Fighting Irish shoot for the stars

Euro 2016 Group D qualifier

TALKING football to the man on reception in our hotel in Essen — which is just down the road from Gelsenkirchen — we asked him to identify a local hero from these parts.

He didn’t hesitate, and he could hardly have come up with a more historic name — Helmut Rahn, the celebrated son of Essen who scored the winning goal for West Germany in the 1954 World Cup Final.