From a Jack to a king

Twenty-five years ago today at Italia ‘90, Brazil were beating Scotland 1-0 and Costa Rica were beating Sweden 2-1 but, putting the kibosh on what was the most keenly anticipated contest of the day back in Ireland, Jack Charlton was simply refusing to even take the pitch against Eamon Dunphy.

The country’s best known sports writer and television football analyst had, almost overnight, become Public Enemy No 1 after slamming Ireland’s dismal performance in the scoreless draw with Egypt live on RTÉ, his new-found notoriety in large part founded on the entirely erroneous yet stubbornly widespread belief that he’d declared himself ashamed to be Irish. (When what he’d actually said was: “Anyone sending a team out to play that way should be ashamed of themselves.”).