I realise posts have been few and far between here recently. That's partly because I haven't read anything that interested me lately, except for a book on the story of eBay (The Perfect Store: Inside EBay), but mostly because I've been back at uni and facing all sorts of pressures on my time (already!!). Nevertheless, Paul (formerly of NI Magyar fame, but still rambling away in Hungary) has kindly sent me a report from Saturday's match in Denmark.

Follow up:

If they could sort out the beer prices, then I could well consider moving to Copenhagen; it’s clean, laid-back, people are ultra-friendly and apparently its young, white-boot clad, tight jean-huggin’ ladies are the bestest looking in all of Europe (can’t possibly comment, missus might be reading). But the beer prices, start off at 4 quid a pint heading off anywhere in the direction of 10, 12 or £15 (if you want it served by an *ahem* exotic barmaid [Ed - no pics Paul?]). You can always stick to the 7-11 shops, where a can of Carlsberg is a much more alkie-friendly 10 kroner, but when the GAWA are in town, as they were last weekend, then these little havens have an alarming habit to sell out of anything even vaguely alcoholic.

So, for the first time since I was probably 6, I watched Northern Ireland play on Saturday in a reasonably sober state and I’m glad I did, for it was a match well worth remembering. It was an excellent defensive performance with Maik Taylor and Jonny Evans in particularly good form. Fair enough, Sir David looked pretty lonesome at times up front, but having settled before hand for a narrow defeat I was delighted with the draw, and with players like Evans and Steven Davis coming up through the rank, for the first time for a long time, the future looks reasonably promising for the team.

But the actual match, of course, only formed a very small part of the whole weekend. This was my second and my partner’s first real away match and I think she made a good choice for her debut-game. Copenhagen is compact enough to be sight-seen in a long weekend and we did the obligatory boat trip, Carlsberg brewery tour and floated round the hippy "village" Kristiana. Also the large town square was an ideal rallying point for the 3,000 or so Northern Irish fans on the Saturday to gather for a few prematch baby-shams and some hymn-singing before the long march to the ground.

My partner (a mainlander) thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. Initially she did have the occasional communication problem with folk from the likes of Ballymacash and Portavogie, but a couple of sips of Buckfast soon sorted out any intonation and translation problems; by 7 o’clock she was “We’re Not Brazil”-ing with the best of them. She’s been with me a few times to watch my club team (Man Utd), but found the atmosphere on Saturday a lot less laddish with, for example, more woman and middle-aged blokes with their sons in tow. I’d say also that the atmosphere was better-humoured and perhaps showed a bit more respect towards their hosts that you’d get with Utd.

For me, also it was encouraging to encounter almost a complete lack of “party songs” and very few Rangers flags shirts or scarves. I’ve no real problem with people following either of the Mould Firm, if they solely do so for football reasons, but even so, if you’re going to watch your country, then why wear a club shirt and especially one which in a Northern Ireland context has negative connotations? Admittedly, for some reason best known to themselves a group in the ground gave a couple of renditions of the Dambusters Song (in Denmark?!), but really they were a small group of about twenty or so. The vast majority were thankfully prepared to stick to the more appropriate favourites from the GAWA Song Book.

So, yep, when I become a millionaire I’ll be moving out to Copenhagen, but more importantly, the weekend proved to me, once again, that both on and off the field times have changed for Northern Ireland and definitely for the better…which reminds me, can any one sort me out a ticket for Wednesday??!