A long night’s journey into day

By Liam Mackey

AFTER a night never to be forgotten in Ibaraki on Wednesday, most Irish fans spent yesterday trying to remember what exactly it was they’d done.

Judging by faces that were nearly as green as the shirts below them and a noticeably heavy run on bottled water and headache potions, the rank and file had partied well if not wisely.

It wasn’t only the fields of Athenry that were lying low, the morning after Robbie Keane put the ball in the German net.

Reluctantly leaving the tumultuous scenes in the Kashima Stadium behind us on Wednesday night, the first media bus had arrived back in Chiba at around 12.30am, to find that the party had only just begun. And our gracious hosts were not inclined to be left out, the staff of the hotel lining up to applaud us off the bus.

Presumably, they’d already heard about that 92nd minute change to the opening paragraph, which had saved the match report with almost the last stroke of the key.

Unaccustomed as we scurvy hacks are to being treated like vaguely admirable human beings, we nonetheless took the fanfare in our stride, bowed back appreciatively and once inside the hotel fell to contemplating the practicalities of staying out here for the rest of our lives. In reality, we know that all too soon we’ll be at home and back to the usual diet of letters in green biro questioning our parentage, accusing us of bad personal hygiene and implying that all 75 of us, or thereabouts, live in the one bijou apartment in Dublin 4.

The FAI are also pretty unaccustomed to finding themselves scoring highly in the PR stakes, but their decision to host a post-match free bar in the team hotel for players, family, friends, fans and pretty much anyone who happened to show up, ensured that Merrion Square, at least for one night, was bathed in a warm, if beery, glow of appreciation.

Explained FAI treasurer John Delaney: “It was a spontaneous thing, not planned at all. But with so many of the players’ family members present it seemed the right thing to do and we were delighted with the response of all involved.

“It was a significant event because for the players it was a first night off in 21 days since they started their serious preparations for the competition. It was also an opportunity for us to pay tribute to their families and to those supporters who have paid substantial sums of money to travel here and give the players the support they need.”

“This event, in a sense, drew a line of demarcation between the traumatic events of the past couple of weeks” said Mr. Delaney, ”we were all put under an enormous amount of pressure by the Roy Keane episode and the Association suffered a huge amount of criticism. The performances of the team have given us something to enjoy.”

Roy Keane had recently informed us that ‘Positively Fourth Street’ was one of his favourite songs but it was another Dylan ditty, ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ that had the likes of Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Steve Staunton and others singing along to the guitar playing of RTE commentator Gabriel Egan and FAI coach Noel O’Reilly. Meanwhile, back in the media hotel, another singsong was in progress. Eoin Hand, a former Irish manager who has known some heartbreaking nights on foreign soil, offered up a mellifluous ‘After The Ball’ in homage to what Niall Quinn had earlier called, with impressive understatement, “one of the good nights”.

And also one of the longest. Coming down to reception at around 4.30am to send an article via the internet, I found dawn light beginning to flood the cavernous lobby wherein, gathered at one end, an appreciative crowd was calling for hush as someone sang ‘Raglan Road’ and someone else made another trip to the beer machine. (This, by the way, is a vending appliance, which sells everything from cigarettes to chips to bottled water, but I’ve yet to hear any of our people refer to it as anything other than “the beer machine”).

In an entertaining piece of hotel literature entitled ‘Prohibited Articles’, the Makuhari Prince management, under section 2, subsection e, make clear that, “anyone who speaks or sings loudly within the hotel or engages in vociferous or clamorous behaviour or otherwise induces a feeling of aversion, causes annoyance or inconvenience among the other guests or engages in gambling or behaviour contrary to public order and morals, will be denied use of the hotel facilities.”

Well, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but in the wee hours of Thursday morning, the skeleton night staff merely looked on in bemused resignation while yet another round was called and the walls echoed to a massed rendition of ‘American Pie’.

Yesterday, understandably, was a free day for the players. While some of them took in a trip to Tokyo Disneyland – where doubtless they pondered the new significance in their lives of rollercoasters and journeys up the magic mountain – Mick McCarthy was already travelling to Saitama to view the Cameroon-Saudi Arabia game.

In Ibaraki on Wednesday night, and as everyone out here keeps repeating like a mantra, it was a privilege simply to have been there. And in a tournament already bristling with incident, upset and some terrific football, even local television has recognised the exceptional emotional clout of Robbie Keane’s goal. Now, when they aren’t using footage from the game which secured Japan’s historic first World Cup points, their promotional trailers are dominated by images of Mick McCarthy reacting almost in slow-motion disbelief to that late goal.

So, for the players, the work resumes today. For the fans, the party and the after party continue apace, fuelled by ever more dramatic accounts of what it was like to be there when Robbie Keane put the ball in the German net. It’s a moment that will live in the memory forever; what’s crucial now, in the hot light of day here in Japan, is that climax is not followed by anti-climax. And this team don’t look like they’re about to let anyone down.