‘He was wise beyond his years’ – Kerr

BRIAN KERR recalls the midfield maestro who had a good head on his shoulders when he took charge of the Republic of Ireland youth set-up at the start of 1997. With qualification for that summer’s Under-20 World Cup already secured, Kerr was thrown in at the deep end as he got to grips with the players at his disposal.

Having spent the previous decade immersed in the League of Ireland as manager of St Patrick’s Athletic, it soon became apparent that John Burns would be pivotal to the cause.

‘He was a player wise beyond his years. He could control the tempo of a game and dictate the style we wanted to play, get it down, pass it and move.

‘But he was aggressive, too, he wasn’t a big, strong type but he would get ahead of the ball when he had to and used it very well,’ Kerr recalls.

The Dubliner was in charge of the side which finished third in the world in Malaysia and had Noel O’Reilly, a coach at Belvedere who knew Burns from their time together at Fairview Park, as his righthand man.

‘Noel had a gift, he had a way of making every player he coached understand the game and what they had to do,’ Burns adds.

‘You always wanted more with him, you never wanted the sessions to end and when they did you couldn’t wait to come back. He and Brian were just infectious, their enthusiasm and love of what they were doing.