The dawn of a new Ireland?

IS it time to talk about a new bail-out for Ireland? I refer to the man, not the country, sorting out the former being by far the more taxing challenge.

I mean, if Stephen Ireland can get his career back on track, lifting the burden off the nation’s broken back should be a cakewalk by comparison.

At least the pre-season noises out of Villa Park are encouraging. Darren Bent says Ireland is like “a new signing” and manager Alex McLeish has gone out of his way to talk up the player. “There are people like Stephen Ireland who for one reason or another never really figured last season so I’ve been trying to find out the reasons why,” he said this week. “I’ve seen terrific application on the training ground and really good quality from guys like Stephen Warnock and Stephen Ireland, for instance, who never really made as much of a contribution as you would expect. Ireland hardly kicked a ball last season, but two years ago he looked like a world-class player. That’s in him, the evidence is there. We’ve just got to bring that back out of him.”

And the optimism seems to be contagious — one Villa fan was asking on a website yesterday if the team, now shorn of Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, could even be built around Stephen Ireland this season.

Of course, when it’s Stephen Ireland you’re writing about, there’s always the fear that, even before your words are dry on the page, news will have emerged of some fresh madness swirling about his person.

One thing’s for sure though, things can hardly be any more wretched for him this season than they were last time around when, having failed to impress Gerard Houllier at Villa, he was shipped out on loan to Newcastle where injury restricted him to no more than a couple of cameo appearances in the north-east.

Indeed, it seems a very long time since Stephen Ireland – who, lest we forget, is still a month shy of his only his 25th birthday — was making headlines for what he can do on the pitch, his profile as a footballer of huge potential almost wholly eclipsed by a tidal wave of guff about tattoos, hair transplants, fish tanks, personalised pool tables, pink cars and whatever you’re having yourself.

And that’s before we even dip a toe into the murky waters of his vexed relationship with his country and the national team.

As I say, it seems a lifetime ago but, in fact, it is just a little over two years since I was able to write the following with an entirely straight face in these very pages: “Right now, Stephen Ireland is by some distance the most outstanding Irish footballer on the planet. And, at his current rate of progress, he might be one of the best, period, by the time the World Cup finals hove into view next summer. A nominee for the Young Player of the Year award in England this year, who would bet against him being a contender, potentially even a winner, in the senior category in 12 months’ time? And should Ireland (the team) be packing their bags for South Africa at that point, rest assured that there will be calls for Ireland (the player) to be parachuted in, even at the 11th hour.”

Ah well, blame Thierry Henry for spoiling that last bit but, if the rest of my cast-iron prediction was about as wide of the mark as all the others with which I have entertained you over the years — Liverpool to win the Premier League the season before last was a particularly good one, alright — I can only say in my defence that I was in good company back then.

For example, recall that about the same time, one Roy Keane was advising Giovanni Trapattoni to sleep outside Ireland’s house if that’s what it was going to take to entice the then Man City star back into the Irish fold.

And only this week, the latest manager to try to get to grips with Ireland was looking back in wonder and puzzling over where it had all gone wrong.

“Two seasons ago Ireland looked like a world star of the future,” said McLeish, “so we’ve got to try and get that talent back again and the signs in training have been very encouraging.”

Well, that’s nice to hear, but whether any of this has any significance for Irish football remains a moot point.

The last time the prodigal son addressed the question, back in March, he only ended up locked in an absurd war of words with himself. One day he was being quoted in a French magazine as roundly dissing Giovanni Trapattoni, the Irish team and even Cork, and the very next day he was on Irish radio complaining that he’d been misquoted, declaring an undying passion for Leeside and insisting: “The way I feel now, I feel like I’d love to go back to Ireland and play and show people that interview was a complete stitch-up. I really enjoyed my time when I was there.”

Will the real Stephen Ireland ever stand up? By now, I suspect that most Irish fans are simply too weary of him to care, and with every good reason too, but even if it’s the case that he never again dons the green shirt, that instinct in every football lover which can’t help but respond to the sight of outstanding talent flourishing on the pitch, will hope that the latest rumours of his resurrection are based on something rather more substantial than wishful thinking.

The dawn of a new Ireland? It’s an exciting thought but hard-won experience suggests that it might be wise not to sit up all night in eager anticipation.

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