Tarnish finally shows on the faux ‘Golden Generation’

MANAGER sacked at the end of a brutal campaign? Check. Critics charge that he was woefully inept and inexperienced and should never have been installed in the first place? Check. Players accused of being prima donnas who don’t perform like the national shirt means anything to them? Check. Outraged fans flood phonelines and websites to demand that blazers’ heads roll too? Check. Roy Keane puts the boot in? Check.

Haven’t missed anything there, have I? Apart, obviously, from the small matter of the name Steve and, while we’re in the realms of eerie déjà vu, the fact that the eponymous international gaffers finally met their doom at the hands of a country whose name begins with the letter ‘c’.

The moral of the story is obvious. The footballing destinies of Ireland and England are now so intertwined and even interchangeable that, short of the much longed-for political union between our two great nations, it appears our best hope of qualifying for a major tournament is if we agree to mount a joint bid to host one, either in 2028 or when a rail link to Dublin Airport is finally opened, whichever comes first.