About route to Genoa
To see O’Leary’s penalty sink Romania
ur bus journey from oa, and then another back. the plane, when we as well abandoning nd making our own So we hummed and e only kind of sober t drink. s, I think it would be all that way over to come back”, so we a chance on it and from Milan down to about an hour, and accommodation. We n in Genoa. he-art but it got us by uple of nights there. . It saved us about 14 nd coaches over the taken an unconvenrde feels blessed to and on that famous en the nation held its ding into a crescendo occasion and it was ood with me and his Cloughbawn legend, e on the trip. We were ugh. I was due back day, but I didn’t make sday.
‘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.