LEE PAYNE

Tag: ireland

  • 2005 and 2015: how Norwich City’s players are now recognised by their countries

    Carrow Road stands empty as we wait for yet another international break to end.

    It’s Sunday afternoon. Football fans should be watching the final stages of the first ‘Super Sunday’ game on Sky, ready for the next one at 4pm. They should be reading the papers analyse and discuss the events of Saturday’s matches. They should be setting their PVRs to record Match of the Day 2 on.

    But they’re not – for this is a weekend hand-crafted by the devil. It’s a weekend that comes along just as the football season is getting into its stride. This is the dreaded international break.

    As Norwich City fans, we tend to be pretty proud when one of our players is called up by their country. Until recently it was a pretty rare occurrence, so we would send them on their way wishing them to go and show what talent Norwich had in their ranks. As well as hoping they wouldn’t get injured.

    I thought I’d take a look at a City team from ten years ago, to see how many internationals we had then, and compare that to the eleven that lost to Leicester last Saturday.

    On 1st October 2005, Norwich beat Brighton 3-1 at the Withdean Stadium. The Canaries were getting back into life in the Championship after Premier League relegation, and lined up that day like this:

    Robert Green
    Jürgen Colin
    Gary Doherty
    Calum Davenport
    Adam Drury
    Dean Marney
    Youssef Safri
    Andy Hughes
    Paul McVeigh
    Darren Huckerby
    Kevin Lisbie

    Substitutes: Darren Ward, Jim Brennan, Ian Henderson, Simon Charlton, Craig Fleming

    Goalkeeper Robert Green is best known for his embarrassing error against the USA in the opening game of the 2010 World Cup. He made his England debut against Colombia a few months before this Brighton match, becoming only the sixth Canary to play for England. He was set to go to the Germany World Cup in 2006 but ruptured his groin in a B international against Belarus. He was sold to West Ham shortly afterwards and the rest of his 12 caps came elsewhere.

    Robert Green. Oh Robert.

    Gary Doherty – aka the Ginger Pele – made 34 appearances for the Republic of Ireland. Strange as it may seem but Doherty was mostly played as a striker by the Republic, while he obviously found a home at centre half for Norwich. His last international cap came in 2005.

    The most capped international in the City side that day was midfielder Youssef Safri, who played 77 times for Morocco, including games at the 2004 African Cup of Nations, where his team made it to the final. Safri will be remembered by Norwich fans for doing this in a Premier League match against Newcastle:

    Paul McVeigh played 20 times for Northern Ireland over six years, Kevin Lisbie has 10 Jamaica caps to his name, and among the substitutes at the Withdean, goalkeeper Darren Ward made 5 appearances for Wales and Jim Brennan 49 for Canada.

    That was it – a total of 207 international caps and most of those for British or Irish nations and the smaller footballing countries. Now let’s remind ourselves of the Norwich City team from last Saturday:

    John Ruddy
    Steven Whittaker
    Russell Martin
    Sebastien Bassong
    Robbie Brady
    Jonny Howson
    Alex Tettey
    Graham Dorrans
    Matt Jarvis
    Wes Hoolahan
    Cameron Jerome

    Substitutes: Declan Rudd, Dieumerci Mbokani, Kyle Lafferty, Nathan Redmond, Martin Olsson, Ryan Bennett, Gary O’Neil

    Kyle Laffery struggles to get into the Norwich team but has top scored for Northern Ireland as they qualified for Euro 2016.

    This squad has nearly 250 international appearances between them from as many as 12 different players. Overall, this shows how much things have changed for Norwich City in the last decade – and these players have been doing well for their nations too. Wes Hoolahan was man of the match for the Republic of Ireland as they beat Germany on Thursday – a game Robbie Brady also played in. Kyle Laffery is the top scorer in Northern Ireland’s European qualifiers, Dieumerci Mbokani scored for DR Congo and Alex Tettey scored for Norway against Malta last night.

    I hope you’ve found this an interesting look at how Norwich’s representation of the international stage has changed in the last 10 years – and I hope it’s made this awful international break that little bit more bearable.

  • World Twenty20 2012 review: West Indies are the calypso kings

    The West Indies beat Sri Lanka by 36 runs in Colombo to take the 2012 World Twenty20 title.

    The West Indies are a side who for so long can be seen to be in great decline but always show the potential to pull off a shock. As it turned out, their triumph at the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka wasn’t so much of a shock as a well deserved victory for the best team in the tournament.

    Before the competition began, this blog picked Australia to be the champions, defeating the hosts Sri Lanka to win the tournament in Colombo. I was close – Australia lost to the West Indies in the semis, who went on to pip Sri Lanka to the title.

    It was a tournament that did struggle to get going with the very odd format of having three teams in each group. This meant that poor old Zimbabwe were out, having lost to both Sri Lanka and South Africa in the space of three days, before a lot of the teams had played their first game. This was simply a way to almost guarantee the top Test nations would progress and not be eliminated by an associate team pulling off an upset. Sadly, this meant there was a few dead games at the end of the group stages.

    The Super Eights were where the tournament got going – except for England. England didn’t really mount much of a defence to their title won in the Caribbean in 2010. Dogged by the ongoing saga surrounding Kevin Pietersen, they thrashed Afghanistan in their opener before being pummeled by India and beaten by the West Indies in a game that had Eoin Morgan – who scored 71 off 36 balls – been sent in earlier they would have won. Victory over New Zealand kept their hopes alive but their inability to play spin in subcontinental conditions meant they were knocked out after losing to Sri Lanka.

    The crowds tended to wait for the latter stages of the tournament before making an appearance – a lot of the early games were played in front of almost no one inside the grounds and that was with the cheapest ticket being just 14p. Yes, 14 pence. Their interest grew when the big guns took each other on and when the Asian sides were in action. There was a wonderful atmosphere at the Sri Lanka v Pakistan semi-final.

    The rain didn’t help either. The fact that this event was played in the rainy season in Sri Lanka left a few pundits wondering whether the ICC were here for the cricket or for the cash. At this time of year in that part of the world the rain tends to stay away until the evening – so what did the ICC do? Schedule the matches for the evenings of course. This meant the TV revenue could be maximised, but meant that more than one match was ruined by the weather – most notably Ireland were eliminated without getting a fair crack at the West Indies when the rain brought a premature end to the game and to their tournament.

    The West Indies have had internal struggles recently but no one can deny they have a frightening set-up for Twenty20 cricket. Chris Gayle, who is far more than just a slogger, showed his class by averaging 44 over the 7 matches he played, including a wonderful 75 not out carrying his bat in the semis against Australia. Marlon Samuels carried on his great form for 2012 – not least with 78 off 70 balls when his team were struggling in the final. They do tend to rely on the batsmen to build a massive total though – their bowling wasn’t the best and only spinner Narine was in the top 5 bowlers in the tournament.

    The World Twenty20 was a quick tournament for the game’s shortest format. It’s a bit of fun that isn’t taken too seriously, but means a lot to the players involved. For the West Indies supporters, who have had nothing to cheer since the ICC Champions Trophy victory of 2004, this will have come as welcome relief. We’ll do it all again in Bangladesh in two years’ time.