Despite the rain of the afternoon, our spirits weren't dampened courtesy of the Scottish NISC who put on a cracking do at the Classic Grand in Glasgow. They raised over £3K on the night for Barnardos and again, it shows our supporters to be the greatest entertainers with hearts of gold.
The game for many was a sideshow. It was never going to be a sell-out but reminded many of us of the days when we used to travel over for the British Championships. 7,000 travelled over to sample what we hope will be a more regular fixture after 2011.
Ulster flags were sold for charity before the game, which on the face of it, didn't do the Sea of Green initiative much good as we looked like a shower of Englanders to anyone with a slight visual impairment, but regardless the atmosphere was, as always, tremendous.
Most notable was the debut of Man City's 18 year old left back Ryan McGivern, who had an absolutely tremendous first half and a definite contender for Happy Days 2008 International Football Hair Shield. No one will say too many harsh words about his second yellow card offence on Scott Brown and look forward to a potential contribution from him in the next 12 months or so.
There was much talk on the terraces about Healy's alleged move to Sunderland and the Chosen One didn't disappoint making some great space for himself in what was a pretty well organised home defence.
Scotland looked shapely in the second half and tried their level best to take advantage of the 10 men of Norn Iron. A penalty miss from Healy gave us a sense of robbery but Scotland arguably should have been victors but for the fact that Maik Taylor was man of the match.
All in all, pretty encouraging. A full match report will be available in HD11, once we've read the papers and jogged our memories again.
Oh... and thanks again Scottish NISC. Great day/night.
Final Score: Scotland 0 N Ireland 0
Scotland (4-4-2): Gordon (McGregor 46); Alexander, Weir (Berra, 72), McManus (Barr, 46), Naysmith; Brown, Fletcher (Stewart, 69), Thomson (Robson, 46), Morrison (Commons, 61); McFadden, Miller. Substitutes not used: Marshall, Whittaker, Berra, Boyd, Steven Fletcher, Clarkson.
Northern Ireland (4-4-2): Taylor; McAuley (Duff, 75), Craigan, Evans, McGivern; Paterson (Shiels, 46), Davis, Baird, Clingan (O'Connor, 58), Brunt (Feeney, 55); Healy. Substitutes not used: Mannus.
Referee: N Vollquartz (Denmark).
Booked: Scotland McGregor; Northern Ireland McGivern. Send off: McGivern (57).
Attendance: 28,072.
HDMOTM: Maik Taylor |
