O’neill instilled more fear than Strachan, says old Bhoy Hartson
ONE is a quick-fire Derryman with an acerbic tongue. The other a quick-fire Scot with an acerbic tongue. Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan have plenty of similarities yet are so very different.
‘You can’t really fall out with Martin because you’ve got no chance,’ laughs John Hartson, who played under both managers.
‘I used to answer him back here and there, and he’d say “did you have three crocodile sandwiches last night for your prematch meal?”, if I couldn’t move on a Saturday.
‘Whereas with Gordon... I wouldn’t say softer, but the fear factor wasn’t as great. Martin, I had tremendous respect for them both – I still have to this day – but it wasn’t easy to fall out with Martin because he’d bring you down.’
He will be looking to do the same to Strachan, and Scotland, when he leads Ireland out at Celtic Park on Friday.
The venue will revive warm memories for both men but more so for O’Neill, who became the club’s most successful manager since Jock Stein when he took over in the summer of 2000.
Three SPL titles, a plethora of domestic cups, Champions League nights and a UEFA Cup final appearance followed, before he stepped down after five seasons to care for his wife who had taken ill.
His replacement, Strachan, won as many league titles but never the same grá in the Parkhead stands.
‘I used to come here [Celtic Park] regularly and get booed, it didn’t bother me. And that was when I was the manager,’ the Scotland boss recalled this week when asked about the reception local lads James McCarthy and Aiden McGeady can expect when they line out in green jerseys.
An Edinburgh native and star of Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen side who broke the Old Firm dominance in the 1980s, Strachan was never taken to the hearts of the Glasgow faithful. The majority will be behind him on Friday, though, and Hartson knows what it’s like to have that crowd in your corner.
His career was revitalised under O’Neill at the turn of the century and he was part of the formidable attacking force which included the great Henrik Larsson and Chris Sutton. Hartson’s later years were intertwined with the two men who will be in opposite dug outs next week.
The striker played twice under Strachan for Coventry City before O’Neill brought him north of the English border.
Then, when the diminutive flame-haired supremo was confirmed as the Kilrea native’s successor, they were reunited and won another league title in Hartson’s final year in Scottish football.
‘They’re very different,’ the former Wales cap continues. ‘Gordon is probably a little bit more intense. He is out on the training ground every day, likes to be involved in every session. He likes to take the throw-ins, the corners, the free-kicks.
‘Whereas Martin, sometimes you don’t always see him out on the training ground, he lets his coaches do it but he is fully aware of what is going on, obviously it’s all being reported back. You wouldn’t think that Gordon was a little bit more involved the way that Martin gets involved on a matchday. I don’t know if he does it so much now but he used to run up and down the touchline.
‘It will be great for them,’ he adds. ‘They’re professionals but I’m sure they’ll have a glass of wine afterwards and they’ll have a chat and things like that. There would be mutual respect there, they have both been successful, they have both managed big clubs in their time. For that 90 minutes, they’ll obviously want to win the game so they’ll put all that friendship aside.’
Hartson did the same when he was Wales assistant manager during the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign and Scotland were in their group. In Strachan’s first competitive game in charge, Wales came away from Hampden Park with a 2-1 victory.
‘We’d a great game in Cardiff with Gareth Bale pulling out an unbelievable goal, and the Scottish fans kept saying “you’re a one-man team”.
‘Then we were a goal down in Hampden, Gareth went off at half time with stomach problems, but we still turned it around.
‘It’ll be an unbelievable atmosphere, Scotland v Ireland, all the Celtic fans will be there, the Irish fans will travel over and you’ve the Tartan Army to put in the mix, it’s one game I’ll certainly try and get to.’
There will be two men who could certainly sort him out with a ticket.