Phones '˜ringing off the hook' for NI team travel tickets

Rosemary McQuade, commercial manager at Travel Solutions in east Belfast, said they have been inundated with requests from fans since it emerged that Northern Ireland had made it through to the last 16 teams.

Her company has arranged 10 charter flights for Northern Ireland fans so far during the competition - most of them travelling out and back again on the same day.

“The phones have been ringing of the hook over the past couple of days and social media and email has been abuzz with interest,” she said.

“We’ve had hundreds of fans trying to get to France, and many more already in France trying to organise their trip back out there.

“Fans are so keen that as our doors were opening at 9am this morning [Wednesday] we had a fan at the office who had been with us in Paris the day before, trying to book his ticket to go out again.”

“The passion and dedication from fans is fantastic. We catered for 2,000 fans over the group stages with 10 chartered flights and we’re working hard to organise something for the next game. We are waiting to hear if it’s France or Wales and the venue before we can announce anything further.

“We’re delighted with the level of interest and hope we can make some dreams come true by getting the Green and White Army out there.”

The NI team official twitter account paid tribute to fans on Tuesday night: “Once again THANK YOU for your incredible support last night - both in France and at home #GAWA”.

Asked if they were enjoying the team’s exploits, Ant McPartlin of ‘Ant and Dec’ replied: “Ha! Yeah....congrats #gawa keep it up! A”.