Jack’s farewell to Lansdowne

IT was no love affair.

Former legendary Irish manager Jack Charlton had no regrets seeing the demolition of Lansdowne Road Stadium yesterday.

There was a bright future for Irish football with the planned 50,000 capacity venue for 2009, he stressed. It would certainly be a better start for teams compared with his first competitive games there as manager in 1988.

“We had some difficulties with the surface when I first started. It was really because they played the rugby matches in January and February and they used to tear up the wing.

“And with a person like Steven Staunton, if he had a ball on his left foot and he’d try to control it, it would bounce all over the place.

“I was not in love with Lansdowne Road in any way. Only for the fact that, occasionally, we beat somebody or we won a game and we did OK on the pitch. But as far as the stadium was concerned, no it wasn’t the best at all compared to some of the ones I’ve been to over the world.”

As part of a TG4 documentary, Jack was being filmed on the grounds of the demolished venue. The one-hour film is being produced by Nemeton. Director Sean Ó Cualáin said many popular football heroes had contributed to it so far including John Aldridge, Paul McGrath and Niall Quinn among others. It will go out on December 25.

Beating Brazil was one of the defining moments at the stadium, Jack recalled. “I remember when we beat Brazil 1-0. Not many people have done that you know.”

However, Big Jack admitted he would not be looking to take any mementoes home.

“I’d be more interested in looking at the new stadium because Lansdowne Road wasn’t the best stadium in the world by any standards.

“Lansdowne Road was such a poor-looking stadium that when people came to play in it, they were never impressed by it. They had to go and play on a pitch that they didn’t want to play on in a big international match.

“I hope this turns out nice. I’ll come to the opening game.”

He recalled how the cut of the grass at the old venue helped players compete on the big nights.

“Our type of game was where we played the ball behind people. So I didn’t want the ball to run out behind the touch line, by cutting the grass short.

“So I’d say to the groundsmen, leave it long so when the ball goes over behind them the grass will slow it down so we can catch it and get onto it. And they did.

“It used to suit our type of game just that little bit more grass stopped the ball rolling too far.

“We were very hard to beat at home,” he added.

It was Jack’s first time back to Lansdowne since he left as a manager, except for a brief occasion when he did a Shredded Wheat cereal advert at the deserted grounds.

“It wasn’t a good stadium. It’s not something you’re going to remember for the rest of your days,” he said, joking that he wished he had been called to help start the demolition of the grounds “with the explosives”.

Despite his fond memories of the past games there though, he also remembered a bitter departure with the FAI after Ireland failed to qualify for the 1996 European Cup qualifiers.

“The directors here, when they knew I was leaving, they said come over before Christmas. I said, ‘Can I not come back at the end of January because then I would have done 10 years’.

“And they said, ‘no, we want you to do this and that ...’ So I ended up having to come over a couple of days before Christmas which didn’t please me much.”

More than 10 years on, he shrugged his shoulders but smiled at the suggestion of a stand being named after him in the new grounds.

“That would be nice. I’d come over and break a bottle over it.”