THE NIGHT LANSDOWNE ROAD WAS TAKEN

20 years after a group of right-wing hooligans started a riot, the FAI boss in charge recalls the scenes of mayhem

AS THE madness erupted, and Lansdowne Road became a bloody battlefield, Bernard O’Byrne’s first thoughts were for the safety of his daughter, Niamh, and his niece and nephew, all sitting somewhere in the West Stand.

It was a ‘natural emotion’ shared by many others in the creaky old ground, and those watching on TV as the ugly events unfurled and an international football match between the Republic of Ireland and England became irrelevant.

‘It was a horrific night,’ recalled O’Byrne, speaking of the Lansdowne Road Riots, which occurred 20 years ago today.

On that infamous night of February 15, 1995, fighting replaced football in Dublin 4, ignited by a combustible group known as Combat 18.

The right-wing extremists, who had infiltrated the 4,000 English supporters, marched to the match in military style, intent on trouble.

As the FAI’s security officer, overseeing only his second international, O’Byrne was caught in the line of fire both on the night and in the aftermath when there were calls for a sacrificial lamb.

With support from then-FAI president Louis Kilcoyne and general secretary Seán Connolly, O’Byrne survived, and was subsequently vindicated by Justice Finlay’s judicial investigation into the rioting.

‘When the independent judge said we (FAI) may have been naïve but we were not to blame with the core issues of the rioting, that eased my conscience,’ O’Byrne told Sportsmail.

‘I remember the headline after the report was published which said: “Yellow card for FAI, yellow card for FA, and red card for the Gardaí.” I think that summed it up.

‘But had anyone been seriously hurt, or even killed, I’m not sure I’d have got over it,’ he added quietly.

In the build-up to England’s second visit in a little over four years – they had played a 1-1 European Championship qualifying draw in November 1990 – O’Byrne leaned heavily on the experience of Joe Delaney, his predecessor as security chief.

‘This was my first home game, it was some baptism. Joe was in the background and we worked together in the lead-up with more than 10 meetings with h the Gardaí. We want e d to get things right.’

However, according to O’Byrne, the FAI was not tipped off about the potential for violence by visiting supporters in those briefings.

‘I recall the Gardaí telling us “you look after crowd inside the ground in terms of normal stewarding and we’ll look after everything else”,’ he says.

THIS was s said to us when they had intelligence there was going ng to be quite a number of right-wing extremists sts coming to the game. Wee never knew anything about that.’ at.’

The FAI’s lack k of awareness about the invaders s perhaps explained the decision to station the English sup- porters in the West Stand Stand, Upper and Lower.

As any soldier can confirm, holding the high ground in battle is vital and the West Upper Stand, filled with wooden seats held together by metal screws an and iron handles, provided read ready ammo. So why did the FAI put them there?

On this point, O’Byrne is firm. ‘We didn’t put them anywhere.

‘We asked the guards where would we put the English fans and they said “the West Stand”, he said. ‘They wanted English fans to be positioned over each other in the stadium, and also to be as adjacent as possible to the main exit gates. That’s why they were in that position.

‘Fans in previous games had been placed in the North Terrace; this was first time we used the West Stand and we did it at request of the guards.’

The siting of rioters on high ground was a risky call which backfired horribly.

‘No body foresaw what would happen, no one has 20-20 vision, and mistakes were made,’ said O’Byrne.

‘We trusted the guards. We were an amateur organisation, with lots of volunteers, and when you’re sitting around a table of senior officers and they’re telling you “A, B, C and D”, you trust them.

‘We trusted them that night but in future, for every game we made out a list of questions, such as: “Do you have any knowledge about potential trouble?”

‘We did that even if we were playing Andorra.’

That night it was England, the nearest and not-so-dearest rivals.

The game was a powder keg, the atmosphere poisonous. The Combat 18 heads were there spoiling for combat; to hell with the IRA ceasefire that had been called the previous August.

The game kicked off at 6.15pm but when David Kelly, one of eight English-born players in the Irish team, scored the lead goal after 23 minutes, it was the cue for the simmering unrest to explode.

The players left the pitch as the missiles rained down from above and four minutes later, the match was formally abandoned.

But the rioting continued unabated for several minutes until the Garda Public Order Unit arrived on the scene and waded in. Why the delay?

‘We were told that the Combat 18 guys had come in military formation to the ground; at that time were in the Mount H the stadium,’ said O

‘When it kicked o come to a gate, and and they were knoc got in. ‘It was like the Key By then, there wa West Stand.

FOR O’Byrne, the night were on duty inside in a line while knocking on th Confusion a where. The mobile p its infancy and sta was done via walkie ‘There was such

going on, and people pananicking, going on to different channels, they became almost unusable on the night.’

As the FAI hierarchy faced the media repercussions, the English FA, which was responsible for the distribution of tickets to the English fans, beat a hasty retreat.

‘The FA at the time were arrogant,’ said O’Byrne. ‘They had presented to us the England Travel Club which had weeded troublemakers.

‘We were told to expect a crowd of gentlemen coming to the game, which was a lot of nonsense.

‘Afterwards, Bert Millichip (FA chairman) and Graham Kelly (FA general secretary) went through the departure lounge of Dublin Airport as fast as they could.’

While the FAI avoided the brunt of blame, the incident marked the beginning of the end for Lansdowne Road.

‘We knew it from going around Europe that Lansdowne Road was a Third World stadium, and it set into my own thoughts about Eircom Park and having a new modern stadium for Irish football,’ said O’Byrne.

After serving the FAI as a visionary CEO for five years, O’Byrne now oversees Basketball Ireland, a sport enjoying a huge resurgence.

But on the 20th anniversary of an event which scarred the Irish sporting landscape, O’Byrne’s thoughts will turn back to a night when ‘a lot us matured fairly quickly’. We were told to expect a crowd of gentlemen to the game, which was a lot of nonsense