Article on Superman in the Irish Daily Mail......

blumoon said:
blumoon said:
Dozens of English-born players have pulled on the Irish football shirt thanks to the granny rule. Stephen Ireland is surely the only one who lost it for breaking the granny rule-mainly that you never invoke their fictitious deaths to escape international duty. Eighteen months ago, the controversy over which of his grannies had died-in the event, neither of them-forced the withdrawal from the national team. But those same 18 months have seen him come to maturity as a prolific goal-scorer, so much so that, this week, his wages were doubled to a staggering £60000 a week by Manchester City football club to fend off overtures from Arsenal. And in an almost monthly occurrence now, there have been murmerings that Giovanni Trapattoni has sounded him out about wearing the green jersey again.
The news has simply drawn attention once more to the troubled life of a 22 year old who has been as controversial off the pitch as he is gifted on it, thanks to the bizarre occasion when he dropped his shorts after scoring a goal to reveal underpants with a superman logo on them, and his posting of messages on the Bebo social networking website,under the pseudonym Daddy Dick, that revealed how he hated football altogether. Behind the lurid headlines, though, is a different story, that of a boy that left home at only 15 to take on the responsibilities of a man and who, just seven years later, is the father of three young children himself. Denied the space to grow up at a leisurely pace, he has, it seems, found it hard to grow up at all. This combination of phenomenal natural talent and often pitiful naivety is an explosive one and it remains to be seen if Stephen Ireland can escape the the collateral damage.
He was born in 1986 in Cobh, County Cork, where his father Michael, played for Cobh Ramblers; Michael himself is only 39 and a contemporary of Roy Keane. The young Stephen showed early promise on Ramblers' schoolboy team, which he joined when he was 8, and just two years later won the Bobby Charlton Soccer School Skills Competition Final at Old Trafford, a feat he repeated a year later. He turned down 20 clubs to sign up to the Manchester City Youth Academy at 15, when Kevin Keegan was boss, and made the reserves a year later and his Premiership debut for the first team in 2005. After six consecutive starts, he was offered a contract and scored his first goal for the club on, appropriately, St Stephens Day 2005.
Having represented his country at under 15, 16, and 17 levels, he was involved in his first controversy, a row with manager Brian Kerr. Ireland had a bitter bust up with Kerr a few years ago, at a time when the former Republic boss was coaching at under age level and left Ireland out of the team. "As we got on the bus later, I asked him if i could go home to Manchester" Ireland recalled. "He told me to get out of the Irish tracksuit and the hotel and arrange to be picked up". "I got some bad press, but if Brian had approached me to draw a line in the sand, I would have done so gladly". "But i was painted as a bad boy and i am not". This snub briefly saw him consider declaring for England or Italy; the boy has enough grandparents to give him a lot of options. Denied a senior national team place when Kerr was promoted, fate intervened; Kerr was sacked and new boss Steven Staunton came knocking.
Stephen Ireland soon hit the back of the net in October 2006, in that dreadful 5-2 drubbing by Cyprus, and heroically saved the nations pride by scoring an injury-time goal to seal a victory over European part time minnows San Marino. A month later, he scored the first soccer goal ever seen at Croke park, against Wales, before adding to his tally against Slovakia in Bratislava on September8, 2007. The following week, he was scheduled to turn out against the Czech Republic, but then came Granny-gate, best explained in Stephen's own words on the City website. "When the game in Bratislava ended, Steve Staunton took me outside the dressing room into the corridor, along with the Ireland team doctor". "He told me they had taken a call from my girlfriend , Jessica, and she said my grandmother had died. I was deeply shocked because i believed it was my maternal grandmother who had brought me up from when i was five". "Jessica [his girlfriend] was distraught and explained that she had suffered a miscarriage".
"Jessica said she thought they might let me home quicker if they thought my grandmother had died. When i finished the call, i told the manager and doctor that my grandmother had died and because we were so close i needed to get home immediately". "The FAI hired a private jet to get me home and I flew out of Bratislava the following morning. Before i left, I told the FAI media officer that the name of my grandmother was Patricia Tallon". When the news was announced, it took the media a matter of seconds to establish that Patricia Tallon was very much alive. Staunton was livid and Ireland had to cover the first lie with a second. "I told him there had been a mistake and it had been my father's mother. I told him her name was Brenda Kitchener, that she lived in London". Of course Brenda Kitchener was not dead either and her family threatened to sue the newspapers that reported she had passed away.
Meanwhile, Patricia Tallon in the full of her health, went on the Irish radio programme Liveline, where host Joe Duffy asked her, "So how did you feel when you found out you where dead?". "Oh it was an awful shock" said Mrs Tallon-though apparently even more so for friends who rang the family home in tears to sympathise and nearly passed out when she answered the phone. "It was terrible for everyone really" Mrs Tallon continued, "but I've even been to the doctor and he confirmed I'm ok!". What was truely odd about the whole situation was that Ireland was not going home for a frivolous reason; any player whose partner suffered a miscarriage would have been allowed to travel anyway, and it was a sign of Ireland's immaturity that he did not see this and come clean straight after that first phone call from Jessica.
Soon, another story emerged. There were allegations that Ireland had been bullied by other team members in Bratislava. His prematurely receding hairline had, at that time, been suspiciously reinvigorated, and there were mutterings of wigs and weaves. Two players are alledged to have held him down and tried to pull the hair from his head, though, given the lie about the grandmothers, there was scepticism about this new excuse too. His teammate Stephen Hunt said " there was no banter about his hair, nothing was said about his hair", before slightly undermining his case by pointing out it had "grown four inches in a year". Michael Ireland denied the bully-ing claims in the Irish Daily Star last month, and revealed his own opinion on the whole affair saying; "He rang me and told me he lied about his granny dying". "He said Dad what have i done?"." I wasn't angry with him and neither was his granny but i could have given him a good clip around the ear". "Look, how many of us did things like that when we were in school?".
But if the event was a sobering one for Stephen Ireland, there was little indication that he had heeded the statement he had made at the time which read; 'I have learnt a valuable lesson from this mess and hope those i have hurt by my actions will forgive me', because he followed it with the underpants display two months later. The offending pair of briefs were sold for charity but Ireland admitted he had two more pairs- 'upgraded, much, much better ones. "I'm just waiting for the right moment. I didn't get into too much trouble the last time and in future i might not be so lucky, but if the right moment comes along, nothings going to hold me back". But this bizarre boast was also matched by other issues that gave cause for mockery and concern. Ireland was spotted driving a Range Rover with pink alloy wheels and pink upholstery, and his friends revealed he allowed a dog that was not house trained to trash his home. But there have been recent signs of maturity- and a willingness to speak up for himself. When coaching assistant Marco Tardelli told the Irish post "if he wants to come back [to the Ireland squad] then he can ask Trapattoni". Ireland was unequivocal.
"I'm happy playing for the club and i have got a young family to think of" he said. My commitment is to Manchester City and my family. I would'nt say i hated playing for Ireland, i just feel i am better off being away from it". He also slammed Jack Charlton for saying he should either "come and play and say you're sorry for what you said and did-or bugger off and don't bother". Ireland retorted succinctly, 'When he says, "You can bugger off", that is what i have done, what does he mean?'. And he also admitted recently that he is happier at City under manager Mark Hughes, who tellingly treats his players like a family and provides boyish treats before games."We go in and have a massage before we start, maybe have a game of pool and go on the PlayStation before we go out on the pitch" he says. "I know what i want from life now". That determination andfocus is a long way from isolation and insecurity displayed in the Bebo incident, when 'Daddy Dick' wrote 'Football is s***. Why did i get stuck doing it?'. But somethings never change. When that outburst was revealed, he claimed that a friend had been responsible for it. Presumably, his grannies were not computer literate.
Click to expand...



Coudnt find it on any mail site so i actually typed the fookin thing meself off the newspaper lol.......apologies for the paragraph errors, i am no secretary for sure.
Click to expand...

Thanks for typing that, found it interesting.
 
blumoon said:
blumoon said:
Dozens of English-born players have pulled on the Irish football shirt thanks to the granny rule. Stephen Ireland is surely the only one who lost it for breaking the granny rule-mainly that you never invoke their fictitious deaths to escape international duty. Eighteen months ago, the controversy over which of his grannies had died-in the event, neither of them-forced the withdrawal from the national team. But those same 18 months have seen him come to maturity as a prolific goal-scorer, so much so that, this week, his wages were doubled to a staggering £60000 a week by Manchester City football club to fend off overtures from Arsenal. And in an almost monthly occurrence now, there have been murmerings that Giovanni Trapattoni has sounded him out about wearing the green jersey again.
The news has simply drawn attention once more to the troubled life of a 22 year old who has been as controversial off the pitch as he is gifted on it, thanks to the bizarre occasion when he dropped his shorts after scoring a goal to reveal underpants with a superman logo on them, and his posting of messages on the Bebo social networking website,under the pseudonym Daddy Dick, that revealed how he hated football altogether. Behind the lurid headlines, though, is a different story, that of a boy that left home at only 15 to take on the responsibilities of a man and who, just seven years later, is the father of three young children himself. Denied the space to grow up at a leisurely pace, he has, it seems, found it hard to grow up at all. This combination of phenomenal natural talent and often pitiful naivety is an explosive one and it remains to be seen if Stephen Ireland can escape the the collateral damage.
He was born in 1986 in Cobh, County Cork, where his father Michael, played for Cobh Ramblers; Michael himself is only 39 and a contemporary of Roy Keane. The young Stephen showed early promise on Ramblers' schoolboy team, which he joined when he was 8, and just two years later won the Bobby Charlton Soccer School Skills Competition Final at Old Trafford, a feat he repeated a year later. He turned down 20 clubs to sign up to the Manchester City Youth Academy at 15, when Kevin Keegan was boss, and made the reserves a year later and his Premiership debut for the first team in 2005. After six consecutive starts, he was offered a contract and scored his first goal for the club on, appropriately, St Stephens Day 2005.
Having represented his country at under 15, 16, and 17 levels, he was involved in his first controversy, a row with manager Brian Kerr. Ireland had a bitter bust up with Kerr a few years ago, at a time when the former Republic boss was coaching at under age level and left Ireland out of the team. "As we got on the bus later, I asked him if i could go home to Manchester" Ireland recalled. "He told me to get out of the Irish tracksuit and the hotel and arrange to be picked up". "I got some bad press, but if Brian had approached me to draw a line in the sand, I would have done so gladly". "But i was painted as a bad boy and i am not". This snub briefly saw him consider declaring for England or Italy; the boy has enough grandparents to give him a lot of options. Denied a senior national team place when Kerr was promoted, fate intervened; Kerr was sacked and new boss Steven Staunton came knocking.
Stephen Ireland soon hit the back of the net in October 2006, in that dreadful 5-2 drubbing by Cyprus, and heroically saved the nations pride by scoring an injury-time goal to seal a victory over European part time minnows San Marino. A month later, he scored the first soccer goal ever seen at Croke park, against Wales, before adding to his tally against Slovakia in Bratislava on September8, 2007. The following week, he was scheduled to turn out against the Czech Republic, but then came Granny-gate, best explained in Stephen's own words on the City website. "When the game in Bratislava ended, Steve Staunton took me outside the dressing room into the corridor, along with the Ireland team doctor". "He told me they had taken a call from my girlfriend , Jessica, and she said my grandmother had died. I was deeply shocked because i believed it was my maternal grandmother who had brought me up from when i was five". "Jessica [his girlfriend] was distraught and explained that she had suffered a miscarriage".
"Jessica said she thought they might let me home quicker if they thought my grandmother had died. When i finished the call, i told the manager and doctor that my grandmother had died and because we were so close i needed to get home immediately". "The FAI hired a private jet to get me home and I flew out of Bratislava the following morning. Before i left, I told the FAI media officer that the name of my grandmother was Patricia Tallon". When the news was announced, it took the media a matter of seconds to establish that Patricia Tallon was very much alive. Staunton was livid and Ireland had to cover the first lie with a second. "I told him there had been a mistake and it had been my father's mother. I told him her name was Brenda Kitchener, that she lived in London". Of course Brenda Kitchener was not dead either and her family threatened to sue the newspapers that reported she had passed away.
Meanwhile, Patricia Tallon in the full of her health, went on the Irish radio programme Liveline, where host Joe Duffy asked her, "So how did you feel when you found out you where dead?". "Oh it was an awful shock" said Mrs Tallon-though apparently even more so for friends who rang the family home in tears to sympathise and nearly passed out when she answered the phone. "It was terrible for everyone really" Mrs Tallon continued, "but I've even been to the doctor and he confirmed I'm ok!". What was truely odd about the whole situation was that Ireland was not going home for a frivolous reason; any player whose partner suffered a miscarriage would have been allowed to travel anyway, and it was a sign of Ireland's immaturity that he did not see this and come clean straight after that first phone call from Jessica.
Soon, another story emerged. There were allegations that Ireland had been bullied by other team members in Bratislava. His prematurely receding hairline had, at that time, been suspiciously reinvigorated, and there were mutterings of wigs and weaves. Two players are alledged to have held him down and tried to pull the hair from his head, though, given the lie about the grandmothers, there was scepticism about this new excuse too. His teammate Stephen Hunt said " there was no banter about his hair, nothing was said about his hair", before slightly undermining his case by pointing out it had "grown four inches in a year". Michael Ireland denied the bully-ing claims in the Irish Daily Star last month, and revealed his own opinion on the whole affair saying; "He rang me and told me he lied about his granny dying". "He said Dad what have i done?"." I wasn't angry with him and neither was his granny but i could have given him a good clip around the ear". "Look, how many of us did things like that when we were in school?".
But if the event was a sobering one for Stephen Ireland, there was little indication that he had heeded the statement he had made at the time which read; 'I have learnt a valuable lesson from this mess and hope those i have hurt by my actions will forgive me', because he followed it with the underpants display two months later. The offending pair of briefs were sold for charity but Ireland admitted he had two more pairs- 'upgraded, much, much better ones. "I'm just waiting for the right moment. I didn't get into too much trouble the last time and in future i might not be so lucky, but if the right moment comes along, nothings going to hold me back". But this bizarre boast was also matched by other issues that gave cause for mockery and concern. Ireland was spotted driving a Range Rover with pink alloy wheels and pink upholstery, and his friends revealed he allowed a dog that was not house trained to trash his home. But there have been recent signs of maturity- and a willingness to speak up for himself. When coaching assistant Marco Tardelli told the Irish post "if he wants to come back [to the Ireland squad] then he can ask Trapattoni". Ireland was unequivocal.
"I'm happy playing for the club and i have got a young family to think of" he said. My commitment is to Manchester City and my family. I would'nt say i hated playing for Ireland, i just feel i am better off being away from it". He also slammed Jack Charlton for saying he should either "come and play and say you're sorry for what you said and did-or bugger off and don't bother". Ireland retorted succinctly, 'When he says, "You can bugger off", that is what i have done, what does he mean?'. And he also admitted recently that he is happier at City under manager Mark Hughes, who tellingly treats his players like a family and provides boyish treats before games."We go in and have a massage before we start, maybe have a game of pool and go on the PlayStation before we go out on the pitch" he says. "I know what i want from life now". That determination andfocus is a long way from isolation and insecurity displayed in the Bebo incident, when 'Daddy Dick' wrote 'Football is s***. Why did i get stuck doing it?'. But somethings never change. When that outburst was revealed, he claimed that a friend had been responsible for it. Presumably, his grannies were not computer literate.
Click to expand...



Coudnt find it on any mail site so i actually typed the fookin thing meself off the newspaper lol.......apologies for the paragraph errors, i am no secretary for sure.
Click to expand...

Thanks for typing that, found it interesting.
 
I dont give a shit about his state of mind as long as he is playing like he for us this season he will be a legend in my eyes
 
can anyone tell me how exactly was stephen eligible for both england and italy? i herd his granny is italian but does he have an english granny or whats the story there or was he gonna get in thru livin there for 5 years?
 
Interesting but it tells only half the story.

This
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.stephenireland.com/charity/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.stephenireland.com/charity/</a>
and this
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1161824/STEPHEN-IRELAND-EXCLUSIVE-Dead-grandmothers-Daddy-Dick-pink-wheels--A-stories-look-ridiculous-Ive-change-that.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... -that.html</a>
impressed me a great deal as did the private work and dedication he put into his fitness / attitude over last summer.

At only 22 he's mature(d) far beyond his years as well as our best player IMO, a few more like him and we'd be on top of the World
 
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