We partied until dawn, then had tea and toast
Gerry Armstrong is recalling the 1982 World Cup when he scored the winner for Northern Ireland against hosts Spain in Valencia.
‘Oh, it totally changed my life. What a night, what a party. Jimmy Hill welcomed us back to the hotel with champagne — he said he would.
‘There were loads of our fans there, all over. We had to push past reporters at the bar. It went on for hours and hours. I sat with Pat Jennings on a balcony and watched the sun come up. eventually we had tea and toast and some sleep. We were all mates, it was like a club team. Just fabulous’.
It was not just the Spanish in shock. Northern Ireland were tournament minnows; Norman Whiteside turned 17 one month before it kicked off; pundits said the Irish would not even score a goal.
yet the team managed by Billy Bingham would be 90 minutes from the semi-final and a year later Armstrong was back in Spain with real Mallorca.
‘Nobody thought we’d even qualify,’ he says. ‘We had to beat Portugal in a key game at Windsor Park. We did. 1-0. I scored.
‘It meant we had to beat Israel at home and we’d done it. We won 1-0 again. I scored again. What a season ’81-82 was for me.’
It was in fact, as Armstrong explains, ‘a fabulous two years. I left Tottenham for Watford because Spurs manager Keith Burkinshaw wanted me to play centre half. I’d marked Frank Worthington once and did well, marked Cyrille regis. But I wanted to be a centre forward.
‘ Graham Taylor had been following me and in November 1980 paid £250,000 — Watford’s record transfer fee. The next season, 1981-82, we got promoted. I was 28, understood professional football, in great shape and going to the World Cup.’
Bingham organised a training camp in Brighton and the Irish worked on their fitness. They were up against yugoslavia, Honduras and Spain and expected to come fourth. Instead they topped the group.
‘In our first game, 0-0 against yugoslavia, we ended up being the fitter team. We could have won it,’ Armstrong says.
‘Then Honduras. We went 1-0 up. I scored. Not long after, I hit the post. We could have been 2-0 up, but they got an equaliser.’ Two games unbeaten, two points. Admirable, yet defeat by Spain would mean elimination.
Martin O’Neill was the Irish captain and, Armstrong explains, this is what happened next: ‘Martin sat us down by the pool the day before Spain and said: “Tomorrow, it’s going to go like this. Spain are under pressure, they’ll come at us for the first 25 minutes.
“But we can take that, we’re good at that. We’ll hold out and they’ll get frustrated, their fans will get on to them. Then we’ll get a couple of wee chances of our own. We’ll score one and win 1-0.” And of course...’
Xabi Alonso’s father ‘Periko’ played for Spain. ‘Dirty b******,’ laughs Armstrong. Alonso caught O’Neill and Sammy McIlroy. McIlroy would hobble off.
Two minutes after half-time, Armstrong intercepted a pass and burst into Spain’s half.
‘I ran about 30 yards — Alonso tried to kick me — and laid it off to Billy Hamilton. Billy was not a great crosser of the ball, so I didn’t charge forward. He put in the best one of his life.’
Spain’s goalkeeper, Luis Arconada, was tempted. He dived at the cross, flapped a punch.
‘It came out to me,’ Armstrong says, ‘ and I concentrated on keeping my head down. The shot went through Spanish legs into the net.
‘There was just quiet. 50,000 Spaniards were silent. I saw Norman with his hands up, but it was still just silence, disbelief. Then the referee pointed to the halfway line. Goal! It was a split second but it seemed to go on a lot longer.’
What O’Neill had not foreseen was the referee dismissing Mal Donaghy for pushing Jose Antonio Camacho. The Irish won playing the last 30 minutes with 10 men.
All were heroes, telegrams landing from across the Irish divide. ‘We had done something politicians hadn’t, we’d united Irish people. It was a really fantastic feeling.’
Armstrong returned to Watford to score their first- ever goal in top-flight football. They finished the season second to Liverpool.
real Mallorca remembered Armstrong and signed him in 1983, promoting him as the man who felled Spain. Not all appreciated this and when Mallorca went to Valencia in La Liga, the players ushered him off the bus first. He understood why afterwards.
‘What a reception. I was pelted with apples, oranges, everything.
‘And then we’re losing 2-1. I pick up the ball on the opposite side of the pitch from when I’d done it for Northern Ireland. I ran forward again, had a shot from 25 yards. It goes in. The same end of the ground, the same net.’