Northern Ireland v Greece (02/06/2022)

This evening there’s a special guest at the stadium who has a remarkable story to tell . Billy Hunter, aged 90, is believed to be the only surviving Northern Ireland supporter who attended the 1958 World Cup Finals in Sweden. A TRIP OF A LIFETIME WORDS : JOHN DUFFY Billy, from Randalstown in Co Antrim, saved up £200 for the trip to see his footballing heroes in action. He made his way to Sweden by taking a ferry to Liverpool , a train to Dover, a ferry to Ostend and then another couple of boats to Malmo. On arrival in Sweden he made his way to the team hotel along with two other men from home who he had met on the Liverpool boat . The then Belfast Lord Mayor, Alderman Cecil McKee, insisted that they stay in the hotel at the expense of the Irish Football Association. Billy recalls the first night when they sat with the players and officials and shared the food, and they were treated like kings. He remembers filling his plate only to discover that was just the starter. He spent the next couple of weeks in the company of the team, attending the training sessions and the matches. He observed moves being worked out on the training ground between team captain Danny Blanchf lower and manager Peter Doherty and the moves being executed during a match. Having played football himself he really enjoyed this part of the experience. After they were drawn in the ‘group of death’ with Germany, Argentina and Czechoslovakia, it was expected that Northern Ireland would be the whipping boys.

A 1-0 win over Czechoslovakia in their first game got the team off to a great start . The second game v Argentina was a 3-1 defeat . And then they faced the mighty Germans - and a super performance from goalkeeper Harry Gregg resulted in a 2-2 draw. The draw against Germany meant that there would be a play-off between Northern Ireland and Czechoslovakia for a place in the last eight . The play-off match with the Czechs resulted in a 2-1 victory which saw Peter Doherty’s team qualify for the quarter-finals. By this stage the Northern Ireland squad of just 17 players were suffering from a number of injuries, and the folly of leaving five players at home really came back to bite them. Alas the two weeks Billy had allocated for the trip came to an end, and he said he would need to go home. And, of course, his £200 had been spent . However, the Northern Ireland players and officials insisted that he stay on and they had a whip-round to get him some money. After the 4-0 defeat by France in the last eight Billy went home and duly turned up for work at Inglis where he was a baker. He was told there was no job for him as he had overstayed his two weeks’ holiday. But he was fine with that . He was a single man who had just had the trip of a lifetime, a trip which he describes as “heaven”. And despite his age, Billy hopes to make a return to Sweden one day to see once again where his Northern Ireland heroes played.

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NIR V GRE