I was never Big Jack’s number one fan
In a candid interview on TV3’s Late Lunch Live yesterday, the loquacious Corkman confessed that he “never liked Jack” — and that the feeling was mutual.
“Jack would have no time for a fella like me anyway because I didn’t play soccer at the level he’d be bothered with,” Bill said.
He was also of the opinion that Jack didn’t rate RTÉ.
“I also had the view, this was a very personal view, that if you didn’t work for the BBC or ITV or Sky as it now would be, that you didn’t count, he didn’t rate RTÉ in that sense at all in my judgement,” Bill said.
While the Irish public by and large loved Jack for leading the Republic of Ireland national team to their first ever World Cup in 1990, there was a side to him which Bill said was very abrasive. RTÉ sports commentator Ger Canning sometimes bore the brunt of this unpleasantness, Bill said.
“I remember many, many times, Ger Canning got some very tough interviews down at the sideline after matches when he’d talk to Jack and Jack would be anything but polite, at the very edge of rudeness.”
When Ger Canning returned to the lads in studio he had remarked on occasion, “Ah, Jack has been at the charm school again,” Bill said. He also described an occasion when Jack stopped a pre-recorded interview 15 minutes in and threatened to leave unless Bill desisted from a certain line of questioning.
When Bill asked what was wrong, he accused the presenter of “trying to get me into trouble with the English media and the English people.”
Jack then issued an ultimatum, saying “either stop the interview or start again.”
Bill’s producer caved and Jack got his way “and then Jack was nice as pie again because he got his own way,” Bill said.
Bill emphasised that his opinion of Jack was his own and that others might say “he was the loveliest guy in the world”.
Jack Charlton’s angling bolthole in the west is for sale. The asking price for the three-bedroom dormer near the banks of the salmon-rich River Moy in Ballina, Co Mayo, isn’t even the slightest bit offside — at €130,000.
The hip-roofed property at Moy Heights has been the retreat of the former Ireland soccer manager for the past 25 years.
The planned sale doesn’t mean, however, that the 79-year-old is blowing the full-time whistle on his beloved angling.
Insiders insist he intends to continue fishing the River Moy, and other prime angling rivers in the west and north-west, but perhaps not as frequently.
Auctioneer Michael Boland says there’s been lots of interest since the property went on the market a week ago, with one firm offer on the table.
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