him, the anthem playing, and Roy Keane standing right behind him.
There was no way he was turning round to Roy Keane before the biggest game of his life and telling him that.
So he passed on a different message instead.
“Roy, manager says to keep it tight for the first twenty minutes, pass it on.”
Keane passed that on to Gary Kelly.
And Kelly was left wondering why McAteer was standing there laughing at what sounded like the most basic tactical instruction in football.
Ireland drew 0-0 and advanced through the group.
“I wanted to swap shirts with Viking girl after the game.”
#football
It is time to end this war. But Russia’s ruler wants to keep fighting. That is why Ukrainian sanctions against this aggression are working. Last night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg region – to the enemy navy’s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt. Our long-range sanctions also reached about 500 kilometers into the Krasnodar region – and hit an oil depot. These are important results of the joint efforts by warriors from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. Russia must end its war and stop its attacks on life. Any manifestation of injustice against Ukraine will receive a just response. I thank our warriors for their precision.
In 1969, a 23-year-old from Northern Ireland named Jack Keyes achieved a legendary feat by chugging 36 pints of beer in a single hour.
To put the pace into perspective, Keyes would have had to average one pint every 100 seconds for a full hour without slowing down.
When Guinness World Records retired all alcohol-consumption categories in 1989 due to health and safety concerns, Keyes’ unfathomable achievement remained the unbeaten, permanent record.
Dublin Ireland 🇮🇪
These ground staff were all waiting for the airplane to arrive. Seems that one of their recently retired colleagues passed away suddenly while on holiday in Turkey and they were there to bring him home...
Ireland 🇮🇪 💚
@Ana_Eliana_ No value for their lives - if the digger burns , it burns. - that’s what insurance is for . More people operant that ll those men go home to their respective families . This is just macho bullshit