I wasn't going to post much today and leave last night's gloat (which in hindsight would have been more aptly titled "One Night In September") at the top of the home page. After all, looking at the news you'd be forgiven for thinking not much else had happened in the last 24 hours. Unfortunately I stumbled across a report that paint was thrown at a church hall in Ballymena last night. The damage was discovered at 8:00 this morning.

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Fans celebrate after the match. OK it's a crap picture but my phone has no flash.

Fans are still singing and cars hooting their horns up Tate's Avenue and along the Lisburn Road as I type. Chants of "Healy, Healy, Healy" being followed up by rousind renditions of "We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland" and "Are you Scotland in disguise?" (sorry Graeme). It's music to my ears! What an absolutely beautiful night for football this evening has been. Underdogs Northern Ireland scored a hard fought and well deserved win against an apparent behemoth of an England team packed with premiership talent.

A blistering strike from David Healy past England keeper Paul Robinson saw me biting my nails for the last 15 minutes only to see Northern Ireland hang on for what is a truly historic victory.

But wait, there's more. Cast an eye quickly over to RTE and the beggars have been beaten by France! Could it get any better? Naturally RTE didn't see fit to even mention what was happening 100 miles away in Belfast. Shocker.

Just look at the table:

It's still actually possible that we could finish third, with Austria, who drew 0-0 with Azerbaijan tonight, still to play.

I hope George McCartney and all the others who have recently dumped on Northern Ireland by refusing to play (or acting the maggot during training) are suitably angry with themselves for missing this.

Absolutely well done to all the lads tonight; they all played their hearts out and deserve to savour their victory.

Fans Loyalists gather for sectarian sing-song. May or may not attend football later, but probably aren't bothered.

The match hasn't even started and I'm already feeling sick. There are a bunch of "fans" who appear to be from Rathcoole (no big surprise there) at the top of Tate's Avenue partaking in such delightful ditties as "Fuck the pope and the IRA" and "The Billy Boys" outside the off-licence.

I'm not that surprised though. The England match was always going to attract the lowest of the low (see my earlier post on loyalty). The same useless inbred uber-prod wastes of skin that have for the most part been forced out of Windsor are back in force for tonight it would seem.

Fucking scum. I seriously hope none of them have tickets.

Euan Patrick, from Halyburton Place, Cupar, Fife, has been ordered to leave Northern Ireland after being caught on CCTV participating in the Woodvale riots on Monday. He has also been told that in future he must stay away from the areas where there have been riots.

It's not bad enough that we have Belfast-resident spongers (like the 17 year old student facing similar charges, who was granted bail after promising to go live with his granny in Donaghadee) but now we have to import Scottish no-hopers to contribute too?

I know this isn't the first example of rent-a-mob type violence either. If I remember correctly some of those involved in the Ardoyne riots in north Belfast had been imported from the west of the city. It really doesn't lend much credit to the "poor beleagured communities" sob stories that the apologists come off with.

The rioters are scum, and it would be too good for them if the police were to open up on them with snipers.

I laughed when I saw some local boys on Newsline last night complaining that they'd travelled to Windsor Park to try and catch a glimpse of England's primadonnas training there. It was no secret that the training session would be closed but it wasn't just their stupidity that made me smile, it was poetic justice.

Thse boys said they'd travelled "all the way down" to see Beckham and the boys, but I bet they didn't travel all the way down to watch their own country take on Azerbaijan at the weekend or to see Canada earlier in the year.

People from Northern Ireland who support the Republic irk me, but not half as much as the traitors who give their first allegiance to the English side. They're possibly worse than bigots - they're glory hunters with no sense of loyalty at all.

Locked out of Windsor? I'm surprised they managed to find it.

I feel bad for the police in a way. Seeing Sinn Fein's 'policing and justice' spokesman Gerry Kelly on the TV having a dig earlier just underlines that no matter what the police do they can't win. Kelly went on as if the police were happy to let the loyalists riot and that this was obvious because the police weren't tough enough.

3 people out of the rioters were arrested yesterday. None were arrested after republican "protestors" rioted at Ardoyne on the 12th July. While no water cannons or plastic bullets were used yesterday, the police on the ground had asked for and received authorisation to use them if the trouble didn't calm down. In contrast, at Ardoyne police had blast-bombs as well as petrol bombs thrown at them, yet when they deployed the water cannon Gerry's party accused the police of being heavy-handed! You couldn't make this shit up!

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More loyalists out rioting around Woodvale in north Belfast today. Police had petrol bombs thrown at them following searches linked to a UVF "show of strength" on Saturday.

The good news is the police managed to nail 4 of the bastards on Saturday and 3 today following the trouble. 'Community representatives' helped to calm the crowds before water cannons and impact rounds were used (although the police had asked for and received authorisation to use them). It's almost a shame really, I get the impression some of the morons could use a plastic bullet up their arse and/or a good shower.

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In yesterday's post on the terrorist attack on a charity fundraising festival I, very deliberately, did not use the term 'dissident' at all. The report linked to from the story lays the blame with "dissident republicans" but I feel this is a very deliberate attempt to absolve the republican leadership of responsibility for these attacks.

The attacks may not have been carried out by Gerry's and Martin's provies, but they were carried out by men and women with almost identical political views: ie not only that a united and independent Ireland is their preferred constitutional settlement for these islands, but that they are entitled to kill and murder innocent people in pursuit of that goal.

I find it ironic and hypocritical in the extreme that on one hand Gerry and his Sinn Fein buddies refer to "Unionist Death Squads" and "Unionist Terrorists" when they really mean loyalists, in a blatant effort to tar constitutional unionism with the albatross of violent thugs, and at the same time we're fed lines about 'dissident' republicans in an effort to put clear distance between the republican leadership and their out of control fanatical terrorist activists. Let me be very clear that this is an attempt to let Sinn Fein off the hook for republican violence, while at the same time they try to blame loyalist violence on unionist politicians. If this isn't the most blatant of unjustifiable double-standards, I don't know what is.

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Republicans are being blamed for planting suspect devices in Hillsborough this afternoon, disrupting an annual Oyster Festival that raises funds for cystic fibrosis. Just after 1:30 pm, bomb warnings were phoned in. Army technicians carried out controlled explosions after the centre of the village was closed off, disrupting the festival goers.

Obviously unhappy that the government isn't appeasing them enough, the republicans have decided to turn on innocent people attending an event that raises money for a charity for people with a serious illness.

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It's been four long years but Northern Ireland have finally secured a competitive win today at Windsor Park. Both goals came from set pieces, the first a delightful (and I mean, delightful) free kick from Stuart Elliot (Hull City) and the second a penalty from Warren Feeney (Sir David had already been substituted by this late state).

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