Thursday sees Hannover 96 come to Dublin to take on Saint Patrick’s Athletic in Tallaght Stadium. It’s almost surreal, with Hannover boasting a stadium with a capacity of almost 50,000, and Saint Patrick’s Athletic’s Richmond Park home, which is hidden behind a row of terraced houses in Inchicore, not being deemed up to scratch for this level of European football. Classic underdog stuff. If Pats have shown anything in Europe in recent years, it’s that they quite like that label, underdog.
Ticket information is in the poster above, and they go on sale tomorrow. I’d encourage League of Ireland fans to get along, as well as those with just a passing interest in the beautiful game. Magic European nights do happen on occasion, who knows?
(Currently putting the finishing touches on a thesis, so my posts are a bit sporadic and shorter than is the norm. Normality returns for me on Wednesday)
I think I’ll go to that just for the craic. I presume you can take photos?
The Indo had as it’s Letter of The Day on Saturday a lad writing in on what a great night it was last Thursday (it was) and how Pat’s had passed it around really well (they do). Also in the paper there was an article saying that Hannover had been offered one side of the ground in Tallaght!
They’ve apparently asked for 1500 tickets.1800 (including a lad in Bray jersey and one of my own in Bohs’) of us went along last week and now they’re nearly going to match that. You’d wonder what will it take for people here to wake up to what’s on their doorstep.
Was at the Bohs game the following night and some of you will have seen the lad there from Sweden. There’s football fans outside of this country who place more value in what we’ve got than the blowhards here who know the chorus (probably learnt off the telly on a Sunday afternoon) to potato laments.
Not just fans either from outside who place value in what’s happening here, but also those at the business end of things up the road and across the water – witness the outside acquisition of Pat Fenlon, Michael O’Neill and Paul Cook,
COME ON YOU SAINTS