Who chooses these things? It was like staying in Ayia Napa
Duff recalls the bedlam of 2012 base as he urges O’Neill to strike a balance in France
THE failures, heartache and gnawing regrets are what occupy Damien Duff’s thoughts more than anything else. As he continues to get to grips with a retirement still in its infancy, it’s as if the glory days never happened.
His may have been a professional journey spanning 20 years, 100 Ireland caps and two Premier League titles, but that is not what sticks out during quiet moments of reflection.
It’s leaving Chelsea rather than fighting for his place. It’s the subsequent relegation with Newcastle United. It’s that horrid night last October playing in the Leinster Senior Cup for Shamrock Rovers against Bohemians, when he ‘couldn’t kick the ball 30 yards’ and knew it was time to call it quits.
‘You look back and the things that jump out are the disappointing things,’ he begins. ‘It’s obviously too late to put them right. It’s the same when I play a game, I always look at the negative things rather than the good bits. I guess that’s the way I am.’
It is why Euro 2012 remains so fresh in his mind. He will always have the goal, and bow, in Yokohama at the World Cup a decade earlier, but the crushing defeats to Croatia, Spain and Italy linger.
‘We were more kind of embarrassed, we knew we were out [against Italy]. Yeah, you have to go over and applaud the fans and show your support but we wanted to get out of there and get back to the hotel.’
That was where some of the problems lay during that tournament. At the team’s base in Sopot, the hotel was just yards away from the town’s main square where hundreds of Ireland fans gathered day and night to savour a summer of cheap beer and dire football in Poland.
Even FAI chief executive John Delaney got swept up in the revelry, as he explained afterwards. ‘I’m coming home, 200 lads see me, they lift me up and they carry me up and lift me headhigh to my hotel and they sing “Shoes off for the Boys in Green”. And they handed me my shoes back and they handed me my socks back.’
The players, while cocooned for long periods, were not oblivious to the goings-on on their doorstep. ‘I remember… you look back and you think “who goes over and chooses these things?” Duff continues.
‘They’re obviously going three or four months beforehand when it’s not busy but it was like staying in Ayia Napa or Playa del Ingles. You know, the hotel was fine. Some people, sometimes, can make something out of nothing. Not pointing the fingers at anyone.’
Kevin Doyle was one member of the squad who revealed some of the players’ frustrations. Chief among them was that the hotel chosen for wives and family members had a strip club attached.
‘I think a lot of the players’ wives moved out,’ Duff recalls. ‘But Snow Patrol were staying in the hotel. If it was alright for Snow Patrol, it was alright for my wife and my kid. They found it grand. Sometimes it’s nice to have a wander out and have a beer, but Sopot was pretty extreme.’
Even before reaching Poland there were murmurs of discontent because of the amount of time spent in the small town of Montecatini in Tuscany for a pretournament camp.
This time around the players will be closer to home after Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane opted for a week in Cork’s Fota Island after the final friendly game with Holland on May 27, before departing for their base in Versailles.
‘I know my history,’ Duff smiles. ‘The palace, I wouldn’t imagine there is an awful lot going on down there… We were in a long camp. I remember it being tough, boring…what can you do? You can’t expect to be going out on the piss every night. England did that in 1996 and got slaughtered, the dentist’s chair (when Teddy Sheringham, Paul Gascogine, Steve McManaman and Steve Howey were all pictured with ripped t-shirts drinking in a bar).
‘There is a happy medium, a couple of nights out, that’s our culture. If you give us a couple of beers, we’ll live off that for a week. ‘The Irish players, they like to drink. Martin is not stupid, Roy’s not either. I’m sure Robbie [Keane] said give us a couple of nights out as well so…’
So, we’ll just have to wait and see.