IT WAS 10 minutes to 10 when Paul Scannell and Paul Tracey ran in behind the blood donor van in the corner of Windsor Park, looked into each other's eyes and half-shouted, half-whispered, 'Yes!'
They then collected themselves, looked around, and slipped back into their horde of red, blue and green-scarved Northern Ireland supporters streaming into the night.
For over two hours the two Dubliners had sat on their hands in the North Stands, not flinching when Northern Ireland scored and not cheering when the Republic equalised. Not that they had anything left to hide: the crowd around them had spotted them for Fenians only 10 minutes into the game, and had let them know. "There was shouting, abuse, we were spat at, all the usual crap," said Scannell.
Their only other publishable comment on the experience was that they were "just glad to be free of those Orange bastards".
Their problem was their temporary "Northern" accents had failed to convince. Even for The Irish Times, whose desperately rehearsed Cockney accent (copyright The Sweeney 1973) had done the trick, an evening in the North Stand was something less than a congenial sporting occasion.
It wasn't so much the spittle-blown shouts of "Ye Fenian scum ye," "Bonner ye Taig bastard," "Hello England's rejects," or even the monkey noises that greeted Terry Phelan every time he came down the sideline with the ball. It was more that many of those present seemed to cheer louder when something bad happened to the Republic than when something good happened to their own fiercely battling team.
The crowd was composed of very ordinary, very Irish-looking men. Some of them had brought their children. If, as had been rumoured, over 1,500 Republic fans infiltrated Windsor Park yesterday, they were clever enough not to be seen or heard. When Alan McLoughlin equalised in the 76th minute, the only sound for several instants was a faint-rustle of celebration from the half-empty FAI block at the top Kop end of the South Stand.
Like the two Pauls from Dublin, any other Stealth Fans present will be glad to forget the cold spite of Windsor Park and turn towards the warmth of an American summer. After McLoughlin's goal, the North supporters stood silent for several seconds until some, presumably the genuine ones, began to chant their team's name.
They were soon drowned out by the angry young men bawling, "You're not going to the USA" at The Republic's team. Twelve minutes later the final whistle sounded and Mick Byrne, the Republic's physiotherapist, ran out to halt Paul McGrath and Pat Bonner and tell them that the crowd had been wrong.
