Stephen Ireland documentary

[Green & Blue]

Its covering his well documented fall out with the fai.It should be worth a watchs,howing on rte tonight at 7.30 using the following link you should be able to view it by using the rte player option on the site.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/scannal/

[ant london]

Not what I'd be doing if I were in his shoes. But very little that the mad little genius does falls within the category of "stuff I would do....(or could do for that matter)"

He's his own man I think that much is clear!

[patrickblue]

It appears its only available in ROI & NI. Anyone any ideas?

[patrickblue]

This seems to work http://tv-online-channels.com/online-tv ... _4529.html

[Wex]

It might be worth noting that this is an Irish language programme so some of it will be in Irish. Mostly the narrative part I would say as I'm sure Ray Houghtons Irish wont be the best!

[Alex Sapphire]

By the way, why is it you thieving buggers get the BBC without paying a bean and we British Licence Fee payers can't get RTE?? Scandal

[Wex]

It's just payback for 800 years of oppression of the Irish people by the Britisdh Crown though going by some of the programme content of the BBC sometimes I wonder if it is just a continuation of the policy

[Wonderwall]

despite all of the political bollox, what was said?

[Fish111]

Apparently Stevie is Oliver Cromwell reincarnated.

[Wex]

Obviously as there was no input from Stevie in the programme there was no balance in it. There was nothing new in, just drew together varuous reports and interviews that we had seen before. Essentially they concluded that he chose money over his country and that this may become more common in the future

[Fish111]

Obviously as there was no input from Stevie in the programme there was no balance in it. There was nothing new in, just drew together varuous reports and interviews that we had seen before. Essentially they concluded that he chose money over his country and that this may become more common in the future

Did they not even mention the vile bullying he recieved when he was with the Irish squad? If all they concluded that he chose money over his country then surely they don't know what the fuck they are on about, because don't you earn more money if you play for your country as well as your club? Or do internationals do it for free?

[Rag_hater]

Obviously as there was no input from Stevie in the programme there was no balance in it. There was nothing new in, just drew together varuous reports and interviews that we had seen before. Essentially they concluded that he chose money over his country and that this may become more common in the future

Did they not even mention the vile bullying he recieved when he was with the Irish squad? If all they concluded that he chose money over his country then surely they don't know what the fuck they are on about, because don't you earn more money if you play for your country as well as your club? Or do internationals do it for free?

Nothing to say about the interview cos haven't watched it but I think the England players do get a match fee for internationals.Not as much normally as their wages and the England lads have been donating it to charity.Dont know about the Irish lads but I imagine they get something.

[Wex]

The bullying was mentioned and then the various denails werre repetaed. In concluding he chose money over his country it was more in reference to his City contract.

[Dubciteh]

terrible programme rehashing the usual crap about grannygate, nothing informative in it or no inside interviews, the poorest produced television programme ive seen in a while, prob only got the go ahead cos it was in irish.

[Original Dub]

Well, I watched it to and I thought it was pretty much a load of bollox and served only to reinforce the belief that most Irish people have that Ireland is a complete weirdo and doesn't care for the game itself, only the money.

The only problem with their theory is that anyone who watches him play for City can see he does love the game and plays with a smile on his face. He also has said publically that when he hears us fans singing the superman song it really moves him, especially when he isn't even on the pitch. He's also said he'd love to become a legend here and maybe one day have a stand named after him - to be the rarity that is a one club man.

NONE of this was 'researched' by any of the journos in the programme because it didn't back up what they wanted to put across.

The bullying was touched on and it showed a clip of an interview with who supposedly is the biggest culprit, Stephen Hunt. He was asked if Ireland had been getting slagged over his hair and his answer was "Not in front of him, but we all stabbed him in the back loads of times... we only talked about it when he wasn't there". Any interview I've seen with Hunt when Ireland is brought up, Hunt has a look on him that I've seen in a bully's face before. It may well have not been the reason he left the squad but I have little doubt that it didn't contribute somewhat to his decision

It also touched on how Trapp went over to 'convince' him to come back. And mentioned that Ireland felt it was purely for PR.

The programme overall did little to change my opinion on the subject. I truely believe that the grannygate thing was started by his girlfriend who had just suffered a miscarriage and didn't want to tell a stranger from the FAI... it then snowballed into a farce and I reckon the embarrassment of that, coupled with the backstabbing whispers just reinforced his decision that it was not worth the hassle for the lad.

That said, I believe that if we had a manager who genuinely wanted or needed him back in the squad, it could have been handled a lot more professionally and he would have come back.

Who knows what the future holds, but I don't think he'll ever come back while Trapp is in charge and IMO Ireland the country needs Trapp more now than we need Superman.... and in turn, Ireland the player needs to concentrate on City more than any of that other hassle.