Republic of Ireland
A special, personal tribute to Jack Charlton
The footballing journey of Jack Charlton’s Republic of Ireland side in the late ’80s and early ’90s was an experience unlikely to ever be forgotten by anyone who followed it closely.
Big Jack was of course best known for having starred as a key figure in England’s legendary World Cup-winning team of1966. To win the World Cup was a mighty achievement, the pinnacle of any player’s career.
Irish fans, however, would probably argue that in leading Republic of Ireland to their first European Championship finals in1988 and to their first World Cup finals in1990, Jack the manager more than matched his achievements as a player. What is for sure is that Jack was the kingpin in an unforgettable moment for Irish football.
As a journalist, I followed Republic of Ireland’s progress at the1988 European Championship in Germany, at the pre-Italia ’90 training camp in Malta, and of course at the1990 finals themselves. My favourite memory of Jack, however, does not concern any of these momentous occasions.
Rather, it concerns a September 1993 World Cup qualifier between Albania and Spain, played in Tirana. Republic of Ireland had been drawn in a tough seven-country group, which also featured Albania, Spain, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania and Northern Ireland.
By September1993, we were down to the last three group games and qualification for the World Cup finals in USA was hanging in the balance of a three-way battle between Republic of Ireland, Spain and Denmark. When the Spanish travelled to Albania for their away qualifier, they arrived in the then dramatically impoverished East European country to be greeted with a consignment of sports equipment as a “good will gesture”. Cynical hacks and others began to smell a rat.
So it was that Irish Times sports editor Malachy Logan dispatched me from my Rome base to Tirana. When I got there, I found that both Big Jack and then Denmark coach, Richard Moller Nielsen, were also there for the game. Given that both Republic of Ireland and Denmark still had to play Spain on the last two group days, this could have been just a normal scouting mission.
The problem was that, on the night, Albania appeared to offer little resistance. After just four minutes, a ball bounced off an Albanian defender straight to the lanky Barcelona striker Julio Salinas in the six-yard box and it was already1-0. With half an hour played, the game was well and truly buried, with Spain leading 3-0. In the end they romped home to a 5-1 win.
After the game, I went to what passed for the press room to find Jack. To my surprise, there he was sitting on a chair on his own in the middle of a concrete space in a distinctly Spartan, Soviet-era stadium foyer. This was the press conference, except that, given that there were only Albanian, Spanish and a few Danish reporters at the game, Jack was not exactly submerged with questions. So, I asked him the obvious question:
“Jack, that game frankly looked fixed, no?”
“You – f*** off”, came the thunderous answer that indicated that my press conference with Jack was over before it had begun.
In those days, there was only one hotel in central Tirana. So, it was not difficult to find both Jack and Moller Nielsen later that night. Jack scowled at me in the hotel lobby and told me to come back next morning when he would have time to talk.
Sure enough, next morning Jack sat down with me in the lobby and talked freely. He reprimanded me for asking such a dumb question publicly after the game (he was probably right). Of course it was a fix, or at least dodgy, he said, but I cannot go saying things like that on the record – imagine the row it would start. He added that he had spoken with Moller Nielsen, who had shared his “doubts” about the game, but who would most definitely not be saying so publicly.
Then he changed the subject. Knowing that I was based in Italy, he asked me about Paul Gascoigne, then in his second season at Lazio. Jack had signed Gascoigne for Newcastle United and given him his first-team debut in April1985. “I do not know what the Italians make of him,” he said, “but he is simply the most talented footballer you will ever see.”
In the end, of course, Spain beat both Republic of Ireland and Denmark in their last two games to win the group, with Ireland taking second place by the narrowest of margins. Both sides had finished on18 points, with almost identical records in which only the number of goals scored divided them.
In the end, too, Jack and I sat on in the lobby chatting. Jack always had questions for you. When I first interviewed him in1988 in a Dublin hotel, he wanted to know why I had gone to work as a journalist in Italy.
When he and the Irish team arrived for their training camp outside La Valetta, Malta on the eve of Italia ’90, Jack was curious to find me already there waiting for the team to arrive. I explained that I had come out a week earlier from Rome for Pope John Paul II’s pastoral visit to Malta and then I had waited for him – two big birds with one stone, I joked. Jack laughed and immediately asked questions about what the Pope had done, where he had gone, what he had said and so on.
In the early days of “Jack’s Army”, the Irish press used to stay in the same hotel as the Irish team (hard to imagine now, but that was the way it was). Thus it was that on the eve of that historic1-0 victory over England in Stuttgart at Euro ’88, we hacks had a grandstand seat for the team’s final training session.
“Where are you f****** going, Ray? No, not there...No, you hang back...”
It had been decided that rather than climbing into the bus to travel to the nearest professional ground, it would be handier for the team to have their session on a training pitch adjacent to the hotel. So we stood on our room balconies as Jack bellowed at Messrs Houghton, McGrath, Moran, McCarthy, Whelan et al.
Jack was often criticised for his dull, direct, long-ball approach with Republic of Ireland, an approach that made the team hard to watch but even harder to play against. Some concluded that he was a poor coach. Wrong.
Watching him that afternoon in Stuttgart, he looked pretty damned effective. I recall that he rehearsed some very precise situations. It went something like this:
“Now, there are ten minutes to go, we’re1-0 down but we get a corner. So, Aldo (John Aldridge) is right in the box... but where are you f****** going, Ray (Houghton)...No, not there...No, you hang back...”
And so on in a stentorian voice that brooked no dissent. It might have been basic but it was being thoroughly prepared. And the next day, of course, that Ray fellow scored just about the most important goal in the history of Irish football.
Next evening, too, the entire team squad plus friends, relatives, bemused hotel guests and even the hacks all sat around the bar for the father and mother of a singsong, with Jack sitting in the middle, grinning ear to ear.
The last time I met Jack Charlton was in Rome in 2008. He had come out to make a documentary, Italia ’90 Revisited, with Brian O’Flaherty. He was older and some of the memories were no longer quite clear in his mind.
However, when we went up to the Stadio Olimpico where Republic of Ireland had been beaten1-0 by Italy in a quarter-final tie18 years earlier, he started to recall that night – the Donadoni shot on goal, the Bonner save and the Schillaci tap in. As we walked along the side of the pitch, it was as if being in that evocative stadium again rekindled in Jack the memories of one of the most unforgettable nights in Irish football.
While he was out in Rome, I arranged for a meeting between Jack and Roberto Donadoni who, at that time, was the Italy coach, preparing for that summer’s European Championship finals in Austria and Switzerland. Two of the major protagonists of that1990 quarter-final would meet again.
Antonello Valentini of the Italian Football Federation kindly organised a little presentation of medals and pendants for Jack, given to him by Donadoni, by way of recognition for his great contribution to football. Jack loved that elegant gesture. He was genuinely grateful to the federation for having treated him with such respect and kindness.
Jack himself was a respectful and kind man – dour, blunt, intimidating even, but utterly genuine. May he rest in peace.