Ireland fan sneaks onto Estonia bench

A Republic of Ireland fan watched his country beat Estonia 4-0 in the first leg of their Euro 2012 playoff from the Estonian dugout.

Conor Cunningham, who had travelled to Tallinn without a ticket for the match, disguised himself with an Estonian national team tracksuit and a bag of balls in order to get into Le Coq Arena.

He then proceeded to sit next to Estonia manager Tarmo Ruutli on the home team’s bench.

“We took a bit of a crazy route, there was myself and 10 other lads,” Cunningham told the Daily Mirror.

“We went from London to Stockholm to Riga to Tallinn. It took 24 hours at least, it was worth it. They were looking for crazy prices and as it was getting closer to the game we were getting anxious about missing it.”

“We said we would chance our arm, we tried the media entrance.”

“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.”

“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 dugout. No-one said anything to me and then I realised I was sitting beside their manager.”

Cunningham was eventually noticed but he still managed to remain in the stadium to celebrate the victory.

“It was about 10 or 15 minutes into the match when a UEFA official got suspicious of me,” he said. “He came over and, after talking to me, told me I had to move.”

“It was brilliant, could not have asked for a better game. There was about 3,500 fans over there.”

“I was seen on RTE [television] footage during the game. Even after the match I just strolled out on to the pitch.”