Changing room chat: Have Estonian tracksuit will travel

A STOLEN tracksuit and a bag of balls helped one ticketless Republic of Ireland supporter to the best seat in the house for their Euro 2012 play-off win over Estonia – in the opposition dugout.

Conor Cunningham from Cork travelled to Tallinn’s A Le Coq Arena last week and managed to bypass security after sneaking in a stadium side entrance. After sitting next to Estonia manager Tarmo Ruutli for Ireland’s 4-0 first-leg victory last Friday night, he was spotted by TV cameras on the pitch afterwards celebrating with the Ireland players.

“I just spotted an open door and I thought I will stick my head through there but it was just a closed-in room but I found an Estonian tracksuit and I just threw it on,” he said.

“I threw the bag of balls over my shoulder and just went for it. I didn’t know what to do, to be honest, so I thought I’d better go into the Estonian dug-out.

“It was about ten or 15 minutes into the match when a Uefa official got suspicious of me. He came over and, after talking to me, told me I had to move. But even after the match I just strolled out on to the pitch.”

He was unable to travel to Dublin for Tuesday’s return leg – a 1-1 draw that secured a 5-1 aggregate win – but Cunningham has vowed to travel to Poland and Ukraine for the finals.