Houghton grateful to LA for Keane’s release

Ray Houghton has welcomed the decision of LA Galaxy to allow Ireland’s record goalscorer Robbie Keane to join up with the national squad in time for the prestige friendly against England at Wembley next Wednesday.

“When your clock is ticking down, domestically and internationally, you want to play as many games as you can and that’ll be the case for Robbie,” said Irish legend Houghton.

“His record is phenomenal, remarkable. Playing at Wembley, against England, it’ll be another tick in the box and it’s great the club have given him the opportunity to do that.”

Houghton, the man who scored that famous goal to beat England at Euro 88, says playing against ‘the old enemy’ still means a lot

“It does, to be honest, there’s a great rivalry there. The Irish lads will know a lot of the English lads, they’ll have played against most of them. Then, of course, it’s in the new Wembley and there’s always a mystique about that place, right back to my day, or earlier, when the FA Cup finals were there, so I’m really looking forward to it.”

Houghton was absent on the last occasion the two countries met, the friendly at Landsdowne Road in 1995 which had to be abandoned after a riot by visiting supporters.

“I was ill, so I was watching it at home,” he recalled. “David Kelly scored so we had a great start and it was a real shame it was abandoned, because we’d been in good form, the lads were flying. This game is too long in coming now really, looking back at that game. It looked like it might happen a few times, but when it appeared we were going to have a match it was called off for one reason or another. Now is a good opportunity though, it’s a big game for the lads, and it’s great preparation for the qualifier. Really, this is all about the build up to the Faroes game.”

Houghton, who is the FAI Junior Cup final ambassador, was in Dublin yesterday to hand-deliver tickets to the finalists’ two most deserving supporters, Liam Doyle from Kilbarrack United and Harry Whelan from Sheriff YC. The final takes place for the first time this year at the Aviva Stadium and will kick off at 1.30pm on Sunday, June 2, ahead of Ireland’s senior international friendly against Georgia at 5.30pm. Tickets for the double-header are priced at €20 for adults and €10 for children and can be purchased from Ticketmaster.ie.