By MARY HANNIGAN
All a twitter as site goes down
“Welcome to the official Twitter Page of Thierry Henry. Get exclusive content and interact with Thierry right from Twitter,” said the greeting last week.
But when we clicked on the link?
“Sorry, the profile you were trying to view has been suspended due to strange activity.”
Hmm.
Quotes of the week . ..
“We are arguing about Henry when we should be erecting a statue to him . . . when I think that certain politicians want to replay the match . . . they dont even know if the ball is round or oval and they would be the first to come and drink champagne in South Africa. The replay? I’ll do it when you want on a PlayStation.”
– A remorseful Patrice Evra
“In the case of Thierry Henry’s handling of the ball . . . an entire nation has taken on the role of unjustly oppressed victim – something the Irish do well, having had several centuries of practice.”
– Dominic Lawson writing in the Sunday Times.
Deep breaths everyone.
“I want to pay tribute to the Irish team and their fans, what they did over two matches – they gave us a lot of problems and I want to congratulate them. I’m disappointed for them and their public. But bravo to them.”
– Raymond Domenech.
More deep breaths everyone.
Anto proves to be star of show
TRUE enough, there wasn’t much to smile about last week – apart from some of the calls to Liveline in response to Roy Keane’s thoughts on handball-gate.
Anto from Dublin was the star of the show.
Anto: “I’m fuming over that Roy Keane fella, Joe. The cheek of him. The men of 1916 would be spinning in their graves.”
Joe Duffy: “Listen to him again Anto (the tape of Keane’s press conference), you can interrupt him if you want.”
Anto: “Interrupt him? I’d knock him out if I got my hands on him.
“The cheek of him. He was a great player but I tell ya Joe, as a manager he’s s**t. Even his Cork people – and I’ve never heard them do it before – even they’re calling him a langer. And that’s what he is: a langer.”
Joe: “Thanks Anto.”
Anto: “Good luck.”
Solidarity with 'splendid' Irish
YOU might recall the headline in French newspaper Le Mondeafter September 11th, 'Nous sommes tous Americains' (We are all Americans).
Well, maintaining the theme, Jacques Attali, economist and former aide to the late President Mitterrand, wrote an article last week (which featured on the Slate website) expressing his shame over the Thierry Henry handball and his solidarity with the “splendid” Irish people.
The headline?
‘Nous sommes tous Irlandais’.
And you thought it was only a game?
United's season could go on for ever
WHEN Alex Ferguson expressed his sympathy last week for Giovanni Trapattoni and the Republic of Ireland team, he also insisted that his own side had been the victim of, well, a miscarriage of justice recently.
“Two weeks ago (Didier) Drogba pulled down (Wes) Brown and there was obviously not a hullabaloo like this,” he said.
“But does that incident cost Manchester United the league? It could very well. That’s how important decision-making can be.”
In related news, this letter to The Irish Timesfrom a Paraic Morrissey raised a chuckle:
“Madam, Regarding the calls for a replay of Ireland versus France, should such an event come to pass, can anyone imagine how long Manchester United’s season would be if unhappiness with the referee resulted in replays? Yours, etc.”
More quotes of the week
“France were there for the taking and Ireland never grabbed it. The usual stuff. Afraid of that next step. Mentally not strong enough. They can complain all they want, it’s not going to change – France are going to the World Cup, get over it. We don’t want sympathy . . . it’s the usual carry-on, boring. Bore you to death, they would. Boring.”
– Roy Keane offers the Irish a shoulder to cry on.
“Obviously I am very disappointed for the Irish boys. . . but I do not believe games should be replayed, if you start doing that it will be chaos. Lets face it we (Germany) lost a World Cup final to England when the ball didnt cross the line. Can we replay that now?
– Stoke City’s Robert Huth on the chances of the 1966 final being restaged.
“I feel so sorry for Ireland. I saw both games and they deserved it by a country mile. I’m not even going to hold back, France know themselves they got away with murder. He didn’t do it on purpose? Blah blah blah. My ‘beep’. I won’t say the word cheats – but . . . I said it.”
– Burnley’s Danish goalkeeper Brian Jensen.
“What shocks me the most is that this player (Henry), at the end of the game, in front of the TV cameras, went to sit down next to an Ireland player (Richard Dunne) to comfort him – when he had just screwed him. If I had been an Irishman, he wouldn’t have lasted three seconds.”
– Eric Cantona suggesting he’d have left Henry punch drunk at full-time.
“I think that Raymond Domenech is the worst coach in French football since Louis XVI.”
– Cantona again, sounding like he wouldn’t mind the French coach suffering the same fate as poor auld Louis: the guillotine.
“Henry outplayed some of the greatest scammers, hoaxers, match-fixers, ball-tamperers and blatant rule-benders to earn a place in infamy as one of the biggest cheats in world sport.”
– Australia's Daily Telegraphpays tribute to the French captain.
