Gerry recalls roundabout route to Genoa
It was worth all the extra travelling just to see O’Leary’s penalty sink Romania
GERRY FORDE may be better known as an avid follower of Gaelic games, but he also has a long-held love of soccer and was a face in the crowd on that famous day in Genoa in 1990 when David O’Leary stroked the ball to the Romanian net to send Ireland into the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
After goalkeeper Packie Bonner had thwarted Daniel Timofte, who took Romania’s fifth penalty, the stage was set for possibly the most famous moment in time in Irish sport, and well-known sports statistician Forde was delighted that he was there to watch history in the making.
‘When it got to extra-time and penalties we were dead lucky because we were right behind the goal where the penalties were taken, and when Ireland got the winning penalty from David O’Leary the whole place erupted,’ he recalled.
‘It was one of those moments, like when Ray Houghton scored the goal in Stuttgart that day, when Seamus Darby scored the goal for Offaly against Kerry, when Billy Byrne got the goal in the ‘97 Leinster final, they’re all big occasions that stick in your mind.
‘When David O’Leary stuck in that penalty we were right behind the goal, I have a photograph from the time and that will never be forgotten.
‘The Luigi Ferraris Stadium in Genoa, what I like about it, it was a lovely enclosed stadium, I’ll always remember the red brick. It reminded me of a stadium which I’m not too fond of, which is Ibrox, it was a bit like that.
‘The remarkable thing about it was that the Ireland support completely outnumbered the Romanians, it was incredible the amount of supporters. The game itself, I have to say, was very disappointing, there was very little flowing football in it, but the occasion was fantastic,’ he said.
Forde readily admits that hurling and Gaelic football are his greatest passions, but from his school days he also built up a real affinity for the beautiful game, with two giants from across the Irish Sea, Manchester United and Celtic, really capturing his heart and mind.
‘My passion mainly is hurling and football and following the exploits of the Wexford Senior hurling and football teams since I first started going to matches in about 1963 or ‘64, but like anyone going to school in Wexford in those days, we had an interest in English and Scottish soccer.
‘I suppose in the early days I had an interest in following Man United and Celtic. I still try to get over, especially to see Celtic once or twice a year if I can. I have first cousins in Glasgow who are season ticket holders.
‘I also try to get over to Old Trafford to watch a few games. Last year when we went over to see Wexford playing London, myself and a few of my friends went to see Crystal Palace, so I’ve an interest in soccer,’ he said.
His fascination with the Irish team began in the mid-seventies while attending college in Dublin, beginning that particular love affair at the memorable 3-0 European Championship qualifier win over the Soviet Union in 1974.
‘With the international team my interest started when I went to university in Dublin in 1974. The first match I went to was an historic game, it was the famous game when Ireland beat Russia 3-0. It was Liam Brady’s debut in Dalymount Park. It was a fantastic occasion.
‘We had tickets for the game, but there was such a crush outside the ground that someone brought a ladder in and an awful lot of us got in on the ladder, even though we had tickets to get into the ground. It was the day Terry Mancini was sent-off but Ireland won 3-0.
‘From that day on myself and a good few of my friends used to buy the season tickets for the Ireland home games. My brother Liam used to come with us and three good friends of mine from work, Eamonn Hore, Eddie Redmond and Shem Byrne.
‘For a number of years we went to all the Ireland home games and we built up a good bit of banter going to the games. We always enjoyed going to them,’ he said.
Two years before the heroics of Italia 90, Forde had his first experience of watching the Republic of Ireland in tournament football when attending the European Championships in Germany, an experience that will live with him forever, although the trip had to be cut short so he could watch his beloved Wexford lock horns with arch-rivals Kilkenny in the Leinster hurling championship.
‘I was never that fond of flying so when Euro 88 came up I said to the lads, will we organise a minibus? Jimmy Gregg, who was involved with Wexford Celtic, organised the minibus in Boland’s. I’m a bad traveller so I had to drive.
‘On the minibus was my brother Liam, Jimmy Gregg, the famous legendary Wexford referee T.J. Grant, T.J.’s nephew John Ward, the brothers Benny and Tom Sullivan, and the famous Wexford man Jim Shannon. There was eight of us and we drove from Wexford to Germany.
‘We left on the Thursday and we arrived in Stuttgart on Friday and the match against England was on Sunday. Everybody knows how that went, it was a fantastic day.
‘We had a long drive to Hanover then for the famous game against Russia. After that game we were still in the hunt, but I had already made a deal with the lads that I was coming home after two games because Wexford were playing Kilkenny in Croke Park on the Sunday.
‘Some of the boys wanted to stay on but our package was booked to come back. I got back to Ireland on the Saturday and it was worth coming back because Wexford beat Kilkenny.
We wouldn’t have beaten Kilkenny that often but we beat them that day in the Leinster semi-final with
Martin Quigley getting two goals.
‘We had the best of both worlds, we saw the fantastic occasion against England, but I think probably one of Ireland’s best-ever displays was that night against Russia in Hanover. We had a great time over there and it was a great occasion and we had a brilliant time all round,’ he said.
The Gaelic games diary also came into play when Ireland qualified for the World Cup in Italy in 1990 and Forde was on home soil for the group games, before jetting off to Italy for the last 16 clash with Romania.
‘The first thing I do when I plan to go anywhere is I look at the GAA calendar to make sure I don’t miss any games. I knew from an early stage that I wasn’t going to be going to the group games because Wexford were due to play Dublin on the 17th of June and that was the same day that Ireland were playing Egypt. I definitely wasn’t going to that game.
‘That was a devastating day because Dublin beat us that day in Croke Park for the first time since 1961. We went 29 years without Dublin beating us so we were all devastated that day.
‘I remember when we stopped for chips in Deansgrange on the way home, the Ireland-Egypt game had just finished and we saw Eamon Dunphy famously throwing his biro across the table when were waiting for our chips in Libero’s.
‘Ireland drew 0-0 that day, they had already drawn with England, so it all went down to the Dutch game which was on the Thursday night. Ireland drew that match with Holland so that meant they went through,’ he said.
With the Irish team making waves in Italy, the lure of being part of the adventure proved too strong for Gerry and, like many other Irish fans, he couldn’t resist the temptation of joining the party, although the influx of followers of the Boys in Green to Genoa meant they had to go on the beaten track to reach their destination.
‘I hadn’t really planned on going over, but my first cousin called me up, Ger Flood from Cloughbawn. Himself and two of his friends, Pat Creane and Tom Doyle, were thinking of going so I said sure maybe I will. The cost was £399 per person, match tickets £85 and £40 for insurance, so it was an expensive enough trip for one game.
‘There was a lot of Irish people trying to get there, people were going from all sorts of angles so our scheduled trip was a bit unusual. The match was in Genoa, so the plan was to fly to Venice, so we got accommodation in Venice.
‘Then we had to get more than a 400km bus trip from Venice to Genoa and then after the match we were to go from Genoa back to Venice to get the flights back.
‘It was a lot of travelling but we said we’d put up with it. The match was on Monday night. I think it was the Saturday night we were going over and we were in the airport waiting for the flight out to Venice and it was late for a start.
‘So then when we got in the air above Dublin Airport there was an announcement over the public address system that there was a problem in Venice so we were going to be dropped in Milan.
‘I knew a little bit about geography and I said “sure Milan is near to Genoa”. They were going to drop us in Milan, we were going on a five-hour journey from Milan to Venice, a seven-hour bus journey from Venice back to Genoa, and then another seven-hour journey back.
‘I was thinking on the plane, when we got to Milan we’d be as well abandoning our package trip and making our own way down to Genoa. So we hummed and hawed, and I was the only kind of sober one, because I don’t drink.
‘I said, “listen lads, I think it would be madness to head all that way over to Venice and have to come back”, so we decided we’d take a chance on it and we’d take the train from Milan down to Genoa, it was only about an hour, and chance our arm on accommodation. We got accommodation in Genoa.
‘It wasn’t state-of-the-art but it got us by and we stayed a couple of nights there.
We weren’t too fussy. It saved us about 14 hours of travelling and coaches over the weekend,’ he said.
They may have taken an unconven- tional route, but Forde feels blessed to have been in the stand when the nation held its day 30 years ago when breath before exploding into a crescendo of joyful noise.
‘It was a fantastic occasion and it was great having Ger Flood with me and his friend Pat Creane, a Cloughbawn legend, and Tom Doyle.
‘We’d a great time on the trip. We were fairly tired after it though. I was due back in work on the Tuesday, but I didn’t make it in until the Wednesday.
‘One of my best friends that I used to always go to matches with, Shem Byrne, he went on his own trip, but the first person I met at the train station was Shem Byrne and the late Pat Cullen. I met them on the platform when we got to Milan.
‘We watched the game against Italy on television the following weekend when Schillaci’s goal knocked us out. All the travelling, I had never been in Italy before, and I suppose it whetted my appetite for visiting Italy again, and 19 years later I drove to Rome for the Champions League final from Wexford for Man United versus Barcelona,’ he said.
The late eighties and early nineties was a real breakthrough period for Irish soccer on the international stage, a time of pride and real hope which we may never see the likes of again, and Forde recalls those halcyon days with great fondness.
‘They were great times, that whole Jack Charlton era. But even before that there was Ireland teams that were very unlucky not to get through to World Cup finals.
‘Refereeing decisions went against us and things like that. I’d say Ireland had better teams before that era, but under Jack Charlton they got the results and it’s a results-based game.
‘When the Irish team became popular it was kind of hard to get tickets, and even though we were regular customers the FAI kind of pushed us down to one corner so we kind of gave up going. We only go to the odd game now,’ he said.