Sunday’s international between the Republic of Ireland and England will see the renewal of a rivalry which, as a joint result of the 1995 Lansdowne Road riots and the draws for various tournaments, has resulted in only one completed match in the last 24 years.
England won the first meeting in Dublin in 1946, but went down to a huge upset when Ireland won 2-0 in the return at Goodison Park three years later.
After those early matches, the sides met infrequently, with just seven encounters over the following 36 years. Ireland didn’t win any of them, but England’s 2-1 win in a Wembley friendly in 1985 remains their last success.
At that time, Ireland had never qualified for a major tournament, but that was all to change over the next few years, and their respective debuts at the European Championship (in 1988) and World Cup (in 1990) both started against the English.
Famously, Ray Houghton’s goal was enough to settle matters in Stuttgart in 1988, one of only three matches Ireland have ever won in 19 attempts at major tournaments. Two years later, Gary Lineker put England ahead, but Kevin Sheedy’s equaliser earned an opening point, and it ended up being a memorable World Cup for both countries as Ireland made it to the quarter finals, and England came within a penalty shoot-out of reaching the final itself.
That meeting in Cagliari started a run of 1-1 draws which has continued ever since, through two qualifiers for the 1992 European Championship, and then a friendly at the new Wembley two years ago, when England needed an equaliser from Frank Lampard (above) after Shane Long had put the visitors in front.
In among that sequence of course, came the abandoned 1995 meeting at Lansdowne Road.
Shortly before the 2013 match at Wembley, I put together a piece about that infamous night…
