Loyal Fans Will Have To Dig Deep
Fri, Mar 05 2010
As the 80 or so GAWA return from Tirana with empty pockets, all eyes will be on the fixture dates being announced on Monday.
For award winning Northern Ireland supporters wishing to book flights, then they only need look at this coming September and October, as it is too early to book flights beyond that. We haven't had the best of picks in terms of bargain travel carriers, with travel to the Faroe Islands especially limited.
Fixtures are to be arranged between September 3rd and 7th and October 8th to 12th. We will be able to play Fridays or Saturdays and Tuesdays, but not Wednesdays. So, obviously this poses problems in terms of holiday entitlement with employers and obviously the added problem and cost, should the fixture dates not go our way. For example, Estonia in Tallinn on either September 3rd or 4th would make it difficult, expensive and limited to travel to say Faroes for the following Tuesday. So, all fingers will be poised on keyboards come Monday.
Either way, it's not going to be a cheap tournament. Anyone hoping for convenient, glamorous friendly can forget it. It looks like there will be a mini-tour at the end of May to play Turkey somewhere in the US followed by a friendly in Santiago with Chile. One wonders how appropriate it is to be trying to finalise something like this now, given the turmoil caused by the recent earthquake. Either way, any mini-tour will likely not see too many familiar faces traveling, with it more an opportunity for Worthington to see what new faces he needs to bring in for the tournament proper. Again, from a supporter perspective it's not straight forward either.
It's not easy to get too excited, given the display in Albania. It was clear to see the frustration of many of the players, and few of us doubt their efforts or commitment, but tactically it was poor, the conditions were poor and the decision to play there probably poor too. Granted, we perhaps needed an away fixture to a team lower in the FIFA ranks, as that's where we need to improve, but Albania was a rough choice for supporters.
The Euro 2012 link now fully up and running. Albania match report in there now with full team listing. Come Monday we will be updating with all dates and times and venues, where known. Note the cool 'Location' Googlemaps link at bottom of the page. This will give us good insight to where we're going.
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