Karaoke, Keano going missing and how Mick Leech got Jose Mourinho's dad a cap: tales from Ireland's summer camps

The Republic of Ireland are currently in training camp in Girona, just the latest of many summer sojourns

xx Republic of Ireland US Tour 1996 Mick McCarthy during an Irish training session Pic. Billy Stickland / INPHO

Stephen Kenny may still be attempting to find some purpose, but the spotlight is fixed on the Covid-delayed Euro 2020.

His work has carried on, Ireland nearing the end of their training camp in Girona, with a clash against Euros-bound Hungary on Tuesday capping a trip which included a first win of his reign over Andorra.

Kenny’s predecessors have experienced the FAI's need to fill gaping holes in the summer schedule, and the association’s coffers. These are just some of the stories from summers in the shadows.

“This was Brazil in the 70s, it wasn’t like walking down Henry Street or Grafton Street in Dublin” 

Life is good for 23-year-old Mick Leech.

It’s the summer of 1972 and he has a steady job in the Guinness brewery. He also just so happens to be a tour de force up front for Shamrock Rovers.

He is engaged to be married to Irene in Drimnagh on July 1st with the honeymoon in a Romanian resort by the Black Sea. “It was still communist, but it was somewhere different,” Leech reasons.

He has a few quid in his pocket and picks up extra doing what he loves for Rovers. “I’ve always been a football fanatic,” he enthuses. “When I was 16 I got the boat to Liverpool for the 1966 World Cup and stayed with an uncle who lived there.

“Brazil, Bulgaria, Hungary, Portugal. We saw them all. To think of what came a few years later. Incredible.” 

It’s six weeks before he’s due to tie the knot and Leech gets the shock of his life. New Ireland manager Liam Tuohy informs him he has been included in the squad that has been invited to play in the Brazil Independence Cup.

Brazil are reigning world champions and Ireland are drawn alongside Eusebio’s Portugal, Iran, Ecuador and Chile.

18 November 1980; Mick Leech, Shamrock Rovers, Soccer.

Leech breaks the news to Irene.

“We agreed to postpone the wedding,” he laughs.

Ireland haven’t won a recognised international match for four years when they arrive in Recife, their base in the northeast of the country. They go one-nil down to Iran in the opener but pull one back when Leech equalises. 

“I picked the ball up in the midfield and played it to Noel Campbell,” he begins.

“He was a brilliant passer of the ball. I laid it to him, made a run behind, chipped it over the central defender, chested it down and lobbed it over the keeper’s head. It was ecstasy for me.” 

It also turns out his second goal in the competition, in a 2-1 defeat to Portugal, has a lasting legacy.

“I was in a bar in a place called Tavira and we got talking about that game. The next time I was over the owner had all the papers out and showed me that Jose Mourinho’s father got his only international cap for Portugal in that match.

“I joke that if I ever met Mourinho I’d have to tell him he owes me because I scored against the other keeper just before half-time to make it 2-1 and they took him off at half-time. I helped get his Dad get that cap!” 

The memories are vivid. “Walk down any city in the world now and it’s all the same. This was Brazil in the 70s, it wasn’t like walking down Henry Street or Grafton Street in Dublin.” 

Leech was back home walking the same streets after Ireland failed to reach the knockout stages, missing out on a possible meeting with Brazil in the Maracanã.

“That was the dream. We would have had to postpone the wedding again for that.”

“Mick McCarthy told me he missed his brother’s wedding for this and it cost him all sorts of grief.” 

Eoin Hand keeps handwritten notes of every game he oversaw for the Republic of Ireland.

But even now, almost four decades after Jack Charlton replaced him as boss in 1986, he prefers not to divulge too much information about his own scribblings for those six years in charge.

“There are some criticisms of players during games there that are private,” he explains. “It’s funny, one well-known international who I left out, his mother came to attack me in Dublin, ‘how dare you leave my son out!’ I said ‘excuse me, this is the international team, I have valid reasons’.” 

It’s May 23, 1984, and the front pages of the country’s newspapers are captivated by American President Ronald Reagan’s impending visit to Ireland. There is also a letter from Jermiah O’Dowd to his local paper, The Tipperary Star, that has been picked up by the national press.

The fanfare surrounding Reagan’s arrival in Tipperary has piqued O’Dowd’s anger, in particular the refusal of Thurles councillors to honour his own son, who was raised in London after his father emigrated.

“Perhaps the town councillors were rather unwise to publicly deride a now famous son of Ireland,” it read. 

“Should my son ever visit Thurles it will only be to call in to the kinfolk and, perhaps, have a few old jars. Yours, Jermiah O’Dowd, the Boyo’s father.” 

The boyo in question was Boy George, but the only Culture Club that Hand has any interest in is his group of players about to face Poland in Lansdowne Road before heading for a 12-day tour of Japan in the Kirin Cup.

Republic of Ireland manager Eoin Hand celebrating in 1984  Picture: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

The tournament is sponsored by a beer company, but this is no jolly. Mick McCarthy, the 25-year-old Manchester City centre back, makes his debut in Dublin and will travel to the Far East.

“His brother was getting married so I said to him ‘you hardly fancy the trip?’ He said straight away, ‘no, Jesus, I’m coming, I’m coming’. He told me it’s caused all sorts of grief but he wouldn’t miss it,” Hand recalls.

Packie Bonner turns 24 prior to setting off, while the experienced David O’Leary has debutant Jim Beglin to mentor.

They play out draws with Japan University XI and Brazilian club champions Internacional, before beating China 1-0 in Sapporo and losing in the final to the Brazilians.

Considering the farce of the infamous South American tour during the Falklands War a couple years previously, this one has served a purpose, kickstarting the international career of McCarthy and giving Bonner further experience. There was also another discovery.

“Karaoke,” Hand chuckles. “It was like nothing we had seen before. I probably sang some Gene Pitney. Usually we would have the Dublin City Ramblers, Finbar Fury, the Wolfe Tones or Luke Kelly come to our hotel in Dublin for a sing song. It helped create a spirit where we were all together and it was the same in Japan.”

Just a shame there was no Boy George.

“Roy Keane could be in outer space for all I know.” 

Jack Charlton is gone. Confirmation comes four days before Christmas 1995 following the Euro 96 play-off defeat to the Netherlands.

His successor, the man dubbed Captain Fantastic during his reign, is Mick McCarthy. The honeymoon lasts 34 minutes into his first game against Russia at Lansdowne in March. The visitors ease to a 2-0 win on Shay Given’s debut. A late red card for Roy Keane seals a miserable beginning.

The summer of ’96 arrives, and a chance for just shy of a month to work with his players.

The European Championships in England is on the horizon, although judging by one story in these pages it seems as if Ireland are lucky to miss out.

“It’s the thug cup,” a blurb reads. “A fixture list of international thug battles is being arranged by hooligan ‘generals’.

Portugal and Croatia come to Dublin to prepare, while a trip to Rotterdam to face the Dutch is the final leg of things on this side of the Atlantic.

It’s on to Boston and New Jersey for the US Cup as a new crop get a chance to earn their stripes – Gary Breen, Ian Harte, Gareth Farrelly, David Savage, Keith O’Neill and David Connolly.

Before all this there is McCarthy’s testimonial, an Ireland XI taking on a Celtic XI in front of 40,000 at Lansdowne. Everything is sweetness and light until the next day’s headlines.

“Keane could be in outer space,” rages angry Mick.

Roy hasn’t turned up. He says he phoned Mick to explain he’s on holiday in Italy after a Double-winning season at Manchester United. Mick is playing golf and misses the call. A message is left with the FAI.

Cue a week of back and forth. Keane releases a statement insisting he will be back for the World Cup qualifiers in August.

“Who is the manager? Who is entitled to a request? It’s the manager,” McCarthy blasts.

Keane stays away. Tensions rise. When will they surface next?

Ireland suffer defeats to Portugal and Holland with a creditable draw against Croatia. A winless run stretching to seven games (including Charlton’s last two) with a raft of new players, fading experience and a new style of play. Sound familiar?

“I wanted to really make my mark and show what I was about,” Alan Moore, Middlesbrough’s 21-year-old winger/centre midfielder, remembers. “I wanted to show I was a personality they would want around.

“I was ready to work my nuts off, not treat it as a p*** up. And when we did get out in Boston to the bar from ‘Cheers’, it wasn’t even a real one. It just sold souvenirs!” 

A 2-1 loss to the hosts is followed by a 2-2 draw with Mexico before a 3-0 victory over Bolivia prior to departure. Moore starts in central midfield – a benefit of the absent skipper.

“I was looking at the bigger picture of wanting to be involved for the World Cup qualifiers.” 

A record 5-0 win away to Lichenstein follows in August. Keane is missing again and Moore comes off the bench as a reward for his summer’s work.

Lessons to be learned within the shadows of the past.