I, Keano: all for the glory of the Republic of home

JUST when you think you’ve heard all the great Irish football stories, along comes one that goes straight into the top ten.

Niall Quinn told it at a recent fundraising dinner for the Retired International Players' Fund in Dublin and, if the uproarious reaction on the night is anything to go by, this is a yarn that, despite much stiff opposition, could yet go all the way to Number 1.

The setting was the Irish dressing room in Rome in the immediate aftermath of the 1-0 defeat to hosts Italy, in the quarter-final of the 1990 World Cup. Contrary to the popular myth of the team of that era as the happy-go-lucky Irish, determined to have a party come what may, the post-match scene as described by Quinn was one of emotional devastation.

Convinced they might have nicked a game which would have put them just 90 minutes away from - gulp! - the World Cup Final, the players sat slumped, completely deflated, some with their heads in their hands, others hooded in towels, the tomb-like silence broken only by the sound of the odd boot thudding against a wall, as a weary foot shook it off.

Suddenly, the door to the dressing room burst open and a man in an elegant suit entered in good cheer and loud voice. Arms aloft he launched into a stirring speech about the

warrior sons of Erin, the brave performance of the team, the honour they had brought to their country, and much more in that vein. This was Charles J Haughey in full oratorical flight.

After he'd gone on like this for a couple of minutes, Quinn was nudged in the ribs by Tony Cascarino, who rather loudly inquired: "Oo the fack is 'e, then?" Quinn growled back a whispered, "For God's sake Cas, that's the Taoiseach." Whereupon, Andy Townsend turned to Cascarino and asked: "Oo is it, Cas?" "I dunno," Cascarino replied, "but Quinny says he owns a tea shop."

While we're on the subject of the lighter side of football, this column has previously alerted readers about plans to stage a comedic play in which the events of Saipan 2002 are relocated to the era of the Roman Empire.

For those who thought this was all the product of my fevered imagination, the excellent news is that the project is now at an advanced stage and has evolved into a musical which will be staged in Dublin's Olympia Theatre in the new year. The work of Father Ted writer and football nut Arthur Mathews and co-conspirators Michael Nugent and Paul Woodfull, it was originally called 'McCarticus' but has had its name changed to the no less epic 'I, Keano'.

A couple of the Après Match boys have been cast in what ought to be familiar roles albeit the Dunph in a toga is hardly the norm; well, except maybe in certain Dublin nightclubs while the identity of He Who Will Play Keano has yet to be revealed.

The mind boggles but, on the basis of a sneak preview of an early draft, this column can say with some certainty that if you thought you would never laugh again after Saipan, prepare to have your prejudices rearranged by 'I Keano', the tagline of which reads: "He came, he saw, he went home."

Back in the real world if the ghostly Carling Cup can be so designated there was a touch of the theatrical about that Manchester United-Arsenal game the other night, as Fergie and Wenger patrolled the touchline like two veteran directors, while a cast of young understudies proved they'd mastered all the scripted lines and moves, right down to the production's mandatory 'melee' scene.

But if the show didn't warrant rave reviews, neither did it deserve the hysterical condemnation to which it was subjected in certain quarters. That eminent football critic James Lawton seemed to lose the run of himself far more than the players when he wrote this week of the game's one inconsequential flashpoint as a "bone-chilling moment" and went on to give further examples of what he considers damning evidence that "we have gone too far along the road of football anarchy", such as "Rooney running wild in a foreign stadium, Vieira cheating in full view of the nation, and a blind eye (being turned) to outrages like the throwing of a pizza by a young footballer at the head of one of the most powerful men in the game".

Maybe I'm uncouth well, there's no maybe about it but I laughed out loud when I read that last line. I also couldn't help but think that if the game really is on the road to ruin, it's a road that goes back an awful long way, back even to the Golden Age of the 60s and 70s, when good people worshipped the likes of Leeds United's Norman 'Bites Yer Leg' Hunter, Chelsea's Ron 'Chopper' Harris and Liverpool's Tommy Smith, so hard he didn't need a nickname.

This was a time when Jack Charlton kept tally in a little black book, when Billy Bremner and Kevin Keegan couldn't even get past the Charity Shield without having a fight and when, as Andy Gray told me recently, his introduction to a Brum derby consisted of the Birmingham City centre-half tapping him on the shoulder and, when Gray turned round, laying him out with a haymaker.

The game nowadays has its share of serious problems but football's supposed theatre of the grotesque would hardly be keeping bums on seats without the occasional strong injection of media hysteria.