Stewing at home, precious memories of Euro 88 in Germany all the more vivid

Five games in four cities in seven days. Ireland nailing their lines and your Panini sticker album made flesh. Euro 88 was beyond a dream for this 12-year-old.

ON THE ROAD: Republic of Ireland supporters during the UEFA 1988 European Football Championship Finals Group B match between England and Republic of Ireland at Neckarstadion in Stuttgart, Germany. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile

When it was all done, when Wim Kieft had spun the most unlikely of headers into the hard Gelsenkirchen turf, around Packie Bonner and into the Irish net, George Hamilton sat down with Jack Charlton in the studios of Germany’s ZDF TV station and tried to sum the whole mad enterprise up with one snappy intro.

Only a week had passed since Ray Houghton had put the ball in the English net in the Neckarstadion five hours down the road but, for those of us blessed to have been on the road in Germany that summer of 1988, a lifetime of memories had been crammed into our bags and stuffed in every nook and cranny of our minds.

ENGLISH NET: Republic of Ireland Manager Jack Charlton, right, and Assistant Manager Maurice Setters celebrate the win over England. Picture credit: Ray McManus / SPORTSFILE

“Well, sadly the dream has ended,” began RTÉ’s man. “It may have been an impossible dream but it was worth dreaming while it continued…” 

It was at this point that Charlton, who had until then been sitting with his legs crossed, puffing on a cigar and looking off distractedly into the distance, sprung to animated life.

“What do you mean ‘impossible dream’? Of course it was possible. Ten minutes from the end and you are through to the next round of the competition. Of course it is possible. We never come as close. We had them frightened to death. They didn’t know what they were doing at that stage of the game. I thought ‘we’ve got ‘em now’…” 

Charlton professed himself “amazed” when the Netherlands scored. It didn’t feel like some bolt from the blue to those of us in one of the two isolated pockets of Irish fans hemmed in by huge swathes of brilliant orange next to the Dutch border. That sense of siege – cordial as it was between the two sets of supporters - had been mirrored on the pitch.

There was a theory aired at the time that Ireland’s exit, agonising as it was, might have been for the best given the players had run their feet to stumps by putting opponents under so much pressure in the height of a German summer. That maybe a semi-final against the hosts in Hamburg just three days later might have been a step too far.

No-one on the ground saw it that way.

If everyone remembers the historic snapshots – the goals from Houghton and Ronnie Whelan, that Kieft killer - then there were millions of more personal images taken and stored for posterity at the time. And they seem all the more vivid and vital now 36 years later as Scotland face Germany in Friday’s Euro 2024 opener while we sit and stew at home.

Dancing with the Danes in a town square. Losing the keys to the Nissan Bluebird in Cologne. Buying a cuckoo clock in Munich that adorned a wall at home years after the damn bird quit its post. Almost taking the brother’s eye out with an Irish flag just as Whelan met Mick McCarthy’s throw-in in Hanover.

He still curses me for that one, actually.

Four of us left Portlaoise that summer. My dad Seamus, my brother Paul, myself and dad’s friend Noel Scully. Kevin, the oldest brother, had to stay at home to repeat the Leaving Cert. Grim. Mam’s interest in football went as far as a leftfield but ambivalent support for Southampton. That was never going to stretch to ten days on the road across the continent.

Johnny, Paul and Brendan O'Brien and Noel Scully in Munich during Euro '88

We made land off the ferry in France, somehow ended up under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower having tried to bypass Paris, spent a night drawing breath in Strasbourg, and eventually found our way to base in Nuremberg where our cousin Johnny O’Brien, who had forgotten we were coming, was working in an Irish bar.

We lived off McDonald’s and Churrasco’s steakhouses, found hotels as we went – more than one in the dead of night - and we saw five games in four cities in just seven days. Of the eight teams involved the only one to escape our net were the hosts. It was beyond the wildest dreams for a 12-year-old already thrilled at missing the last weeks of primary school.

Seeing Ireland nail their lines on that elevated stage was one thing. Seeing the greats from your Panini sticker album made flesh was better again. Bryan Robson and Gary Lineker. Igor Belanov. The Dutch trio of van Basten, Gullit and Rikjaard. The sublime Baresi and Maldini. Emile Butragueno. Michael Laudrup and Morten Olsen.

Germany made for the ideal canvas. An average of over 56,000 people saw every game, still a record for the European Championships, and the standard was off the charts. France, reigning champions and World Cup semi-finalists two years earlier, didn’t make it. Neither did Belgium who had made the same last four in Mexico. Or Portugal, Euro semi-finalists in 1984.

Even the kits were top of the range.

English fans travelled in their thousands in an era when their clubs were still barred from Europe but we saw no trouble. We did tense up when two of them approached us with intent the night after the last group games, until they held out their hands and apologised for not doing Ireland a favour against the USSR in Frankfurt.

Every now and then down the decades since dad would drop the tournament into a conversation, almost always with a wonderment in his voice and in his eyes at what we got to be a part of, and at the fact that five, ten, 17 or 30 years had somehow come and gone.

DOWN THE RIGHT: Netherland’s Ruud Gullit takes on Chris Hughton of Ireland at Euro 88. Pic: ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

Italia ’90 has taken on the lead role in the movie script that is the Charlton era, but that summer in Germany remains the true heart of the production. So many who travelled had absorbed days when Ireland fell short. In dad’s case, that was as far back as 1957 when England’s John Atyeo broke Irish hearts in Dalymount Park.

Noel had travelled to the World Cup in Spain in 1982 and wondered would he ever see a Republic of Ireland side do what the North managed that famous night in Valencia. Even us kids had seen too much. Days, as in 1985 when Ireland beat Switzerland 3-0, when we could run rows the length of Lansdowne’s vast East Upper Stand without meeting another soul.

The next six years after Germany would provide an abundance of joys but the Republic of Ireland is now about to sit out a fourth straight major tournament for the second time since 1988. A fifth is likely come the 2026 World Cup. So, no, Kieft’s goal was no blessing in disguise. Take everything life offers as and when it comes.