On the One Redux

 I updated a piece I wrote for The Football Pink about supporting Ireland in the 1990 World Cup on Tyneside. It was intended for Pog Mo Gol, but I've had a better idea and look forward to revealing that soon. Anyway, here's something to keep you entertained -:

The 1988 European Championship finals provided Irish football fans, both at home and abroad, with a tangible sense of the validity of both the sport itself and the presence of the national team on a continental stage. Received wisdom had said that, prior to the backdoor qualification for Germany (an 83rd minute Scotland winner away to Bulgaria effectively booked the tickets), football in Ireland predominantly meant Gaelic football in the eyes of ordinary citizens from Malin Head to Wexford and that soccer (as only the Irish working classes and English elite call it) was the game of choice only in Dublin and surrounding areas. Undoubtedly there was some truth in this; across Ireland, bizarre social and geographical sporting factors persist, comparable to Fife’s role as the cradle of Scottish cricket, whereby rough and raucous Limerick is the spiritual home of Irish rugby and currently only 13 of Ireland’s 32 counties are represented by teams in the League of Ireland. Interestingly, in 1988/1989, 13 of Ireland’s 32 counties were represented by teams in the League of Ireland. However, the level of support in Ireland for the national side increased vastly in the aftermath of the 1988 finals and in England, those of us who had never been able, in all honestly, to even view ourselves as English never mind support their team, were finally provided with a focus for our sporting ethnic identification.  Put simply, Ray Houghton’s 7th minute winner over England in Stuttgart was the highpoint of our Irish supporting lives for hundreds of thousands of second and third generation Anglo Irish football fans. Such a shame that the 3.30pm kick off time on a Sunday afternoon meant almost all of us watched it at home. By us, I mean the Irish diaspora on Tyneside; first, second and third generation fans, kept sober by England’s archaic licensing laws.

Something deeply significant happened that would profoundly affect the Newcastle and north eastern Irish diaspora I am proud to be a member of, between Wim Kieft’s heartbreaking late winner for the Dutch on 18th June 1988 in Gelsenkirchen that denied Jack Charlton’s team a place in the semi-finals and the 0-0 draw with the north at Windsor Park that marked the start of Ireland’s qualifying campaign for Italia 90 just shy of three months later. On Monday 22nd August English licensing laws, that had restricted the sale of alcohol in the afternoon ever since the introduction of the 1914 Defence of the Realm Act, were liberalised to the extent that pubs were now able to remain open all day, except on a Sunday where closure between 3.00 to 7.00 was still a legal requirement.  Effectively, though the legislators weren’t to know it at the time, this would mean that the 1990 World Cup was the first tournament any of us had watched in the pub. Frankly, it was probably also the first World Cup finals that grabbed the entire collective imagination of fans of Irish football.

The infrequent and irregular broadcasting of live matches in those days, not to mention the lack of readily accessible information in the pre internet era, meant the centrality of international games to the football fan’s experience was not as pronounced as it supposedly is today.  While I recall the rescheduling of an important meeting at work in September 1989 to allow football fans to get home for a tea-time kick off between Sweden and England, in the game Terry Butcher split his head open (“people have won a VC for less,” according to Bobby Robson), international breaks were given less prominence than the week long cancellation of all other games, like a period of prolonged and solemn mourning for proper football, we are forced to endure now. Partly it was due to the lack of media exposure, partly due to the absence of widespread sporting hyperbole in the pre Sky era and partly because of a lack of coherence in fixture scheduling. For instance, Ireland’s home games would kick off in the afternoon, even midweek, as Lansdowne Road didn’t have floodlights until 1993. The result of these factors was that teams completed their qualifying campaigns almost unnoticed, as it was only the tournaments themselves that really grabbed media attention. For us in the diaspora,  it was only after Ireland’s 3-0 trouncing of the North on 11th October 1989 that the true significance became clear; avoid defeat in Malta and qualification would be assured. The 2-0 victory courtesy of a double by John Aldridge meant Ireland were on our way to Italy. On Tyneside, Jack Charlton’s dismal spell in charge of Newcastle United had been conveniently forgiven and forgotten for those of us with green blood feeding our black and white hearts. 

The labyrinthine draw for the final groups for Italia 90 took place on Saturday 9th December 1989. Sulking over post match pints in The Wheatsheaf in Felling following a 3-2 home loss to Oxford United, the atmosphere was lifted by Grandstand passing on the news that Ireland had been grouped with Holland, Egypt and, best of all, England. Spontaneous shouting and roaring broke out, supplanted by a prolonged chant of There’s only one Ray Houghton rending the air.  However, unlike today there was no sense of gathering hysteria at the imminent tournament. For a start, there was half a domestic season to endure, not to mention 5 unbeaten friendlies before the whole thing kicked off. 

Received wisdom tells a narrative that suggests the 1990 World Cup finals were watched with deep regional pride in the north east as Beardsley, Gascoigne and Waddle, as well as Bobby Robson represented the Geordie Nation; that isn’t how I recall it at all. Personally, I was deeply upset that Newcastle’s uncompromising full back John Anderson didn’t get the nod to join Jack’s boys in Italy, but I’d got over it by the time the whole thing kicked off with Cameroons hoofing Argentina all over the shop Friday 8th June.

Over thirty one years have gone by since Italia 90; a shade under half my life. However, my memories of the tournament as a whole, if not the actual games themselves, remain clear.  English patriotism, rather than a more insidious form of nationalism that appeared to develop at later tournaments, was widespread, infectious and often remarkably innocent. Despite  the occasional news footage of yahoos in Union Jack shorts and oxblood Doc Marten’s repeatedly firing volleys of plastic patio furniture at advancing riot cops, the reality of the World Cup for those in England itself was a lot more relaxed, with fun being the keynote. As a Joy Division fan, I regard New Order as being very much an inferior act, but they managed to surf the zeitgeist with World in Motion. I don’t recall ever hearing Put ‘Em Under Pressure this side of the water. As a fan of Horslips, I think that was a shame. Thankfully, the team took the message on board and the opening 1-1 draw with England, courtesy of Ronnie Whelan’s long range finish, was richly deserved. The best accounts of watching the games actually in Ireland are by Roddy Doyle; a factual essay can be found in the When Saturday Comes book My Favourite Year, but far more memorable is the description of events in a fictional Barrytown bar in his novel The Van. I couldn’t hope to match his prose in attempting to convey the passion, excitement and pride involved in supporting Ireland that night. Suffice to say, a packed Wheatsheaf almost exploded with delight as the equaliser went in, followed by clenched fists, serious drinking and atonal singing of traditional songs well past closing time by about 30 of us, an eclectic collection that embraced 60 year olds who could have been members of The Dubliners and 19 year old students in replica shirts. For the avoidance of doubt; this wasn’t anti English, it was pro-Irish. Unlike certain enclaves of North London or the West of Scotland, to celebrate Irish cultural identity wasn’t to try and focus on events in Belfast. We kept politics out of sport, even when singing about Sir Roger Casement, the last Englishman to do as much for Ireland as Jack Charlton did.

In contrast, the following Sunday’s 0-0 draw with Egypt slipped by almost unnoticed. While England and Holland had played out a similar stalemate the night before, cheered on by thronged pubs the length of the land, the Sunday afternoon alcoholiday denied Ireland fans this opportunity. You watched it in the house, or not at all. Shamefully, I’ll admit to watching it on video as I used to play 5 a side on Sunday afternoons and this took precedence. However, at least I got to see that game; even if it was so terrible I fast forwarded my way through most of it. The following Thursday saw the deciding group games, with the BBC opting to show England versus Egypt. Back then there was no internet streaming, no satellite TV coverage, no digital radio, no email or text updates and, in many cases, not even any Ceefax enabled tellies to keep abreast with the scores.

Gathering in The Wheatsheaf, the only option was to crowd round an elderly solid state transistor, tuned in to the shaky reception provided by RTE radio. The signal was terrible and after half an hour of murmured conversations being shushed and murderous glances shot at those who drank loudly or drew noisy on their smokes, during which time Ruud Gullit’s quality finish had put the Dutch ahead, we abandoned the project and nervously watched England crawl to a 1-0 win, while waiting for updates from Palermo. During the second half there were none and, glumly, we assumed the worst. A crowd of us stood chain smoking like expectant fathers in maternity waiting rooms when Des Lynham, who used to be Irish a long time ago, cut to footage of Niall Quinn’s brutal equaliser.  It was the quintessential Irish goal; Packie Bonner leathered it up the pitch, van Aerle’s back pass had too much behind it, van Breukelen fumbled the ball and Quinn slid the loose ball home. As the realisation hit we’d made the last 16, pandemonium broke out. Glasses and drinks went everywhere as fellas scrambled onto tables and the counter, punching the air. Even better, it turned out that as both teams had identical records; lots had been drawn to find out the next round’s opponents. High tech or what? No matter, the good news was we’d be playing Romania not Germany.

The following Monday was perhaps the most tense I’ve ever been watching a game on television in my life. Despite half the bar’s clientele taking a day’s holiday in preparation and drinking themselves into a fervour for the 5pm kick off, the stakes were now so high that you couldn’t enjoy it. 90 scoreless minutes were followed by an equally barren period of extra time; penalties. It wasn’t football, it was chess. Jack  couldn’t watch; he scrounged a smoke off a spectator and looked away. In The Wheatsheaf some went outside, others prayed; only half a dozen of us could watch it all. Eight regulation spot kicks were converted and then; Timofte. The sight of Packie Bonner, huge, diving the right way, emerging hands aloft was a perfect image for the tournament. The fact that David O’Leary scored the decisive kick was almost incidental. There was no triumphalism this time among our crowd; there were tears. The tension broke, the adrenaline crashed and the stunning reality of a World Cup quarter final place for Ireland dawned on us. Almost silently, spent, the bar emptied long before Italy booked their place with a 2-0 win over Uruguay.

Ireland’s 1994 World Cup campaign was Jack’s last hurrah and the 1-0 win over Italy in New York, courtesy of Ray Houghton, was the moment of the tournament for me. Sadly in 1990, Ireland were too respectful  and lost 1-00 when Schillaci, a man entirely of the moment, pounced after Bonner’s parry and drove the ball home for a winner.  In the bar, we took defeat with grace and dignity; sure we’d not expected to get this far and frankly, wallets were empty and livers enlarged by 3 weeks of serious drinking. 

In looking back at the tournament, I see a very different Ireland and a very different world. While the moans and snide digs about the Granny rule and mercenary players persisted in some quarters, the real influence was that young Irish kids were enabled to play whichever version of football they wanted; GAA or Garrison Game. Through more than a quarter of a century of boom and bust, of Celtic Tiger, Merkel’s bail-out and the seemingly endless pandemic, Irish football has undergone similar highs and lows. What began in Stuttgart in 1988, became real in Italy in 1990 and continues to this day, is the importance of the Ireland national team at home and abroad; for that reason Italia 90 will live in my memory forever.