Give us this day our Daly bread

THEY say that life doesn’t owe you a living but I still maintain that Irish football owes me 50p.

The debt was incurred on the occasion of Ireland’s celebrated 3-0 win over the Soviet Union at Dalymount Park, a game remembered for Don Givens’ hat-trick, Liam Brady’s debut and the rare sight of an Irish team administering a footballing lesson to the kind of East European heavyweights who, in 1974, were invariably described in back page parlance as “crack”. But, on a profoundly personal and, yes, bitter note, I also remember it as the day I was left penniless.

The catastrophe happened on the way into the ground, when myself and a schoolmate found ourselves trapped in a slow moving mass of humanity, as it seemed as if the whole of Ireland tried to access Dalyer at the same time. I had 50p pocket money stashed away securely in a trouser pocket. Or so I thought.

But suddenly, as we shuffled along, I became aware of a peculiar sensation of cold in the general groin area which then began to slowly descend the inside of my leg. Too late was a dastardly hole in my pocket revealed, as all the money I had in the world responded inexorably to the force of gravity.

The coin finally slipped out the bottom of my trouser leg and came to rest on the ground. By tilting my head I could actually see its silver countenance winking up at me mockingly from the grime. But could I bend down to pick it up? Not a chance. The press of bodies from all sides was too great, the forward motion irresistible.

And, so I had to leave it there — so near and yet so far — to be trampled on by many more shuffling feet, until perhaps someone at the very back of the throng got lucky.

Whether they actually got in to see the match, though, is doubtful. Dalymount was sardine-packed by kick off and, while I’d like to pretend that I retain photographic recall of every aspect of the game, the truth is that, even standing on the tips of my toes, I struggled to see most of the action through a thick forest of heads. And, as it turned out, I wasn’t the only one stymied by congestion that day. Three years ago, on the 30th anniversary of that famous victory, Don Givens told me about the game’s bizarre postscript.

In a rush to get back to their hotel and then on to Dublin airport for a flight to London, Givens and substitute Eoin Hand had to abandon the team bus when it got stuck in gridlocked traffic outside the ground. With no taxis to be had, the pair were forced to thumb a lift into town. Eventually, a car pulled up for the hitchhikers, the driver opening the door with the immortal words: “Were yiz at the match, lads?” With barely enough time to pick up their luggage at the hotel, the boys tore out to the airport and made their flight with only minutes to spare.

Not surprisingly, that famous occasion was revisited in the course of ‘Liam Brady’s Dalymount Days’, a fascinating nostalgia fest and poignant tribute to the grand old ground, which was broadcast on RTE 2 last night. For those who weren’t there — and, as already explained, even for some of us who were — here was full colour confirmation of the glory that was Ireland’s thrilling demolition of the USSR, from the long-haired Brady’s nerveless demonstration of skill on his debut to the rapturous scenes which greeted each of Givens’ goals.

Nine years earlier, the pictures were in black and white and the wordsmith was Philip Greene, as Spanish ‘keeper Iribar, seemingly frightened out of his skin by the mere proximity of Noel Cantwell, flapped a Frank O’ Neill free into the roof of his own net. As the humiliated ‘keeper fell to the turf, a gleeful Philip roared into the Phibsborough night: “Look at him! Look at him in anguish!”

But go back another eight years, and it was the turn of the voice of Irish soccer to sound anguished, as he talked his audience through perhaps the greatest act of party-pooping in the country’s football history. The occasion was the 1957 World Cup qualifier against England and, with Ireland one-up and the game in time added on, the atmosphere in Dalyer wassensational.

Then the legendary Tom Finney got to the by-line and whipped in a cross which John Atyeo headed to the net. And it’s true what they always said: so sudden and total was the silence that it could be heard at Nelson’s Pillar. And the very last human sound you hear is a disconsolate, disbelieving Philip Green, half-muttering to himself: “over time, over time’’, like a dark echo of Conrad’s “the horror, the horror”.

Liam Brady may have fronted last night’s programme but huge respect goes out to producer/director Sean Casey and his team for unearthing so many rare Dalymount gems, including footage of the Irish Free State v Celtic in 1923, Bohs versus a combined Peru/Chile selection (!) in 1933, and the eerie spectacle of the visiting German team giving the Nazi salute three years later. Plenty of rich anecdote and action from the 40s and 50s came next and then it was on to the more recognisably modern game and the appearances in Phibsborough of such superstars of the age as Pele, Zidane and Gullit.

Wonderful, wonderful stuff, and all the more precious to have on tape because, of course, Dalymount Park has now been sold to the property developers. As someone who, before I was even old enough to go to matches, would almost swoon at the sight of those big lights looming over Phibsborough, I share the sadness of those who mourn its passing, even as I recognise that, as a home for football in the new millennium, Dalymount had long since passed its sell-by date.

But, as Liam Brady’s history lesson reminded us, what a legacy of memories it has left. Not bad for a venue which began life as the fragrantly named Pisser Dignan’s field and went on to become the high altar of Irish football, the place where generations of the faithful came to worship, fingering their scarves and intoning as one: “Give us this day our Daly bread — and forgive us our bad passes...”