Our real ‘ambassadors’ - Paris to honour Irish soccer fans

SOCCER fans with long memories will remember the glory of Euro 1988, when Ray Houghton scored a looping header that secured England’s defeat against the Republic of Ireland.

Celebrations among Irish fans went on for days in Stuttgart, in what was then West Germany. The city ran out of beer. It didn’t run out of fondness, though, for the Irish supporters, who, drunk or sober, behaved impeccably. Just like their team, they hardly put a foot wrong.

Switch forward to 2016 and a new generation of Irish supporters has shown itself to be an equally good ambassador for its country, during the Euros in France.