Eoin Hand’s was a journeyman’s career in football, but it was still the stuff of his boyhood dreams. Managing his country was beyond those wildest dreams and he was so close to success. But chaos and catastrophe confounded his best-laid plans.

EVEN all these years later, with Ireland just one game away from qualifying for a major tournament, Eoin Hand sometimes thinks about just how close he was to qualifying for Spain 82, only for that “cheat” of a Portuguese referee in Brussels.