Who in your opinion was the greatest Irish footballer ever ? George Best , Pat Jennings , Roy Keane , Johnny Giles , Liam Brady , Paul McGrath For me it has got to be Liam Brady and he was also only one of the few players from the home countries to make the grade in Serrie A
If making the grade in Serie A is the benchmark, as you evinced, my point was that there have been many, including Pele, who have never even played in Serie A. There have to be other parameters other than Serie A.
i go with still running robbie keane.. my favorite player ever from ireland , and i think he will be known as the best ever by the time his career ends
Robbie Keane may not be the best player in the present set up. He is certainly not one of the two (or three or four) best Irish forwards of all time.
here's another few to ponder over: david o'leary danny blanchflower jackie carey harry gregg frank stapleton martin o'neill personally mine would be: 1) best, followed by brady, jennings and blanchflower in no particular order.
George Best, Pat Jennings, Martin O'Neil, Paul McGrath, Danny Blanchflower, Liam Brady, Shay Given, Richard Dunne, Stephen Ireland (if he keeps it up).
that would be funny..............if there was any hint of humour in there. i'll assume you shall be telling all those roi fans from northern ireland that too next time they trapse down to dublin? you know, the ones with absolutely no relatives across the border, unlike me, whose mother is and about 60 other relatives, but don't let utter bs get in the way of a cheap shot. take your bigotry elsewhere mate and don't pollute my eyes with it. aldridge was a scouser born and bred. the thread title doesn't say "Greatest Footballer Who Played For Ireland", it says "The Greatest Irish Footballer Ever"
Oh, I see. You get to define who is and isn't a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. Now that we're all clear on that, carry on.........
who brought citizenship, or indeed brought borders into it? it certainly wasn't me. i just replied to it after a cheap dig. malby seems to have a twisted view on things. maybe i should nominate maik taylor....oh, no, wait!....he isn't irish either... catch yourselves on guys. i like aldridge and he obviously has irish ancestors, but he isn't really irish, is he, and never will be other than on a freebie passport. he wasn't born on the island, wasn't brought up on the island and, feel free to correct me here, hasn't ever lived on the island. he may be "oirish" but he definitely isn't "irish"
No idea what you're going on about here. John Aldridge is an Irish citizen. End of. You can make up all the fake bar room tests and rules you want, doesn't obviate the FACT that John Aldridge is an Irish citizen.
if you want to be pedantic about "citizenship" samarkand, you may as well drop pretty much all of the northern ireland players since they all carry british passports (though one or 2 might also have roi ones), but that would be silly, wouldn't it? of course it would, almost as silly as nominating an englishman (or a plastic paddy*) as "The Greatest Irish Footballer Ever". but that's irish for ya, as they say........ *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_Paddy
Make up all the dumb bar room rules and edicts you want. Quote from every page of Wikipedia if that makes you happy. Fact is, John Aldridge is Irish. Don't really know so much about what the rules for Northern Ireland are, but I know what the rules for the Republic are. Those rules, those laws make Aldridge Irish, just like thousands upon millions of others like him from all over the world.
this is the same "irish" john aldridge who only realised he could play for ireland at 27? the same "irish" john aldridge who played his last international in 1996 and yet only managed to get himself an irish passport in september/october 1996? hmm....i wonder what he was using before september/october 1996? just because you are eligible to play for (an) ireland doesn't mean you need to be irish, just eligible....or not even that, as in some cases anyway, aldridge was a decent enough player, full of heart, and i never had a problem with who he played for, but catch a grip when putting him forward as "The Greatest Irish Footballer Ever" on the slimmest of pretenses of irishness (slim being a bit of paper, or is that just stirring?). it's almost insulting to all the real irish footballing legends from the island. come to think of it, for a forward he wasn't even in the top 4 goalscorers for ANY irish international side (level 5th on 19 with that other bastion of "irishness" tony cascarino and don givens, who scored his 19 goals in 13 less games than aldridge....robbie keane and david healy being miles ahead of the rest on 39 and 35 respectively). in fact, noel cantwell scored 14 goals in only 36 games back in the 50s/60s and colin clarke scored 13 in 38 in the 80s/90s. or are we going on more than international records here? i'll assume so and ask from when exactly does aldridge start to be classed as irish? cos he sure as hell wasn't until he knew he could be eligible.