It didn't go well. To be fair it wasn't expected to go well, but you live in hope. The part-timers were up against a very accomplished Norway and were 3-nil down by half-time. After the restart though, Northern Ireland got one back. The hundreds of Northern Ireland supporters in the stadium went crazy, just like they had scored the winner! It is something that is part of the GAWA experience whether at men's or women's games. We aren't very good and we don't score many goals, but we still love it anyway.
I have to say that I love the GAWA. Not having a proper quality league in Northern Ireland means that the only time we see good players playing here is in international matches. And thanks to Billy Bingham, we have a culture of hoping for the best and supporting our boys (and now girls) in their endeavours because sometimes, just sometimes, we pull off something special.
The big difference between today's GAWA and that the Billy Bingham years is the lack of sectarianism. I went to as many games as I could afford in the 80s. I loved the atmosphere in the Kop end and the singing of loyalist songs was a big part of that. By the 90s my perspective was changing as I fell out of loyalism over Drumcree. Around the same time Neil Lennon started getting stick from Northern Ireland fans for being "one of them". I'm not a big fan of Lennon but he was definitely one of ours. I was at a Northern Ireland game around that time and a fight broke out among the fans, I heard later it was over some feud among paramilitaries from the Shankill and Sandy Row. It all kicked off right in front of me and I had to flee, lest I end up getting a diggin'. That was me finished with Northern Ireland. I vowed never to return.
About 10 years later after moving to Madrid, one of my mates told me that the IFA had cracked down on sectarianism in the stadium. I was sceptical, but he insisted. I decided to watch one of the games to check it out. I went to a bar in the centre of Madrid to watch Northern Ireland against Spain in a qualifier at Windsor. The atmosphere was electric and there were no loyalist songs. To make it even better, we won 3-2. As the only Northern Ireland supporter in a bar packed with Spanish, I thoroughly enjoyed beating it up the locals.
Once I moved home, I decided to check out this "new" Windsor Park. I was amazed. Somehow the IFA had managed to stamp out the sectarianism and improve the atmosphere at the same time. Big kudos to them, it was a minor miracle. In 2016 I travelled to Lyon and Paris with the GAWA for the Euros and have never been so proud of the fans. On the ferry from Rosslare, we drank with the Republic fans in a wonderfully friendly way, no problems at all, even after the drink was in. And at Lyon's central square, tens of thousands of GAWA drank merrily and behaved themselves admirably, gaining much praise from the local police and French media. The French Euros were a resounding success for us.
The IFA have achieved what I believed would be impossible: the complete changing of our football culture and (almost) total eradication of sectarianism. Not only that, but they have increased attendance and improved the noise level, and therefore the atmosphere. So, seated stadiums and family friendly policies have ruined football's atmosphere? The GAWA will show you that it doesn't have to be that way.
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| Peter Anderson is a Unionist with a keen interest in sports. |
