We asked The Legends: Should France striker Thierry Henry be branded a cheat for his infamous handball assist – or was the incident an acceptable part of football?

MALCOLM MACDONALD

IT WAS a case of the non-luck of the Irish.

Let me tell you my belief on what the word professional means in football.

As a professional you have to push the boundaries to where ever they may possibly go. That is what Henry did.

If the referee had blown his whistle, awarded a direct free kick against France then Henry wouldn’t have got away with it. But Henry pushed his luck and wasn’t caught out, but you have to look elsewhere because there is a police force in football and at the Stade de France they were stood outside the bank and didn’t see the bank robber escaping.

It’s one of those things that has happened a thousand times in football.

It is not for Thierry Henry to say or do anything. It’s for the referee to be a lot better. He must have been the only man in the stadium who didn’t see the handball. It’s dreadful if between him and his two assistants they can’t see a major incident like that. What were they doing?

If they have deliberately chosen not to see the incident – I am not saying that is the case – but if that were true then it would be as big a scandal as a player or team deliberately losing a game. It would be a lifetime ban for the official if such a thing were found to have happened.

MICKY HORSWILL

PLAYERS will never admit when they break the rules.

It has always been the case that you try to get away with everything that you can. People who play football are winners.

Bernie and Malcolm, if they are honest, would say the same. If you handballed it and scored would you tell the ref or not? There’s not a chance in hell that any player would do that. I have never seen it happen in all my years of watching and playing football.

If it had been the other way around the French would be going mad but I can’t imagine Trapattoni would have said: “Ok then we’ll play the game again.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s a shame and is bad news for them.

England got knocked out the World Cup in a similar incident with Maradona and we were going mad at the time, but it’s one of those things.

It’s not nice but you take it on the chin and move on.

You don’t just see it in football, how many fouls are there in rugby that the referee doesn’t see? I don’t agree with this call for TV replays or goal-line technology. The game is better in its current state. We love the talking points, if everything was 100 percent down to the letter with no controversy it wouldn’t be the same game that we love.

People love to argue about it on the Monday at work. We can’t take that away.

BERNIE SLAVEN

I CERTAINLY won’t be supporting England next summer, I’ve decided to follow Algeria!

I was delighted when Maradona scored the hand of god goal but I was truly gutted on Wednesday night.

I watched the game and I was delighted when Robbie Keane put us 1- 0 up. We looked good and I could only see Ireland winning the game.

Thierry Henry is billed as the great ambassador of the game but he’s lost that image. Call it gamesmanship, call it what you like.

Obviously I wanted Ireland to go through and after seeing what Henry did I thought “You cheating bastard!”

But If you put me in that position I would probably have done the same thing. To be brutally honest if it meant putting my country through to the World Cup you’ll try whatever you can.

Henry knew he couldn’t get it with feet or head so he used his hand. As a striker you do all you can to bend and break the rules, You do it in any industry. I am same in my job now, I don’t toe the line and I’m sure everyone is the same in whatever line of work they’ve got. You get away with whatever you can.

I cant see a replay happening, it would be the honourable thing to do but it’s a non-starter.

■ The Legends were talking to Andy Richardson.