Do i want this gobshite at my beloved toon

d rather shoot myself than live in Cork
By Ben Lyttleton
Friday, March 04, 2011
STEPHEN IRELAND is at the centre of another controversy today after allegedly declaring he would rather "shoot himself" than return and live in his native Cork.

a d v e r t i s e m e n t


In another no-holds-barred interview, this time for a French magazine, the Newcastle player hasalso ruled out a return to the Irish national set-up, declaring the Ireland set-up as "amateurish" and Giovanni Trapattoni as "arrogant".

The midfielder, who has just moved on loan to Newcastle, also hit out Roberto Mancini, Manchester City and Gerard Houllier in the interview, published in So Foot magazine in France today. Ireland revisited the lies he told about his grandmothers having died back in September 2007 and claimed they were "a pretext".

"International teams don’t interest me. As it is, a season lasts more than 60 matches, so to go off for three days for a game against Andorra, I’ve got better things to do," he said.

"When you’re Irish, you know very well that you’re never going to win the World Cup, and even when I was in the youth teams, it used to piss me off to have to go. Everyone came from Dublin and I was the only one from Cork. I had to take the train on my own, pay for a taxi, there was no hotel, no food, and it was run in a very amateurish way.

"Ireland just reaps what it has sown. We’ve built buildings just for the sake of it, and at the end of the day no-one lives inside them. It costs a huge amount of money and no-one can pay it back. But I don’t care about Ireland. I really don’t know whether I will ever go back there one day. I’d rather shoot myself than live in Cork. I prefer Los Angeles."

Ireland also laid into coach Trapattoni, saying: "I have never seen anyone so arrogant. I met him once, he was on the phone every two minutes and he left me hanging around in this office for a quarter of an hour.

"In the end, he said, ‘If you want to come and play, fine, if you don’t, no problem’. He did that in reality just so the media would leave him alone."

Ireland, who met with a journalist from So Foot magazine, then turned his anger on City and the manner in which he was pushed out of the club. "Mancini never liked me, he wanted his own players, and that’s fair enough. But he’s gone too far, he’s got rid of everyone, even the cook left. The family club I spent nine years with does not exist any more. What’s going to happen when Mancini leaves? Will he take the 50 people he brought in with him? And ever since he’s been there, City’s matches have become as boring as hell. The club has lost its soul."

Last summer, Ireland moved to Aston Villa — only because City stopped him talking to Manchester United and Liverpool, he claimed — but one day after he signed, coach Martin O’Neill resigned from his position, leaving Ireland with a coach, Houllier, who had not chosen him.

"After 15 matches on the bench, Houllier told me to stay at home," he explained. "I would train all week and on Friday he would say, ‘It’s not worth coming, you’re not in the team’. That’s even though I was best player in training, that didn’t seem to matter to him. But I have nothing against Houllier, after all, he wasn’t the one who chose me."

Ireland has moved to Newcastle for the rest of the season but his comeback from injury this weekend could be put on hold after Magpies boss Alan Pardew yesterday confirmed Ireland was suffering from a thigh strain.

"We’re a little concerned about him," Pardew said. "You get that when you come back from lay-offs, it’s something we’ll police between now and Saturday."

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, March 04, 2011


Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/...f-than-live-in-cork-147145.html#ixzz1FcRqikwL

 

Why would he do an interview for a French magazine?
it seems a little dose of BS to me

 

A bit w'eire' of the French?

 

Indeed OT as much as Arfa Ginola and the like are great great footballers. I could never trust a Frenchman

 

He has form so i'm too sure

 

cos noone else will speak to him not in ireland anyway

 

Understandable, most of the youngsters that can get out of Ireland do so as soon as possible, my father did and his 2 brothers kids all 7 of them are either here or in America with no thought of going back and with the economic crisis that is hitting the country there's not a lot for them.

 

At least he didn't say that he hates waving to the fans!!!

 

now that, that would of been unthinkable

 

He'll be ok with BT then.

 

meh. thats nowt really. i spent 25yrs living in a **** council estate and i would never want to move back there. The stuff about trapatoni is fair enough if you want my opinion too. if i was called in to speak to him and had made the offert to go in at the minimum i would expect him to give me his attention and not answer a phone every 2 mins for what surely couldn't be a long meeting.

 

I spend the nineties living in london after 10 years i got back home.anyway there's something in the water in cork,roy keane is from there 'nuff said.he came out with that dublin rant before and out of present squad shay given,kevin doyle,stephan hunt,noel hunt,john o'shea,shane long none from dublin and not to mention english and scottish born players!

 

Sounds an interesting character from this interview. A bit like an Irish Joey Barton. Very honest and direct. I'd like to hear more from him.

 

aye i agree with that but he's cracked maybe we should bring back bellamy,dyer and bowyer and have a real nuthouse

 

The guy is defo a nutter!!

His points about Mancini, Souless City, Trapatoni, Irish set up being amateur are all probably valid, but to say you wouldn't go back to Ireland?? seems he's forgotten where he came from