‘He could rarely and fleetingly bask in his achievements’

I REMEMBER interviewing Paul McGrath after an international at Lansdowne Road. These were the days when players and journalists mingled at post-match receptions in the Wanderers pavilion and, if a hack didn’t push his luck, might get in a little exclusive one-on-one action with a boy in green.

Being notoriously shy in such matters, McGrath generally avoided media duties, but his innate kindness meant that, on this particular day, he agreed to a few words on the record with the rookie football correspondent for the Sunday Press. In what passed for a quiet corner of the noisy room, we fell to chatting, my tape recorder held a couple of inches below his nose, our drinks resting on an adjacent window sill. Suddenly, I was aware of a large figure stepping between us with such purpose that I had to swiftly withdraw the machine.

This was Ron Atkinson, then Paul’s manager at Aston Villa, and he was clearly intent on business. Without uttering a word, Atkinson picked up the glass from which Paul had been drinking and sniffed it theatrically.