Show is back on the road

THIS campaign may have opened with a 1-0 win in Armenia but Eastern Europe has rarely been a source of such profit for Irish teams ever since the first competitive trip behind what was then the Iron Curtain ended in the red 51 years ago.

That particular jaunt ended with a 4-0 defeat against Czechoslovakia in Bratislava, a city the ‘Boys in Green’ wouldn’t revisit until 2007 in what remains Stephen Ireland’s last appearance for his country.

The ‘Grannygate’ farce which followed in its slipstream has since overshadowed that 2-2 draw, but that was a stalemate that effectively closed the door on any faint lingering hopes Steve Staunton had of reaching Euro 2008.