Former Irish greats full of optimism

MICK MARTIN remembers playing there for St Vincent’s Glasnevin CBS as a 13-year old. Liam Brady recalls the afternoons he spent watching the likes of Lar Foley and Jimmy Keaveney strut their stuff for the Dubs.

Back in the 1990s, when Jack Charlton’s Ireland was cramming punters into Lansdowne like stuffing into a turkey, Phil Babb used to drive past the half-completed ground with its stands straining for the sky and think ‘why can’t we play there?’ Three generations, 159 caps in a combined 37 years of service in the green jersey of Ireland and yet the forbidden fruit that was Croke Park was still a chapter in all their dreams.

Today, they will most likely sigh and think of what might have been had it happened in their day but, with Packie Bonner comparing Croker to Giants Stadium in 1994, Babb especially will know how the Irish players feel when they walk down that Hogan Stand tunnel shortly before 3pm this afternoon.