Thetownend.com

Starts tomorrow. Got to say now it's on us I feel slightly more interested - but that may only be because the lack of any other football.

Apart from England, obviously, living in Ireland I will be supporting the Boys in Green at Baileys Corner in Tralee.

I fully expect to get the piss ripped out of me when I enter wearing my England shirt!

Might be going to the pub Monday night if the landlord is staying open late (kicks off at 11pm here)

Not sure if it's interest in football or an excuse to go to the pub.

Fuck me - I never knew the KO times were that late

I need to pop to Town tomorrow to put some bets on before the Poland game kicks off.

Going for Germany, France and as an outside chance, Russia.

Lewandowski as top scorer also.

They aren't in the UK and Ireland.

I shall go for Stewart Downing as England's man-of-the-tournament - obviously before I'm carted off to the funny farm

So where does Flashheart reside?

I'm looking forward to the Euros, not so much to watch England, but to hopefully see an exciting tournament

Chad

Chad? Are you shitting me?

No, he lives in N'Djamena, Chad.

Any point in asking why?

Flashheart is an archaeologist working the latest Dr. Marcus Brody dig.

Lucky bastard.

That's the fecker from Indiana Jones.

I can feel my chain be yanked here

I'm looking forward to the Euro Stunners more!

Just seen on SSN that the Germany coach is going to use a player called Bender to mark Christiano Ronaldo

That did make me chuckle

You've just replied in a thread in which I clearly stated the city I live in.

I fly out on Saturday.

Apprehensive is the word!

Yep, looking forward to this. I think the Dutch could be worth a tenner and I can't think of a better way to spend the best part of a month than watching football in the pub.
I might give the Ireland v Croatia game a miss though as I should have been going and it will piss me off no end knowing that I should be there.

Not having a bet and to be honest aint really paid much attention to it.
Watched that panorama programme earlier and it doesn't look to welcoming does it?

OK. Didn't look at previous posts on that thread

Come on, guys it's the Irish welcoming England to Poland . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QghVWu0d6Oo

Was it at the Irish the England fans were singing "down with the Euro, you're going down with the Euro..". Couldn't hear it on the clip so maybe it wasn't.

 Good to see that the government are boycotting the Ukraine because they've locked up former orange revolution leader, Yulia Tymoshenko for no good reason.  I feel a certain solidarity with the orange movement...

 Bet Cameron or Clegg would turn up if we got to the final mind.

The inspiration behind the Town movement!

Yeah, what fucking idiot came up with that idea?!

Some knob jockey!

 :hmmm: :sherlock:

Actually here's the inspiration behind the idea....

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3GjaCnYKDCI/T5aqxM4xy-I/AAAAAAAADEc/zHwPdFtRYc0/s1600/Yulia_Tymoshenko-black+in+pearls.jpg

Think it was the quirky hair style.

Decided to put a tenner of France yesterday, think they are one of the dark horses

Probably looks a bit rougher than that right now, having been on hunger strike.  Could have been you if Diamond Mike had got his mits on a dictatorial governing regime.

http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewArticle/124514

Had a laugh at this article.

Ha, ha good one Reg!

Perhaps he misread it as your favourite activity?  :D

Has Sky reporter Nick Collins stolen Ned Flanders' moustache?

I think we should be told

 :wotjump:  :banana:  :3rd:

Yes im excited...

I'm looking forward to it too. I don't understand how any football fan couldn't look forward to two or three games a day for the next couple of weeks.

Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.

I suppose England's usually poor performances put a bit of a downer on things.

Give me the League any day!

Not really. England have been shit for as long as I can remember. I just really like watching football every day.

the best chance we had of the Euro was back in 96, if only we had beaten the Germans. The two best memorable moments of that tournment was Gazza's goal against the dutch (were he flicked it up and over the player) and Seamans save using his elbow.

Euro Stunners will be more entertainingy. Hopefully we have 2 games to vote/perve at later.

You can look forward to a tournament without constantly thinking of England. A weekend that consists of Netherlands vs. Denmark, Germany vs. Portugal, Spain vs. Italy and Ireland vs. Croatia?

That'll do.

kleenex's at the ready

So memorable you got the wrong team. It was against the sweaties that gazza scored the goal. Moments after seaman's save from mcallister's pen with his elbow.

They were both against Scotland.
But the performance against Holland was better, it was like a dream when we went 4-0 up, and was almost worth letting a goal in to stop Scotland qualifying for the next round :)

I thought that was against Scotland (Colin Hendry)

Edit. Damn you posh! :)

was that also the last time the jocks qualified for a tournament?

Looking forward to a daily diet of great football.  But not really that bothered about England this time around.


Wasn't that against Scotland?  Maybe my memory is playing tricks with me.

Edit: Late again.  Sorry.

How can anyone get Gascoigne's Scotland goal wrong? That's like saying, "Gordon Banks' great save against the Germans in '70".

For me, ripping the Dutch a new one was better than an expected victory over the Scots (although the Switzerland draw resulted in an uneasy feeling going in to the game).

there's now an echo in here!

it was against scotland i remeber that now  :doh:

To be fair I was only 11 in 96

Iu tried to watch some of that on the fancy dan train between Swindon and Chippenham today, alas it was 0-0 when I arrived at Chip.

The game was great for two reasons
 1. We tonked the Hollandishers
 2. We conceeded a late-ish goal that meant Scotland got knocked out.

Happy days.

Only 11!!

that makes it even worse. Surely you should be able to remember classic goals by the time you're 11.

A whole year younger than me. Zero excuses.

I was more interested in Playing football, and I only ever watched the Town then didn't really watch footie on the telly then as I prefered watching it in the ground, with my old man

Had a few quid on the dutch after having a more detailed look today.

What price are they?

Can't wait for this, I love tournos. Whats not to like, two games a day, some great players on show and some tasty matches.

Prefer the Euros to World Cups aswell as they normally produce better matches (less weak teams) and thus group games are far better.

Got France to win it, much improved under Blanc.

For the last Euro Championship I was counting down the days and had my viewing all planned out for the entire tournament. Not this time though, I actually only realised a few days ago it was starting today and I'm still not sure when England are playing. I'll watch England (provided I remember) and maybe a few other games but I basically don't give a toss.

Main reason is I'm just not that bothered about England any more. Primarily due to the players in general all being a bunch of overpaid prima donna tossers, the final straw being John Terry getting selected. I could never understand football fans saying they'd lost interest in England but I get it now.

13/2

You don't care about England yet you'll watch them?

There's plenty of potentially great games without even thinking about England.

Think their defence looks too dodgy personally.

Have had a punt on Portugal in the end, at around 20/1. Spain and Germany are too short to be worth it so have gone for the fallback of backing the team with the best player in the tournament.

Plenty of potential winners. Even England have a reasonable shout and are priced accordingly for a change.

My concern is that the tournament will be a snorefest of anti-football, punctuated by unpleasant incidents amongst the fans. Part of the problem is that too many of the competitive sides have dodgy defenders, so tend to pack their midfields with watercarriers rather than fantasistas. Hence the Dutch who should be a standard bearer, have a midfield of de Jong and Van Bommel. Spain try to protect their dodgy defence, by just keeping the ball, and were pretty much a 1-0 side in the WC.

It would be nice to see this afternoon's opener be something other than a 0-0 draw.

I know it's your fear Reg old boy but it's raining so there's no cricket.

So let the train wreck begin.

Unfortunately they're playing at Lords,where Somerset are making a pig's ear of things.

This is the first time the first two days of a test have been lost in England since the 2nd Ashes Test of 64, also in June about about 10 days later. When it did start even the combined wonderousness of Freds Trueman and Titmus couldn't force a win

No, we qualified for France 98 but that's been it and likely to stay that way.

The Scots fans are missed from these shindigs.

I blame Del Amitri.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG-RmaD2Mic

With the Euro's becoming 24 teams surely you have a good chance for qualifying now? if the likes of Estonia can make the playoff's surely Scotland could.

The Euros are just about a perfect tournament with 16 teams - very few meaningless matches and doesn't last too long.

Yet again UEFA are going to fuck up something that aint broke just for more cash.

Somebody needs to give Platini a right royal kicking - fucking frog twat

totally agree-more teams=poorer games.

Yeah keep the 'lesser' nations out. Who needs the crap games like we do in the world cup such as Cameroon v Argentina and France v Senegal.

More teams = more games = more footie.

I think UEFA should introduce go all the way 32 team tournament just like the world cup, make it a proper festival of football.

PS - Even if it was a 64 team tournament I think Scotland would struggle to qualify, and if they did we'd be back before the post cards as per usual.

I welcome the move as it means that surely Bosnia will qualify for the next Euros.

I don't like the format with 24 teams - 6 groups of 4, with the top two and four best 3rd place teams going through to the last 16. Reckon it would have been better to start with the lowest 16 ranked teams in 4 groups of 4 with the top two going through to another group stage with the 8 highest ranked teams joining them.

Will be a pity if it waters down the quality as the Euro's are a far better tournament than the WC at present.

I quite liked the old WC 24 team format from Mexico 86 and Italia 90. Led to some pretty exciting group finished for the 3rd place teams.

Only 'coz the scots still had a chance!

A 16 team tournament is all the euro's needs. I doubt the change is because of money (although that will be gladly accepted by UEFA), i imagine it's been driven because a lot of minor nations have such a say in what UEFA do

I know a fair few of you are saying you're not bothered about the Euros, but we're still in Florida on holiday and it's very strange not having a clue what's going on.  I feel like I'm missing out. We've managed to locate a British pub and are going to watch the game there on Monday.  It won't be the same though and I'm looking forward to watching the second group game in my local on Friday.

Ah the old hypocrisy of a Swindon england supporter. At club level lower league clubs spend their time moaning about the power of the premier league elite, yet at international level you moan about 'minor nations'. Don't think it's sunk in that it won't be long before England edge towards 'minor nation' status. Still least you'll have some say in what Uefa do then. ;-)

Thought we were already there?

You're so angsty.

What are your views on team gb costanza? ;)

I love the way you (you as in people in general) apply the stereotypical Scottish viewpoint on my thinking. Very indifferent to Team GB, won't be supporting it as I'm not into Olympic football though.  Much like devolution, don't think it's in Scotland's best interest right now to go for it, but don't let that get in the way of having a conversation between you and a typical average Scottish bloke (I don't even describe myself as Scottish by the way - cos I'm not - I'm British).

I'm winding you up.

I think the whole project will be forgotten about by November, with the "national identities" all in tact.

Good point NMH. But in truth, England are far from shite at the moment. However if the EPL continues the way it is it won't be long before half the england squad will be sourced from Championship sides, or at best crap relegation threatened Premier League clubs, then you'll really no what it's like to be shit.  Actually reading 6 of your lot are from Liverpool, perhaps you are closer to shitness then I thought. ;-)

janaage's been jacking up the heroin again.

Added to that too much Irn Bru this time of day and it's recipe for murrrrderrrrr.

deep fried heroin ;)

Looking forward to the Irish game today, be interesting to see how they do

Really? I'd rather watch African and South American/Central Americans mixing it up against European teams than anything I've seen so far at The Euro's.

Completely agree Hertha. Ghana, Cameroon, South Korea, Japan, even the Aussies and Kiwi's have all added a certain something to World Cups. And that's not to mention the teams from North, Central and South America.

The Euro's aren't a patch on World Cups.