For Stuart and Duncan Kirk, long-time England football supporters from Ipswich, Saturday’s Republic of Ireland v England match brings back memories of ugly scenes in 1995.
Back then, rioting by England fans at Lansdowne Road forced the abandonment of the match after 27 minutes, while there was disorder on the streets before and after the game. The countries now meet in Dublin for only the second time in the 29 years since to begin their respective Uefa Nations League campaigns.
“I wondered what it’s going to be like around the city tomorrow,” said Stuart as he made his way into Temple Bar on Friday afternoon. “It obviously brings the memories of that [29] years ago with the old violence and stuff.”
Roy Barron, from Barnsley, thinks the bad reputation England fans earned in the hooligan era still follows a well-meaning travelling support around. In his view, this is probably why English police officers have travelled to Dublin to assist gardaí in policing the match. But for Barron, those days are long gone.
“We’re enjoying ourselves here… I’m walking about with this shirt on,” he says, standing outside The Temple Bar with a T-shirt emblazoned with “Three Lions”, “and nobody’s giving me any grief.”
Alex Perril, from the Isle of Wight, thinks the days of anti-Irish chants among travelling England fans are over. “It’s not like that any more, I don’t think. I don’t think there’s any antagonism from the English,” he says, standing outside a Carroll’s giftshop sporting an England T-shirt.
“There’s a few chants they sing that I don’t like, about the IRA and all that, but a lot of that’s dying out now.”
Indeed, England fans who spoke to The Irish Times on Friday are more interested in having a few pints and getting a first glimpse of the team in the post-Gareth Southgate era. The former manager left his post after the team finished runners-up at Euro 2024, with former Irish international Lee Carsley taking the helm on an interim basis.
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“I’m optimistic,” says Barron. “We’ve got a new manager. [We’ll] see what his tactics are going to be like, see if they’re any different from Southgate, which weren’t very good.”
And while the venom in the fixture might have fizzled out since the 1990s, Ireland fans will still be keen to win and get one over on Ireland-internationals-turned-England-internationals, Declan Rice and Jack Grealish.
However, Stuart Kirk doesn’t think Irish fans have a right to be sour about it.
“They’re born in England. We don’t complain about Carsley going to play for you,” he says.
