EUROPEAN FINAL WAS INCREDIBLE – DESPITE MAYHEM AT WEMBLEY
Brendan Fitzsimons and his father Kevin from Cairns Road, Sligo attended the nail-biting Uefa European Championship final between Italy and England at the weekend. In today’s Sligo Weekender, Brendan – pictured above with his father in Wembley Stadium on Sunday – talks to Alan Finn about what he says was an experience he “wouldn’t swap for the world”.
TWO Sligo men were among the crowd who attended last Sunday’s Uefa Euro 2020 final between England and Italy. Brendan Fitzsimons and his father Kevin, from Cairns Road, were in London for the game as they witnessed Italy topple England in a penalty shoot-out.
The pair also witnessed a lot of the unsavoury scenes outside the stadium which marred the build-up to the occasion.
Their attendance at the final had been three years in the making – a journey which began in somewhat accidental circumstances as Brendan explained. “I applied for the tickets three years ago through Uefa. I was really just applying for the games that were meant to be in Dublin. We obviously didn’t know at that time who was going to be there. I found out afterwards that I had inadvertantly applied for the final as well when an email came through saying our application was successful.”
The tournament, which is still recorded as a 2020 competition, was postponed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Brendan admits there was uncertainty over the prospect of ever being able to actually attend the final – but they opted to hold on to their tickets in hope.
“We assumed we would never actually get to that final. We expected that fans probably wouldn’t even be there this summer. Luckily enough we still held on to our tickets because we got the email that we would still be attending even with the reduced capacity.”
Brendan and Kevin hopped on the ferry over to England after it was official that England and Italy would be contesting the showpiece occasion. They arrived at Wembley Park bright and early, when the atmosphere was relatively unremarkable and did not reflect the scenes that would follow later that day. “We arrived at Wembley Park station and walked up Wembley Way around 11.30am to scope the place out for an idea of where we had to go when it was time to head into the stadium. It was quiet enough then and the atmosphere was good-natured, but you could see queues forming in the shopping area and people coming away with big slabs of cans. “We went away and came back to the area 30 minutes later when the crowd had grown significantly. It was a bit more manic, there was broken glass across the ground and cans thrown everywhere. “After a while, there was more than 1,000 people there and that’s when you started seeing smoke bombs going off and there was a sense of lawlessness.
“We decided at that point to move away from there and just to skirt the outside of Wembley until it was our turn to get in. We needed to produce our negative Covid texts on the way and security at that checkpoint was pretty non-existant.
“On the concourse you could see there was lots of people without tickets trying to get in, some seemed to just be allowed in while others were being tackled by police and you were seeing some people covered in blood. There seemed to be a pre-planned effort among some people to get in via the disabled gate as well. It was a weird atmosphere.”
While the scenes outside the stadium dominated the headlines in the build-up to the game, there was more of a carnival atmosphere inside the venue as they were “surrounded by English fans who by-and-large were sound.”
It truly felt like England were playing at home – but whether ‘it’ was coming home remained to be seen.
“Inside was different. England fans were in great voice, but when it came time for the anthems and taking the knee there was a few boos, but they were drowned out by the other fans in our section at least.
“It felt like a home game –the PA was playing English football songs. As the game wore on you could sense there was a nervousness among the fans and that was rolling down to the players on the pitch. There was a lot less singing and there was a general feeling Italy were going to score.”
Leonardo Bonucci equalised after an hour for Italy and the rest, as they say, is history as Giorgio Chiellini held the European Championship trophy aloft at the conclusion of a dramatic penalty shoot-out.
Brendan’s previous major tournament experience was Euro 2012, while Kevin was there when Ireland played Italy at the 1990 Fifa World Cup and have also attended Ireland games together for the last 20 years.
This occasion may have been overshadowed by events off the pitch – but nothing was ever going to hamper the opportunity of enjoying their first major tournament final together.
“It was an excellent experience. Despite all the madness away from the football, I wouldn’t swap the experience of being there for the world – my record for penalty shoot-outs has held up too. I saw Sligo Rovers do it twice at the Aviva Stadium, and I was very much behind Italy on Sunday!”
Surfacing works are set to finish this Saturday
Ongoing surfacing works on the N4-N15 road leading to Hughes Bridge will finish this Saturday morning, July 17, Sligo County Council have advised.
The surfacing of the mainline N4/N15 southbound lanes which saw additional traffic delays this week has been completed and the contractors will now focus on completing the mainline northbound lanes. To minimise disruption to road users, the majority of the ongoing work will be carried out in the evenings and at night, with some less disruptive works undertaken during daytime hours.
Full details in relation to traffic management associated with these works will be posted on Sligo County Council’s website www.sligococo.ie.
TD: Indoor dining law will cause issues
A local TD has said that he believes that rushing legislation through the Dail to allow for indor dining to be opened only to those who are fully vaccination or recovered from Covid will lead to problems. Martin Kenny was referring to the bill due to be brought before the Dail yeserday, Wednesday.
The Sinn Féin TD said that legislation that is put through in a hurry without TDs having time to go through it and assess it properly can often turn out to have a lot of problems in it.
He said there was no indication from the Attorney General’s office about the legality of the legislation and what is to happen to people who break the rules and come with false documentation to get meals. The Sligo-Leitrim TD also spoke about the position of restaurant owners and staff having to assess all that.
“It’s all very, very rushed and it is difficult because it is very discriminatory in that those vaccinated will be allowed in and those who haven’t, through no fault of their own where they want to but can’t get a vaccine, are excluded,” he told Ocean FM.