Bill: I never liked Big Jack

Veteran presenter Bill O’Herlihy has confessed that he never liked former Republic of Ireland manager Jack Charlton.

Bill made the comments speaking to TV3's ‘Late Lunch Live’ about his career and subsequent retirement.

"I didn’t like Jack (Charlton)," he told Jim McCabe and Sheana Keane.

"Jack would have had no time for a fella like me because I didn’t play soccer at the level that he’d be bothered with.

"And I also had the view - this is a very personal view - that if you didn’t work for BBC or ITV or Sky, you wouldn’t quote.

"I remember many, many times Ger Canning got some very, very tough interviews on the side, after matches, when he talked to Jack and Jack would be anything but polite.

"He’d be at the very edge of rudeness. And I remember he (Ger Canning) came a few times to us and said: ‘Ah, Jack’s been at the charm school again, we can see’."

Bill said that his incident with Jack Charlton happened during a Christmas interview.

"After the World Cup I had to do one more interview with him, for Christmas," he said.

"I was about 15 minutes into it and I asked him a question, he answered, and I asked him a follow-up question when he said: ‘Stop the interview!’.

"I asked what was wrong.

"‘Do you know what you’re trying to do?’ - he said to me - ‘You’re trying to get me in trouble with the English media and the English people’.

"I said that I was simply asking a natural, logical follow-up to a question.

"Then he said: ‘You know what? You have two options now: you can stop and start again or I’m leaving’.

"The producer took the view that he had one hour to fill, so we started again," said Bill.

He joked: "But Jack was nice as pie. He got his own way…"