By Seán Creedon

Back in November Troy Parrott gave the nation a major boost when he scored two goals against Portugal at the Aviva Stadium and a hat-trick against Hungary in Budapest to revive our World Cup qualification hopes which, a few weeks earlier, had seemed hopeless having won only one of our four previous qualifying games.

Parrott made his senior debut in the 3-1 friendly win over New Zealand in November 2019, but prior to November last year he had scored only four international goals.

Now as we look ahead to the play-off semi-final against Czechia in Prague later this month and hopefully a play-off final in Dublin five days later against either Denmark or North Macedonia, it’s probably an opportune time to look back at 100 years of Irish international soccer.

Soccer was introduced to Ireland in 1878 by Belfast merchant James McAlery who discovered the ‘new game’ while in Scotland on his honeymoon. He invited two teams from Scotland, Queens Park and Caledonians, to play an exhibition game at the Ulster Cricket Grounds in Ballynafeigh in October 1878.

The Irish Football Association (IFA) was formed on November 18, 1880. The founding clubs were all from what we now call Northern Ireland, with Dublin clubs joining later.

Football relations between Dublin and Belfast were cordial and Dublin got its first ever senior international on March 17, 1900, when an All-Ireland team were beaten 2-0 by England.

The Irish team wore blue jerseys with a shamrock crest as blue was the official state colour. In the early days of the All-Ireland team, there was a rule that only four players from the south could be selected.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own