More than 2,000 GAWA foot soldiers travelled to the Latvian capital Riga in what was planned to be another victorious display of camaraderie and victorious gloating.
We should have seen the signs. Throughout Thursday, Friday and Saturday the GAWA lined the streets of the old town, concentrating themselves in a small square where they could at least have a beer under the canopy of an outdoor bar. In Riga, you cannot drink in public, nor can you put your shoe on a blade of grass.
Unfortunately, a humourless, corrupt police force started writing the letter of the law, dissatisfied the Norn Iron supporters were not making more of a scene than they were and so set about creating one. One unfortunate, having stepped on the grass, was tackled and beaten. Others were literally picked up at random, put in the back of the police van and told to pay £10.00 or face a kicking. "Robocop, you having a laugh," went down like a... well, let's just say it didn't.
So having sussed the humourless Latvians it was off to the Skonto stadium for what should have been a three-pointer for the away team. The stadium itself was shit as expected, but certainly accommodated a significant majority of green and white.
The reintroduction of Stuart Elliot raised a few eyebrows, as did the omission of Craigan who had started the last 18 games. The criticism was justified as Angel Wings struggled to get into the game and our defence looked flummoxed. Latvia were OK at best, providing some neat passing but then running out of ideas and gifting possession back to NI. Similarly, the midfield looked lacklustre with Steve Davis running around like a headless chicken for most of it.
I could go on giving details about the game but I'll leave that to HD9. Basically the game was shit, we were shit, Latvia were shit and the ground was shit. There were moments of potential glory but nothing to start texting home about. Healy and Laffers tried to make themselves available but were closed down every time by a defence clearly instructed to do just that. McCartney had a decent game in defence but we should not be looking to our defenders so much; the play should have been at the other end of the park but it wasn't.
Eventually in the 56th minute loss of possession by Clingan saw Andrejs Rubins finding Verpakovskis who delivered the ball into the box. Even though none of the travelling support could see it, it appears Baird, on his own, tried to knock the incoming ball wide for a corner only to beat Maik Taylor and win the game for the miserable Latvians.
From then on it was never going to happen and can be put down to being just one of those nights. We must bounce back from this and we can bounce back from this. A few will criticise Worthers for making changes, but if you can't do that against Latvia then who can you do it against?
We need points in Reykjavik but can be safe in the knowledge that the Icelandic authorities and Icelandic people will treat our supporters with the respect they deserve. Latvians - grow up. You think you're European. You're not. |
