The complicated legacy
Whatever your position on the debate around Ireland’s tactics under Jack Charlton, he was clearly the right man at the right time, writes Daniel McDonnell
Whatever your position on the debate around Charlton’s tactics, Daniel McDonnell explains why he was the right man at the right time
THE late Noel Dunne, then the football correspondent of this newspaper, asked the right question in the opening line of his match report after Jack Charlton’s first competitive game in charge. This was September 1986, the morning after a 2-2 draw away to a Belgium side that had reached the World Cup semi-finals in the summer just gone.
In the preview before the match, the discussion point was if Charlton’s long-ball tactics, the ‘Garryowen style’ as it was described by the Irish media, would confound the natives.
It proved correct, although the irony is that the penalty that delivered the 2-2 draw was converted by Liam Brady, a talent whose measured midfield approach was ultimately at odds with what Charlton wanted from his side.
In the aftermath of Charlton’s passing, it’s natural to consider the impact of his legacy. Much as his team were accused of being one-dimensional, this debate shouldn’t go down that road. It’s complicated.
Was Charlton good for Irish football? Undeniably, yes. To argue otherwise would be nonsensical.
Was his style of play good for the broader development of Irish football? Probably not, but then he wasn’t paid to worry about that. You can only assume he was hired to be himself so that’s not his fault.
He was 50 when he was appointed Ireland manager and his approach would have been apparent to anybody who did their research, just as the appointment of Stephen Kenny will bring a particular philosophy to the dressing-room.
Reservations
Indeed, the Dubliner has previously spoken of how he did find it hard to get caught up in the Italia ’90 fervour because of reservations about the tactical approach. And he was perfectly entitled to hold that opinion because his views were formed by studying teams and reaching conclusions.
Charlton’s ex-players will assert that while their manager was a larger-than-life character that perhaps adopted a casual approach to the sports science aspect of match preparation, he had his own idea about how the game should be played and thought deeply about it.
There’s a famous line in the Coen brothers movie ‘The Big Lebowski’ where the leading characters try to get their head around a group of nihilists, people whose ultimate contention is that life is meaningless. They believe in nothing.
John Goodman’s character, an ex-Vietnam veteran, struggles to come to terms with it.
“Nihilists?” he says in the comic classic. “Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude. At least it’s an ethos.”
There are plenty of decorated players who go into management without any real idea of what their football convictions are beyond knowing that they were good at it and they expect others to be equally good.
Charlton had an ethos, one that would never be cherished by those who felt the beautiful game should be played in a manner that’s a closer fit to that description.
It was shaped by influential figures in his life, with his World Cup-winning manager Alf Ramsey stressing that players should suit a manager’s system rather than the preferences of the best player dictating the template.
In October 1987, this newspaper carried a piece by the doyen of English football journalists, Brian Glanville, where he described Charlton’s long-ball style as a “perverse, crude, half-baked philosophy, constructed on thoroughly bogus principles. I think it essentially constitutes a blind alley into which British or Irish football can disappear unless we are very careful”.
Having covered Charlton’s career in management at Middlesbrough, Sheffield Wednesday and Newcastle, Glanville wasn’t surprised that his Irish team was moving it from back to front very quickly and urging midfielders to dispense with the ball at the earliest opportunity unless they were advanced in the opposing half.
Detailed
Yet for all of his scepticism, he also detailed a discussion with Frank Stapleton, a starter in that game with the Belgians, who had described with great glee how “a long series of diagonal passes over the top of the Belgian defence confused them dreadfully”.
Charlton had travelled to the World Cup in Mexico and noticed the space behind the Belgian full-backs who were able to move forward with ease and affect proceedings.
His game-plan was to turn them and make life uncomfortable. His ‘put ’em under pressure’ was a version of modern-day pressing although the comparison has flaws.
Andy Robertson’s raids forward may not have fitted his vision, but he would appreciate an unselfish No 9 like Roberto Firmino, sacrificing himself for the team. John Aldridge was a top striker in English football but he was encouraged to run channels even if it meant he wouldn’t spend as much time in the area as he might have wanted. That was the job for the big man.
International defenders were accustomed to a slow pace of play in their own half, with the strategy built around shifting the ball towards a playmaker who would set the tone.
Ireland upset the rhythm and visitors to Lansdowne Road were met with a perfect storm as this aggression was allied with a pitch that was closer to a rugby field in terms of its personality.
Charlton’s hard-working players were urged to cover every inch of the long grass to unsettle their guests. He bemoaned that he lacked a forward with real pace, feeling that might be a final piece in the jigsaw.
As his tenure progressed, there were tweaks to five in the middle, and room for a No 10 such as John Sheridan to hold the ball in the heat of the World Cup in the USA.
Opponents knew what to expect and Charlton attempted to vary things.
Tony Cascarino explained yesterday how the manager had concluded that an ageing team didn’t have the legs to implement his original modus operandi. He recognised failings, but the feeling was that he wasn’t the man to address them.
The game changed through that decade.
With international tournaments as a barometer, Italia ’90 was defensive and risk-averse, with the average of 2.21 goals per game the lowest in World Cup history.
Euro 2000 is often viewed as a high watermark for the quality of international fare, with the priority on creative ambition illustrated by a 2.74 goals per match average.
For Ireland, Charlton was pretty much the right man at the right time. If the FAI had wanted a manager to prioritise a passing game, they should have appointed somebody else.
His success captivated parts of the country that were Gaelic games strongholds, which made the game accessible to a new pool of players, but also introduced a mindset about the best way to be effective that contrasted from the school of thought favoured by previous Irish bosses.
It’s striking to watch how the John
Giles-led side of the seventies placed the emphasis on trying to control the game with possession.
Perhaps it’s too crude a generalisation but, from this remove, Gaelic football traditionalists who bemoan the prevalence of short handpassing and the death of kicking may have related to Charlton’s Ireland in the way they wouldn’t enjoy Spain’s tiki-taka.
We’ve all sat near that person in the stadium urging their chosen team to lump it into the box at the earliest opportunity. A good portion of our
crowds tend to relish the unpredictability of the breaking ball.
These punters will grimace at the labouring of the sideways and backwards pass.
Charlton would surely recognise something positive in Kenny’s single-mindedness, while vehemently disagreeing with the tactics.
If a Kenny Ireland side concedes a goal in the next year through playing the ball out from the back, you can be certain of grumbles based around the gripe that the Irish lads would be better off getting rid of it.
The new manager’s tribute over the weekend to Charlton on the FAI website spoke of how he had demonstrated “how a successful Irish football team can lift and inspire the nation”.
Kenny’s task will be to do something similar and he will only succeed if he retains the firm belief that he is doing things the right way and sends players out who know exactly what their job is.
Whatever your standpoint, that is the theory which should last the test of time.