‘The silence in Dalymount Park could be heard at Nelson’s Pillar’

WHAT’S your favourite piece of Irish football commentary? I’ve always had a soft spot for Jimmy Magee luxuriating in hat-trick hero Don Givens’ demolition of the USSR in 1974: “It’s a beautiful goal. Isn’t it a beautiful goal?”

And, in the unbearable tension of the moment, George Hamilton was somehow as composed as David O’Leary when he found the words to tee-up that famous penalty in Genoa in 1990: “A nation holds its breath”.

But it’s always easier to be a bearer of good news and so I’m sure even Jimmy and George would consent to give the palm to the man who was the voice of Irish football for those too many years when agony inevitably trumped ecstasy, as it did most indelibly in May 1957 when Ireland hosted England in a World Cup qualifier at Dalymount Park. Having been thumped 5-1 at Wembley, an unlikely victory for the Irish in the return game would have set up a play-off – again against England – to determine qualification for the 1958 World Cup finals.