After yesterday’s draw in Nyon had pitted Ireland against Bosnia and Herzegovina in November’s European Championship play-off, Martin O’Neill was gathered around a table with a small group of Irish journalists in UEFA’s ‘House Of Football’, when a staffer came in and began handing out sheets of paper containing confirmation of the dates of next month’s games.

I remember the evening I first heard a certain scooter crunch across the gravel of a certain fabled backyard near a certain storied village where the wisdom of uncertainty has always been a driving force.