* This is a very old post, I cleared things up a bit better on the Great Exam Heist and the Aftermath on those articles. This story also appears in my book, Backpacking Centurion Volume 1 – Don’t Look Back In Bangor! It was June 1997 and I said my farewells to a school…
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It’s a great honour and a privilege to play sport and to take part. What is an even bigger honour is to tell people that you were the champion at that sport in your country. I was and we were. I am proud to say I was and really, I wouldn’t have had it any…
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I had been to Southampton a few times, sometimes to fly from the airport back to George Best Belfast City. Other times, as band manager of the waves, I had been to rehearsals and gigs there. It is a big city, and much less busy than London. It was only a matter of time before…
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Back in 1998 in those glory days when simply watching Northern Ireland playing football or getting pished down the Wins (Bangor) or the Monico (Belfast) I happenned to help with an election campaign. It wasn’t by chance and it wasn’t because I wanted to. It was just because I had just turned 18 and life…
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Selling our self-produced ‘Here We Go…Again‘ fanzine (for the Northern Ireland national team) next to Marty Lowry for years had meant we chatted about all sorts of random things, including Marty telling me about Shaun with an H. This man was Shaun Schofield, who had been attending every single Northern Ireland home and away match…
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Following the first two meetings of the South of England Northern Ireland Supporters Club in Weymouth and Torquay, the third meeting fell to Bristol, where it was thought we would attract more members to the club. We chose the date of the Bristol City v. Nottingham Forest match, so we could meet Sammy Clingan, of…
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Back in 1991, while in P7, final year at Kilmaine Primary School we often had football matches at lunch and break time. To this day, only one match from that period sticks in memory and what a cracker it was. The primary school used to let us eat lunch in the classroom and in warmer…
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The second meeting of the South of England Northern Ireland Supporters Club was held in Torquay on the first Saturday on 2006. The reason for the meeting was that myself, Tim Beattie and Owen Millar wanted to get the club up and running fairly quickly and plan the year ahead. Owen suggested Torquay, because he…
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As detailed in other blog posts, during 2005 I helped set up and became chairman of the South of England Northern Ireland Supporters Club. The idea really was just to set up an amazing wee club in the south of England for Northern Ireland football fans, or anyone who enjoys a good day out really.…
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The first time I saw my country win a match while I was there was this one. I had watched our two previous wins at home with my Dad on TV. They were Malta 3-0 and Uruguay 1-0 in 1989 and 1990 I think. This game was my first international of 1991, and it happenned…
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