Cas had foot in mouth, not hate

A FEW of us spent a most enjoyable and rewarding hour in the company of three Irish football heroes of yesteryear on Monday morning as Tony Cascarino, Frank Stapleton and Paul McGrath mixed some astute analysis of the Premier League and Trapattoni’s Ireland with a few entertaining detours down memory lane.

I particularly liked Cascarino’s description of Spain’s Michel standing in the long grass in the middle of the pitch and wailing, “It’s rugby, it’s rugby” as he looked up and watched the ball fly back and forth over his head during Ireland’s 1-0 World Cup qualifying win at Lansdowne Road back in 1989.

That the three wise men were on promotional duty for ESPN was with more than usual significance in the case of Cascarino, since it suggested the broadcaster was standing by its man and holding its nerve amid the outraged fall-out from his ‘holocaust’ remark on Sky Sports News the previous day.