McCARTHY ON WHY HE’S STILL IN LOVE WITH FOOTBALL
Even after his Ipswich nightmare, Mick says he just wants more
IDENTITY always appeared straightforward for Mick McCarthy. He had a Barnsley accent as broad as a gable end, but he was Captain Fantastic, Jack Charlton’s tactics and hopes for the Irish team in their playing form.
If he has a reputation for viewing the world in vivid black and white, though, it isn’t accurate. He understands shade, too. The topic is the case of Declan Rice, capped by Ireland but now checking his commitment amid interest from England, the land of his birth.
McCarthy eschews the plainspoken demand of loyalty that Kevin Kilbane, among others, volubly expressed over the past week.
He remembers, for instance, his own introduction to the Irish side. He may have considered himself Ireland through and through, but others heard the accent and thought otherwise.
‘I remember coming over here first in 1984 for my debut and, with my broad Yorkshire accent, I wasn’t universally accepted,’ he says.
A big factor in winning over any doubters was a move to Celtic. Association with the Scottish club considered part-Irish had a powerful effect.
‘Then I signed for Celtic in 1988 and almost instantly it was [clicks fingers],’ he says. ‘I played a lot more games then. Signing for Celtic helped me be accepted.
‘Then we qualified for Euro 1988. It changed it completely.’
McCarthy was in Dublin yesterday after being announced as a new pundit for Virgin Media, making his bow tonight for their coverage of Germany versus France.
He looks well, as trim as ever and tanned after spending part of the summer since his abrupt departure from Ipswich in Portugal.
His pragmatism remains intact, too. He sees the power of success, and its ability to smooth over any issue, at play in the Rice case.
The danger for Ireland is it works against Martin O’Neill’s team. The impression made by Gareth Southgate’s team in Russia during the summer could prove a powerful lure.
‘That was like our Ireland team in 1988 and 1990, 1994. That’s the bond created by those players,’ says McCarthy.
‘It had been broken for years, this bond was of an ilk that I hadn’t seen in my lifetime. Okay, there was 1996 [when England hosted the European Championships and reached the semi-finals, before losing to Germany on penalties] when everyone was behind them and they had the song going [Three Lions] which returned as an anthem this year.
‘Not many times in my life have England captured the public’s imagination.’
He turns 60 next February, but is ready to come back into management.
He left Ipswich with sulphur thick in the air. Fans had turned against him at the end of the previous season, he says, and he decided after a loss away to Brentford in April of this year that he would leave early. He promptly announced he was gone following the next match, a win at home against Barnsley.
‘I got asked to leave via the back door at Brentford because there were people with bottles and beer waiting to throw them at me,’ he says, as plainly as if talking tactics.
‘Of course me being me, I said to the police, “F*** em, I’m going out the front door”.
‘They said, “Well, if you do we might get covered in beer; we might get hit with bottles”. I don’t know if there was one person or 20 people or 100. But I had to go out the back door. I spoke to Marcus Evans then [the owner of Ipswich]. Barnsley was always going to be my last game.
‘But it would have been nice to go out and say, “Thanks for everything, it’s been great”, rather than “Well, what do you think about being booed?”.
‘So I said, “Thankfully I won’t have to listen to it again”, and I did one.’
His work with Virgin Media will complement punditry he has done in England so far this season. He enjoys it but he also recognises its value in keeping his name current.
‘It keeps your eye in and you know what, I’m not going to lie, it keeps your profile up as well,’ he says. ‘It can go pretty quickly if you don’t. There are a lot of managers out of work.
‘Mainly it keeps your eye in and you’re going to games and watching players.
‘I’m enjoying my time but if it came to a head tomorrow and I got a job, I’d go and do it.’
He doesn’t go to matches simply to watch them; he understands that were he to do so and a struggling manager was having a tough afternoon, the cameras would pick him out in the crowd.
McCarthy says he has no interest in that. He laughs when asked if he got hate-mail at Ipswich; his personal assistant opened all his mail and anything abusive was shredded.
‘Why on earth would I read it?’ he asks with a laugh.
Why, though, go back into management? He has seen the toxicity in the game, a poison made more concentrated by social media.
‘Because we love it. I want to do it again. I have no desire to rest on my laurels. That’s what I enjoy doing. I have to say I enjoy the combative nature of it. I enjoy the managing of players and solving problems, both on the pitch and off the pitch, dealing with all the things that come with it, and sometimes the s*** and sometimes the glamour of it.
‘I’ve had more of the glamour than the s***, I have to be honest.’
Mick McCarthy is the latest addition to Virgin Media Sport’s team of expert analysts ahead of the channel launch on September 18. Virgin Media Sport will broadcast more than 400 games, including every UEFA Champions League game live. Mick will make his debut on tonight’s UEFA Nations League match between Germany and World Champions France, live on Virgin Media Three at 7.30pm.
“I was told that people had beer bottles to throw at me”
“I don’t want to rest on my laurels. I want to coach again”