INSIDE THE MIND OF MARTIN
From Belichick to Nixon, from Tiger Woods to Richard III...there is a lot more that interests the Republic of Ireland manager than merely football
HaLFWaY through an hourlong conversation with Martin o’neill, the irish manager decides to recreate a Bill Belichick moment. Someone has to be tom Brady, so a paunchy bald hack in his mid-50s steps forward as volunteer– as you do. o’neill becomes visibly animated, for the nFL is a sporting passion of his.
‘there is a little clip, which you can find if you google it, where Belichick has this argument with (tom) Brady. they’re both miked up. Brady missed a throw and Belichick’s gone over and pulled him up on it.
‘Brady doesn’t buy it. “i did throw it properly, he missed the catch”.
‘Belichick has another go at him and Brady stands his ground. then, Belichick says: “What about the throw before that?” and Brady goes, “okay,” shrugs and turns away.’
Belichick isn’t everyone’s bottle of Sam adams but o’neill regards him as the goat (greatest of all time) coach in american football.
From a sport that gave the world Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh and Joe gibbs, it’s not a title bestowed lightly but o’neill hails a fellow sports manager, son of a Croat, born a month after him in 1952.
‘Belichik has to be considered the best coach that’s ever been. Listening to some of the old ex-players talking about the game, and even boys who wouldn’t really like Belichik, they’ve said he’s got be the best,’ enthuses o’neill. ‘it’s good to listen to those who have begrudgingly given him that support because he’s done a few mischievous things, he’s kept people in stadiums, there was the deflate-gate thing.’
(and Spy-gate, too, where Belichick was fined $500,000 and forced to apologise after a Patriots coach was caught videoing defensive signals of the nFL Jets.) ‘american football is supposed to give the worst team the chance to improve so every year he (Belichick) brings in lads of poor character, rejects and they play for him,’ continues o’neill.
‘Even fellows like randy Moss, who was an arrogant sod, when it comes to playing for Belichick, they play.’
a plank of Belichick’s philosophy is his way of keeping things simple. o’neill learned that from Brian Clough, another maverick, and he has passed it onto his own teams in 30 years of management.
‘Brian Clough would tell you what your job was. He didn’t complicate anything. once you knew your job, then you had to go and do it.
‘i can imagine Bill Belichik telling his players what their jobs are and then trusting them to go and do it.’
o’neill, you sense, would have loved a shot at coaching football in the nFL.
‘Coaching in any sport is important but i’ve never known a game like american football where a coach can have so much influence because it’s stop-start.
‘okay, Belichick has got people around him and you need someone who can deliver – and he has that in Brady – but he can dictate the whole thing and that’s why he can be considered so brilliant.’
o’neill clearly admires brilliance, not just in sport, but in life.
Blessed with an inquisitive mind, he’s knowledgeable about ex-US presidents John F Kennedy, richard nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and american politics in general.
‘tricky dicky’, the deeply flawed but fascinating politician, is akin to a specialist subject of his.
‘i remember reading when Kennedy beat nixon to win the 1960 election, how he won the hearts and minds of some people who might have been considering nixon by his tV presence and charisma.
‘on radio debates, nixon was ahead by miles but on tV he was seen sweating, and he lost the vote by the narrowest margin.
‘it is amazing when you consider that nixon was vice-president to Eisenhower in the 50s, ran for presidency in 1960, was narrowly beaten, then he wins in 1968, and by a landslide again in ’72,.
‘then in ’73 Watergate hits him, and his undoing was his own. Because he recorded conversations in the White House, and those tapes were eventually his undoing.’
o’neill asks had i seen the Frostnixon interviews, recently recreated on film and stage?
i hadn’t. ‘they were fascinating. the fellow (Frank Langella) acting nixon had him off brilliantly.’ in our chat, republican icons Pádraig Pearse and roger Casement are mentioned, as is a former King of England, richard the third, whose body was found in a car park in Leicester in 2012, and was wrongly portrayed as a hunchback, according to o’neill. ‘the number of times i was in the Holiday inn in Leicester not realising i was standing over him,’ muses the former
I was in the Holiday Inn not knowing I was standing over Richard III
Leicester manager.
‘The Battle of Bosworth, where he died, took place outside Leicester. They put him naked over a horse. He was a little crunched but not as deformed like Shakespeare said he was,’ observes O’Neill.
‘We’re all a little bent over now,’ he adds wryly, in admission of his 66 years.
Not that he looks it. He is sparse of stomach and light on his feet, too, probably not a million miles off his weight as a fine midfielder through the 1970s and mid-80s.
Management has been his calling since and he is about to embark on a third qualification as Ireland manager when the UEFA Nations League kicks off on Thursday week (September 6) in Cardiff.
After a fortnight in Russia on World Cup duty – where his tip for the trophy, France, emerged triumIT phant – O’Neill delayed a short holiday in Portugal to oversee on a couple of Championship matches, where most of his Ireland players are employed these days.
He was on duty at the FAI’s recent Festival of Football in Cork where he finally found time for a round of golf at Fota Island.
He loves the game, says he’s ‘a lousy 14’ handicap, and only kept his club membership up this year for a reunion with a few ‘great old players’ from his time at Wycombe.
So, who would O’Neill choose for a fantasy a fourball of choice at his club tomorrow morning?
‘You’d have to pick Tiger Woods for a start,’ insists the Republic of Ireland manager.
‘I’d like to take (Jordan) Spieth, I really love him as a kid, considering he can be wayward off the tee and he pulls it round.
‘I wouldn’t mind adding Rory McIlroy to the group. I think I could watch them all as I drive them around in the buggy.
‘Tiger is the man. What he has done for all of those players, in terms of bringing in sponsors, prizemoney and TV audiences rising when he’s in the tournament, if you’re a fellow professional, you couldn’t thank him enough,’ he adds.
‘If you’d seen him a couple of years ago where he was playing like an amateur, he was going back and forward across the greens, couldn’t chip, couldn’t putt. It’s great that he’s back.’
From Belichick to Nixon to Woods, the United States is clearly a place that fascinates the Derryman.
Should O’Neill continue at the Republic of Ireland helm and steer the good ship SS Ireland to the World Cup finals in North America in 2026, he’ll know the lie of the land better than most.