QUALIFYING FOR SPAIN 1982.

Before remembering probably the greatest night in the memories of many NI supporters it would be a good idea to remember how we actually qualified in the first place.

It certainly was changed days indeed – five teams in a group with the top two automatically qualifying. This was of course in the days before Solidarity kicked off in Gdansk, those mad Krauts knocked that big wall down (if you are ever in Berlin don’t for God sake buy what passes for a part of the wall – it was the Berlin Wall and not the Great Wall of China they knocked down so there CANNOT be any of it left to sell to anyone except gullible Yanks) and Riga was probably an unpleasant place to visit (sound familiar anyone). No in those days there were just those countries who had been more or less with us since the signing of the Versailles Treaty in 1919 – we didn’t need to travel to Shitholeastan, Backofbeyondastan and Christ knows what other Hellholeastans that now make up the old Soviet Union. Tito had ruled over one country before Milosevic went mad in Yugoslavia and there were about six countries where whence there was one and even the Czechs and the Slovaks cheered on the same team. Yes in essence it was much more straightforward in those days – Blatter hadn’t got all the countries from Bongo-Bongo Land in his back pocket with a promise that any place (Rockall didn’t have eleven players) could enter as long as his Swiss/Cayman Island accounts were kept nicely in the black.

The draw wasn’t too bad – Sweden Portugal, Israel and the Sweaties. No-one could beat us in Belfast ( I stand corrected but I think the last European team to beat us at Windsor apart from England was the Dutch who scraped a lucky 1-0 win in ’77 – we had played them off the park in Rotterdam in ’76 drawing 2-2 so they must have had the hump up. They appeared and lost in both World Cup Finals in’74 and ’78 so that puts our results into context. Having won the Home Internationals in 1980 (and another one just around the corner) a trip to take on the Sweaties at Hampden filled no-one full of fear.

The first game even took place before the previous season was over and it looked as if our lights were out in more ways than one. A short stop for a floodlight failure in Israel was probably the highlight of the night in a dire 0-0 draw and Espana ’82 looked a long way off. It was only at the death we would realise how important that point would be – as it turned out Israel were unbeaten after 3 games as the Jocks set the early pace.

As expected our home form kept us in it when we tanked Sweden 3-0 at Windsor with the highlight being a wonder goal with his left peg by Jimmy Nicholl in front of the Kop. A narrow 1-0 defeat in Lisbon left us with 3 from 3 as 1980 drew to a close and I don’t think there were too many sombreros being dusted down at that stage – maybe not a bad thing as the Birdie Song was the next big thing to hit Spain!!

Next up were our ‘friends’ from across the water who three years later deemed themselves too good to play us in the Home Internationals and along with England pulled out – strange that seeing as we had won it twice in 5 years. Unfortunately I wasn’t there to celebrate Brotherston’s goal (rest his soul) as I was taking the first of my overseas trips – my brother was teaching for a year in France (no not that brother!) and I was over in Paris taking in the bright lights for the first time. However we did celebrate to a certain extent when we heard the news on some dodgy radio station (for you young whippersnappers this was when that fat, greedy, Aussie b…..d Murdoch was only a legend in his own mind and Sky was something you looked at when Patrick More told you there was something of infinite excitement to stare at?). It may have been the legendary Radio Luxemburg for all I remember but I just recall we were chuffed to bits. It’s a pity our celebration stretched to a few tins of Alsace’s ‘greatest’ contribution to the world (after those noisy bloody dogs of course) – Kronenbourg 1664. Is it little wonder the French drink so much vino every year and give the beer a wide berth if this is the best they can come up with. Just in case a few geography/history buffs are reading this – Kronenbourg is French beer. It has been fought over more times than Warsaw for God knows whatever reason but is currently in the hands of the frogs – do you really think the seasoned German beer drinker would put up with that pish?

This was a life-defining trip for me – my first time away from the British Isles, my first time on a plane and such an eye-opener. It also led me down a very familiar path that was to become far too common in years to come. Alan was staying in the Halls of Residence and the rooms had one single bed – no visitors were allowed and there was a security man on the door every night. I had to get out every morning when Alan was leaving for classes before the cleaners arrived – I had somehow scraped through my ‘O’ Level French but didn’t fancy trying to converse with a couple of hard-nosed looking Arab bints who had probably slipped into the country from Algeria when the French pulled out/surrendered (and who as we speak are probably cleaning rooms in some doss house in West London having slipped through the tunnel from Sangatte!).

The security guard must have been wearing Clouseau’s glasses as we managed to slip past him every night and I spent nearly a fortnight kipping on a lilo on the floor inside a sleeping bag – I seriously think I have slept on more floors over the years than that character in the Tom Hanks movie who has lived at the airport in Paris for half his lifetime. It was almost with blessed relief that we were caught on the last night and with the tail between my legs I had to book into a hotel and get one decent night’s kip. This was to become another trend – avoid paying for hotels where possible. Really cannot see the wisdom of scouring the internet for a cheap flight to Shitsville, Arizona then spend a fortune on a hotel which in all probability you will roll into about 4 in the morning steaming – but it may have satellite TV so everyone to their own!! Give me a cheap hostel any day.

So as I say it meant muggins was out on the street on his Sweeney from early on – nothing else for it but to take the bull by the horns, buy my Carte Orange Metro ticket which allowed me unlimited travel for a week and head off into the big smoke. Alan had given me a list of the biggies to visit, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame (never did see Quasi), The Louvre, Sacre Coeur, the Pompidou Centre etc and I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. God knows how many times I got lost, got off at the wrong station or just wandered aimlessly but I eventually got the hang of it – it has stood me in good stead ever since because I have this remarkable sense of direction and awareness of where I am when in a big city. One of the biggest buildings in a lot of these cities is a church (think Cologne – how they hell did the RAF miss that?) – use it as your point of reference and trust me you will invariably get back to where you started. Failing that slip into one of the bookshops and get a map ( and I don’t mean go to LonelyPlanet/Rough Guide section and tear the appropriate one out for whatever city you are staying in – no idea where that idea came from!).

Alan would finish his daily work which was usually early what with this being France an eight hour day was unheard of, although I cannot remember the buggers striking during the whole fortnight I was there which must be some kind of record. We would head out for a bite to eat or go to the house of friend of his from the school he was teaching at for some grub. I have taken to trying just about everything on my travels (snakes, kudu, crocodile, chickens feet, alligator and giraffe to name a few) but as a wet behind the ears nineteen year old from the Scrabo Estate on his first journey abroad I was in for a rude awakening. The expression that sticks in my mind since then is Alan saying over and over again -‘you aren’t going to like this’.Why the hell don’t they cook their food? I have seen a few blue steaks over here but by God they were incinerated compared to the way the frenchies ate theirs – I think if it hadn’t been for their heavenly bread I may have got the role of Gandhi ahead of Ben Kingsley!

As I mentioned it opened up a whole new world to me – Scrabo Tower wasn’t the biggest tower I had now visited and the world was now my oyster. I also learned that when you go to these places they can be as expensive as you want them to be – I remember buying a tin of coke and a coffee just off the Champs Elysees at it cost me nearly thirty bob. Jesus Christ this was back in nineteen bloody eighty when thirty bob went a long way in a wee pub back in Ards. Still I took it on the chin, learned my lesson (well most of the time) and made it my goal to hunt out a Loft in every city I now visit!

 To the uninitiated the Loft Bar is one of Ards’ finest hostelries run by the best barman in the town – Mr Ned (Michael to only his very close family and friends) Kennedy and Sadie and to put the tin hat on it the legendary Davy Lee’s (he of the song and fanzine fame) is right next door. It has a reputation for not being the most salubrious wee spot in the world but you know what you are going to get and will not be ripped off – much prefer these type of watering holes to the pretentious gaffs that so many of the travelling NI support seem to frequent when they travel abroad then come home and whinge about how expensive the beer is. Can I give some of you some free advice – if you go to the Scandinavian countries (or Iceland for that matter) and you go into an Oirish bar or a nightclub then expect to spend half of your inheritance on getting blocked. It’s quite simple and logical really. If you go to the Sahara it’s likely to be warm and if you follow Captain Scott’s journey across the Antarctic then it won’t be just as warm. So ends today’s sermon.

 Spending money is a habit of mine but I hate being stroked – the biscuit was taken in Geneva when we were on our way to Turin to watch United slap Juventus 3-0. If you ever get the chance to go then don’t – full stop. Full of Germans who refuse to fight, freeloaders on expenses (paid through the EU by you and me by the way) and beer prices that would make your toes curl. Trust me there is bugger all to do but after necking a bottle of duty free Smirff in the room we had to venture out to take in the nightlife that Geneva had to offer us – needless to say the options were limited (think Conlig on a Tuesday night and you get the picture). We eventually bit the bullet and ended up in what passed for a nightclub, Geneva style – holy shit. The place was full of Diplomats, what looked like MEPs obviously on expenses, other non-descript Bankers who looked like they were still hoarding the millions that had been half-inched from the Jews of Europe during the war and which was still gathering dust in the Geneva Branch of Bearings Bank and not even a ‘bobby’ in sight.

 With no danger of dying of excitement we hit the bar to be sold a bottle of beer (no chance of your pints of William Tell Special Lager in there) and we were charged the very ‘reasonable sum’ of £11-50 a bottle. If my memory serves me right the bottle of Smirff was cheaper - should have got two and stayed in the room!! Really cannot remember what happened next (I think one of the troops had a few words with one of the ‘bouncers’) but we were bucked out after one drink – I think I can honestly say I have never been so glad to have been chucked out of a nightclub in all my life. We ended our night sharing a few beers with one of the vendors of one of those wee burger type vans that seem to exist the world over – Las Vegas is wasn’t. At least if you go to a Bobby Moore house you expect to be stroked (in more ways than one!).

 I must admit I nearly died laughing when I heard that Switzerland had won the last America’s Cup (albeit with a crew full of Kiwi mercenaries). Could you picture one of the highest profile events in the sporting calendar taking place on Lake Geneva – shudder to think what price the beer would have been in our wee nightclub over that period (that is if we weren’t barred!!). Still the Swiss (sorry non-fighting Germans) aren’t too slow when the old doh-ray-me is mentioned so as a land-locked country they did what every true sailing nation would do and put it up for tender to the highest bidder – and as all you sporting quiz aficionados know it went to Valencia which very conveniently brings us back to the football and the scene of our never to be forgotten night (as I mentioned in a previous report I tend to go off on tangents every now and again but what the hell – I’m composing this over the winter and there are a lot of dark nights ahead so there’s a lot of time to kill).

 By the way – second tip of night. When we qualify for Euro 2008 stay in Germany and commute – Innsbruck is only 2 hours on the train from Munich and although it’s extremely difficult to take anyone serious who thinks it’s smart/chic/cool to dress up in lederhosen at least they know how to enjoy themselves (and it’s only about £5.50 for a litre of proper beer in the Hofbrauhaus). The bar we use as our ‘local’when in Munich, the Sports Bar on Schillerstrasse, opens at 08.00 and closed again at 06.00 – beat that Geneva! Not that’s what I call friendly opening hours.

The old Jockos were up next and a large crowd gathered for the wee short trip to Glasgow – it was a midweek game so more time off work. It was two points for a win in those days and with the Sweaties winning two and drawing one of their first three games we couldn’t afford to lose or it would probably be goodnight Irene with still four games to go (Portugal at home and Sweden away were up next so things weren’t looking too rosy in the garden).

A beer or three was taken as we headed off to Hampden. Unlike a large proportion of folk from this part of the world I don’t visit Glasgow very often as the football just doesn’t do it for me and their being rewarded the European City of Culture has only just been topped by the award going to Liverpool – where next, Chernobyl? I knew enough however to know that in those days there was a ‘Rangers’ end and a ‘Celtic’ end at Hampden. With great foresight (and with probably not a green and white scarf/flag amongst us) we were plopped down in front of the stand near the ‘Celtic’ end. Times may have changed but in those days there were a few wee tunes which were quite popular to the NI support – the PC travellers of the ‘GAWA’ of today would needlessly frown upon it and go onto various forums to berate anyone not singing ‘Billy Bingham’s Green and White Army for 90 minutes while posing for photographs and blowing those God forsaken horns that seem to be all the rage since Iceland. However this was 1981, a pivotal year in the history of NI and attitudes were very different.

As can be expected a few ‘pleasantries’ were exchanged from start to finish and those friendly chaps of the Strathclyde Police got to try out their batons on more than one occasion (usually on us). On the pitch as expected we had bugger all to worry about and when big Billy put us ahead it was pandemonium – this gave the baton-swingers another chance to test them out. They leapt in amongst us much to the delight of the friendly chaps to our right – it kicked off for a short time but order was quickly restored and not long after the Jocks sneaked an equaliser. Really cannot remember an awful lot more of the game as we played out a very satisfying draw safe in the knowledge that they had to come to Windsor in October when we were down to the nitty-gritty. We now had four from four, sitting behind the Jocks and Portugal who had taken five points from their first three games and were looking good before the biggest fall since Devon Loch.

To my amazement there was no real sign of any hanky-panky outside so it was back to the hotel to enjoy a few sherbets, sing a few of those wee well-known tunes again and as the night, and the beer took over, started to extremely optimistically work out where in Spain we fancied and how long we would go for.

Next up was Portugal who had started off like a house on fire and to all intents and purposes looked like filling one of the qualifying spots, leaving the other four teams to fight out the other one. We had no Andorras or Liechtensteins in the group therefore everyone was well capable of taking points off each other.

This game proved to be a turning point for us in the group – with Windsor being a fortress we were confident of turning them over especially if we could get at them early and put pressure on their keeper, Bento, whom I always thought was a bit of a Charlie Carolie in between the sticks. Needless to say he was playing like a cat that night, blocking, saving and catching everything thrown at him. Fortunately/unfortunately depending which way you look at it the next thing he nearly caught was a cider bottle in the back of the head!!! With time running out the chance of a suntan in Spain the following summer was disappearing quickly when, I seriously believe, the most important moment of that year’s qualifying took place.

As anyone who remembers those days will tell you to play in front of the Kop was to take your life in your hands if the natives got restless. The worst I can remember was when we played (and lost as usual to) England on a balmy Saturday afternoon – Christ it must have been a long time ago as I played cricket at Regent that morning before going to the game. It was thirsty weather Martin and every off-sale on the Lisburn Road must have been cleaned out – the security wasn’t styled on Alcatraz and every bugger seemed to have a carry-out in the ground with him which led to the inevitable. We were losing when it was decided the English keeper (Shilton methinks) became the target for a sustained heat of the NI bottle throwing Championship – he had to advance well out of the 18 yard box even though the most experienced rioters of the day found it beyond them to throw a bottle of Coates Somerset/Clan Dew or Scotchmac from the back of the Kop with any degree of accuracy. The ones I felt sorry for were those standing near the front of the Kop who were in mortal danger from those only serving their apprenticeship in the art of bottle clauding.

 The game was held up for a short time while the bottles were cleared off the pitch and a ring of police stood in front of the Kop, hence replacing Shilton as the sitting targets for the aforementioned bottle throwers.

Someone down the Railway End obviously couldn’t see ‘green cheese’ of course and decided to go one better and get on top of the Railway Stand to throw his bottles!! He was hardly too inconspicuous and the RUC ( or whatever they were called in those days) decided to send someone up to get him down – big, big mistake. Those of you who were in Dundalk in ’79 with the Blues (I was there myself as a neutral observer!) will remember the digging match on top of the stand when some buck eejit from Bangor went toe-to-toe with a member of the Garda Siochana while being bricked by the rest of the Guards – well this was a repeat of Windsor that afternoon.

To cut a long story short (it was hard to see exactly what happened from the Kop) but the pollis man ended up being chucked off the roof – he may have slipped but I have my doubts. If the poor bugger thought that was the end of his woes he had another think coming – they scraped him onto a stretcher and for some unknown reason decided to carry him round in front of the Kop on the way to get him much needed first aid – again another big mistake as there were still plenty of bottles available on the Kop as missiles. We were going to lose anyway so a few (quite a substantial few) decided their days entertainment was only starting and proceeded to ‘bottle’ the poor, unfortunate wrench on the stretcher. Memory fails me if there were any direct hits but they must have got him away to safety as I never heard of any fatalities on the news that night.

Now onto the incident which I believe changed the whole complexion of the game, the group and our sporting history. As was mentioned earlier the usually hapless Bento was playing like a man possessed and it looked like lights out for NI. Then out of the Kop came a cider bottle which went very near to decapitating poor old Bento – I swear to this day his Bangor Reserves went to pieces and with around 20 minutes to go he spent more time looking over his shoulder to see where the next one was coming from than he did watching what was going on in front of him with the inevitable result.

It was only a matter of time before he threw a wobbler as by this stage he didn’t know if he was Bertie or Gerty – when a ball was swung into the middle he came haring out, collided with one of his own defenders and leaving Gerry the simple job of sticking the ball in the onion bag to start mass celebrations around the ground. If the culprit responsible for causing his ‘nervousness’ was showing any sense of guilt well it certainly didn’t look like it around me.

It is at this stage where I must make an admission/confession. I have spent the last few months on a certain fans forum defending the behaviour and good name of my fellow NI supporters from Newtownards who have been castigated for committing the heinous crimes of drinking too much while travelling abroad, running onto the pitch in Riga and generally enjoying themselves amongst other allegations!!. Thank God stoning and crucifixion have been done away with in most of the countries we have visited or we would be travelling a few light at each of the subsequent games (well some people on aforementioned forum would lead you to believe that’s what they deserved).

For that night at Windsor Newtownards stands accused and I plead guilty your Honour on its behalf (no it wasn’t me who threw it). The person who tried to behead Bento is born and reared in Newtownards and not even Petrocelli could defend us on this one. Bang to rights and fair cop guv. No more to say – a lot of people know who it was but will hardly be singing his name from the rooftops. I’m not condoning violence but if it hadn’t been for this incident we would most likely not have qualified, we wouldn’t have been talking about Arconada – Armstrong for the last 25 years, all those great memories would never have occurred and I may never have met Billy Steele and Scrap (Andy McCaig – bless his memory). A lot more of those two later.

 Poor old Bento really never looked the same after that (he actually died earlier this year) and it seemed to afflict the entire Portuguese squad as from a point where it looked a foregone conclusion they would qualify they added insult to injury by losing home and away to Sweden – now it was game on.

I think the Kop showed remarkable foresight that night by making it a night for all the community. You may not have thought it but it was 1981 and the Kop spent quite a bit of time chanting the name of the Honorary Member for Fermanagh – South Tyrone who was hardly out of the news at the time. Visionaries to a man – who needed all those peace-loving characters from around the world to come and tell us how to integrate.

As was expected teams were taking points of each other with the Jocks beating Sweden in between their two victories over Portugal. Next up was our encounter with the Jocks which would make or break our chance of qualifying – it was a must win game. Anything short of two points and it really was goodnight (or so we thought).

The game was actually played the same day as Sweden beat Portugal in Lisbon, a result which threw the whole thing back in the melting pot. However as we all feared if we didn’t win it was a summer in front of the telly watching all the other teams enjoying themselves in sunny Spain, only to be interrupted by the Argie surrender in Stanley.

Again my memory fails me slightly but there must have been a strike on the 1981 equivalent of the HSS and Stenna Line as the famed Tartan Army must have decided to revert to type (i.e. keep their money in their pockets) and stayed at home and watched it on the box as I don’t recall too many of them at Windsor. There were a few under the old Olympia Drive Stand but apart from that they must have all come incognito.

The game wasn’t great – I seem to remember Danny McGrain getting a rousing reception and ‘hole-in –the-heart’ Asa Hartford blocking one on the line in front of the Kop. The bottle throwers must have had the night off as the keeper had a quiet night but in those days (has anything really changed?) you didn’t really need outside help for a Scottish keeper to chuck one in – it was par for the course. Unfortunately it finished goalless and we all trooped off home to face the inevitable – we were going to have to watch Alan Rough face the Brazilians when big Pat was sat at home.

The malaise lasted a fortnight when lo and behold a miracle happened – our old friend Bento and his pals were obviously still shell-shocked after their visit to Windsor and proceeded to lose their fourth game on the bounce, this time by getting tanked 4-1 in Israel. I told you earlier that point we got in the first game in Israel would turn out to be worth its weight in pesetas. All we had to do now was beat Israel at home and we had reached the Promised Land (sorry, a terrible pun!). They had only taken one point from their other three away games, had no hope of qualifying and were obviously more concerned with the build-up to the forthcoming invasion of Lebanon the following year than they were of beating us in Belfast (well that’s what we all hoped anyway).

So the 18^th November 1981 crawled inexorably towards us and plans were already being hatched as to where we would stay in Espana – by now the Birdie Song has swept the country so there would be no hiding place but it would be a small, irritating price to pay just to be there.

The place was bunged to the rafters with over 40,000 officially in attendance but I’m sure there were a few who had made it in by hook or by crook. To coin a famous phase there wasn’t room to throw a bottle (sorry swing a cat!) – we were just covering all eventualities just in case the latter day boy from Nazareth in nets was performing miracles.

It was never going to be a classic – I cannot remember the Kop ever being as packed as it was that night. It was a November night but there was never any chance of dying of hypothermia, what with the crowd so tightly packed in and those lovely folk behind you kindly keeping the backs of your legs warm!!

I’ll not bore everyone who was there with a blow-by-blow account of the game – suffice to say Gerry scored again to give us the victory we needed and the place went absolutely bonkers. I thought we were never getting out that night – the players did a lap of honour and Billy Bingham was famously photographed wearing a green and white bar scarf. Maybe it was the guilt kicking in but that had also been thrown onto the pitch by one of the Ards contingent although not with the same trajectory or malice as the other projectile which had got us to this point. It was one of Tin Tin’s proudest moments when Billy picked it up, wrapped it around his neck and it was beamed around the globe (well the world as we knew it before Sky TV).

The Jocks lost in Lisbon the same night but they had already qualified so who would have believed it – in a group containing both Portugal and Sweden the current best (us) and worst (the Jocks) teams in the UK had prevailed. The Welsh were as always left to look after the flock.

All we needed to do now was sit back, wait on the draw and saddle up – Christ Almighty we were heading to the World Cup Finals. Bring on June – but that’s a whole new story again.

To be continued.

Stephen Rowley.