This Az got to be a win
By Stuart McKinley
sportseditor@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Belf ast Telegraph, United Kingdom
Sept 3 2005

03 September 2005
INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL

NORTHERN Ireland’s footballing past has been littered with ifs and
buts and ‘what might have beens.’

While there have been a few shock victories along the way there have
been too many occasions when the results have been shocking.

For every high there has been a series of lows. The delight of
Valencia and the despair of Vaduz. We’ve been brilliant in Bucharest,
but rotten in Reykjavik and while the men in green hammed it up in
Hamburg they were useless in Yerevan.

Over the years there have been many occasions on which Northern
Ireland have fallen flat on their faces when victories have been
expected.

Now when Lawrie Sanchez’s side face Azerbaijan this afternoon the aim
is not to add another to the list.

It may sound straightforward, but according to FIFA the two countries
are ranked level in 116th place and even though the rankings are
regularly criticised they remain the only yardstick for comparing the
abilities of teams.

The expectation level, however, is high. Victory is anticipated and
the one thing we don’t want is a result to match these ones:

1. Northern Ireland 1-1 Faroe Islands (1-5-1991)

The Faroes had sent shockwaves round European football when they beat
Austria in their first ever competitive fixture eight months earlier.

Even though, Billy Bingham’s Northern Ireland side was expected to
come away with a comfortable victory. Colin Clarke struck a
first-half opener, only for the visitors to level the scores and
again fans left Windsor Park disappointed after their team had failed
to put away a lesser side.

2. Northern Ireland 1-2 Latvia (7-6-95)

The June curse struck again as Northern Ireland flopped against a
team playing in their first competitive campaign as an independent
country.

Latvia came back to claim victory after Iain Dowie had put Northern
Ireland ahead early in the game.

A draw would have put Bryan Hamilton’s team into a play-off with
Holland for a place in the finals of Euro 96 and had they won that
place would have been guaranteed.

Instead we were all watching from our armchairs as ‘football came
home.’

3. Albania 1-0 Northern Ireland (10-9-1997)

Quite possibly the worst result ever recorded by a Northern Ireland
team and definitely the match which brought Hamilton’s reign to an
end.

There had been a number of withdrawals through injury, but the team
failed to perform and Northern Ireland suffered their first ever loss
to Albania at senior international level.

4. Iceland 1-0 Northern Ireland (11-10-2000)

Sammy McIlroy’s side had made a decent start to the 2002 World Cup
qualifying campaign with a home win against Malta and a draw with
Denmark.

All that came crashing down around them as in a moment of madness Roy
Carroll raced off his line in an attempt to punch clear from a
free-kick in injury-time.

His punch went straight up into the air and an Icelandic player was
on hand to head it into the net as it came down.

5. Liechtenstein 0-0 Northern Ireland (27-3-2002)

The start of the 12 game run without a goal and the beginning of the
end for Sammy McIlroy.

Steve Lomas’ sending-off early in the second-half didn’t help the
cause, but 0-0 with Liechtenstein wasn’t good enough.

6. Armenia 1-0 Northern Ireland (29-3-2003)

This was meant to be the game in which the year long goal drought
would be well and truly put to bed.

Northern Ireland played reasonably well, but when the much
anticipated goal didn’t come Armenia grabbed their chance and
snatched victory.

7. Northern Ireland 0-1 Armenia (10-9-2003)

Losing away to Armenia was one thing, but it was never going to
happen at Windsor Park, was it?

What had turned from a goal drought into a famine was definitely
going to end in this game, or so we thought.

With Keith Gillespie having limped off the pitch with an injury and
Tommy Doherty struggling to keep mobile the Armenians attacked the
exposed Chris Baird on their left and fired home the only goal of the
game.

8. Northern Ireland 0-1 Canada (9-2-2005)

Northern Ireland were seeking a morale boosting win ahead of the
World Cup qualifiers with England and Poland, but ten-man Canada
threw a huge spanner in the works by scoring and then shutting up
shop to go away with the win.

9. Malta 1-1 Northern Ireland (17-8-2005)

Malta had never even scored against Northern Ireland before let alone
got anything from a game against our team.

In the end Maik Taylor saved a penalty in injury time to save his
side from the highly embarrassing fate of defeat to a team of
part-timers.