Joe Carroll's Inside Track: Girls can take credit for Windsor’s seismic change

Would it be that it became the norm. Northern Ireland soccer team standing to attention at a Belfast venue with one from the Republic for the playing of Amhrán na bhFiann?

It happened at Windsor Park last week for the meeting of the sides in the UEFA Women’s League qualifier. And while the National Anthem was being played, the Republic team, all of them singing at the top of their voices, had youngsters wearing Northern Ireland jerseys standing alongside them.

Just as Croke Park fell silent for the playing of God Save The Queen before a Six Nations rugby tie between Ireland and England back in 2007, there wasn’t a peep from the crowd as the bastion of Northern Ireland soccer reverberated to a sound that had never before been heard there.

If there were Loyalist hardliners walking down the nearby Boucher Road and heard this happen, the older among them might have been transported back to before The Troubles began. This was at the time when you had Catholics and Protestants living on the same street.

Telifís Éireann – as RTE television was then known – would end the night’s transmission around 11.30 with the playing of Amhrán na bhFiann. Just to antagonise their neighbours, Catholics would turn up the volume and open their doors and windows.

Over 83,000 were at Croker 16 years ago, while there was nothing like that at the women’s match. That’s irrelevant – the old order was giving way to the new at both venues, and that was healthy.

And God Save The King being played at Casement Park in just over four years’ time? That’s a big outsider. There’s still doubt over Belfast’s once-leading GAA venue being rebuilt in time to house Euro 28 matches.

And even if the rebuilt happens, it’s unlikely any of England’s matches – if the Three Lions qualify – would be played there.
It would be pushing it a bit to think that last week’s event might eventually lead to the two associations, the FAI and the Irish League, joining forces and fielding just the one team on the international field.

There has never been a will on either side to take the step that could only lead to the country having a team capable of challenging for major honours. The Republic has been to three World Cup finals, while Northern Ireland has twice been represented.

Given how far down the pecking order both are right now, neither making it through to Euro 24, it’s difficult to envisage the heady days of Sweden ’58, Italia ’90 and the others, coming soon again.

To finish: what a contrast Windsor Park was last week with the same venue 30 years ago.

Jack Charlton‘s Republic team were out against Northern Ireland, needing just one point to qualify for the 1984 World Cup finals in America.

The points were of no value to Billy Bingham and his team, but when Jimmy Quinn opened the scoring for the locals, the night’s toxicity rose to a height it had never previously attained, Bingham, with a charge down the line, doing nothing to contain in.

Alan McLaughlin came in with an equaliser and the Republic were on the way across the Atlantic.

If the waters are calmer now, maybe the girls can take credit.