The boys of summer

THEY are the boys of the 60s who have become men in their 60s but, when they get together in a room even 40 years on, there is still the warming afterglow of what must have seemed, at one time, like the endless summer of their youth.

The great Shamrock Rovers team which won six FAI Cups in a row between 1964 and 1969 were honoured this week in Dublin at a ‘Sporting Legends’ dinner hosted by the Association of Sports Journalists in Ireland and Lucozade Sport.

The Hoops used just 31 players throughout those six finals, 17 of whom went on to gain international honours with the Republic of Ireland.

Twenty four of the players turned up for the reunion this week and, for someone like myself who worshipped some of these men as gods when I got on board the Rovers express as a young fella at the end of that decade, it was a pleasure to wax nostalgic in their company for a couple of hours.

Paddy Mulligan, who achieved fame with Crystal Palace and Chelsea and who has become known to a new generation for his forthright punditry on radio and tv, was one who was fortunate to experience the Hoops’ glory days first as a fan and then player.

‘‘When I was growing up as a young lad,’’ he recalled, ‘‘I saw the likes of Liam Tuohy, the late Paddy Ambrose, and Ronnie Nolan, who played for Rovers and Ireland as well. So for me, as a young 18-year-old in 1963, to share a dressing room with these men was just magnificent.

‘‘And then the likes of Johnny Fullam and Frank O’ Neill came on stream so you just couldn’t go wrong. Men of immense character and wonderful soccer players as well.’’

Mulligan played in four of those finals — in 1965, ‘66, ‘67 and ‘69 — before leaving for Stamford Bridge.

‘‘The beauty of it is that we just loved playing football,’’ he smiled. ‘‘Maybe there wasn’t a lot else to do, but we loved it. It never even registered with me that we’d actually won six. It’s only on occasions like this that you realise what you did, that it’s never been done since and it might never be done again. You were just thrilled to be playing in those games as part of that magnificent team.’’

Mulligan’s big regret is that, having decamped to the States for a brief spell to try out professional football for the first time with the Boston Beacons, he missed out on the ‘68 final. That, arguably, was the most celebrated of the six, with Rovers beating the then league kingpins Waterford 3-0, with help from a brace by Mick Leech, the League of Ireland’s very own George Best and Jimmy Greaves rolled into one, and still instantly recognisable among the bald pates and widening girths at this week’s dinner thanks to his trademark dark black locks. Cork City manager Damien Richardson was another who played in that ‘68 classic and remembers well the dense mass of humanity in Dalymount Park.

Paddy Mulligan’s fondest memory of his Rovers years concerns one of the most memorable European nights in the history of League of Ireland football, even if it did end up in bitter disappointment for Hoops.

‘‘Bayern Munich in the Cup Winner’s Cup in ‘66,’’ he recalled, ‘‘a wonderful yet very down occasion as well. We had drawn with them 1-1 here and it was 2-2 in Munich with five minutes to go (meaning Rovers were leading on away goals). And then Gerd Muller, as only Gerd Muller could, came up and got the winner. Otherwise, we were through to a European Cup Winner’s Cup quarter-final and, for part-time players, that was magnificent when you think that Munich had the likes of Beckenbauer, Maier and Muller.’’

Mulligan has nothing but happy memories of his days with a team he says were close friends as well as team mates and who, to this day, share a special bond.

‘‘I was very fortunate to play in the era I played in. I would hate to be playing today, although I wouldn’t mind getting the money (laughs). But I think Roy Keane is quite right when he says that some players these days don’t love the game. And it’s sad. Just the other week we saw (Milan ‘keeper) Dida making a fool of himself at Celtic Park. In my day — and Ben Hannigan and myself were just chatting about this — when you got kicked you were afraid to stay on the ground because you didn’t want the opposition to know that you’d been hurt. Your pride wouldn’t let you stay on the ground. There was no cheating or diving. We were all honest, and maybe innocent. It was lovely.’’

The legendary Ben, still hirsute and craggy, put the same point in his own inimitable way, noting that Didier Drogba can collapse at the slightest contact from the opposition but is never bothered when he ends up under a pile of celebrating team mates after he’s bagged a goal.

There were speeches, presentations, lots of laughs and even a few tears in the eyes at the gathering on Monday and, to top it all, a film presentation of some grainy but wonderfully atmospheric black and white footage of the Rovers in their prime.

I think it might have been Bobby Gilbert who put it best: it was like poetry in motion.