{"id":347001,"date":"2025-12-14T07:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T07:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347001\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T07:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T07:09:11","slug":"what-is-jack-charltons-legacy-in-irish-football-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347001\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Jack Charlton\u2019s legacy in Irish football? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It ended in a strange kind of euphoria. Ireland<\/a> had been gutted and filleted 2-0 by the Netherlands in a Euro 96 play-off at Anfield and at the final whistle thousands of Irish supporters stayed behind for a joyous wake. And because the crowds wouldn\u2019t leave, Jack Charlton<\/a> set off on a sheepish lap of honour, holding a Dutch flag and an Irish scarf in one hand, and nursing a lit cigar in the other. <\/p>\n

The Irish fans on the Kop belted out You\u2019ll Never Walk Alone, in harmony not just with the place but with the sentimentality of parting. Charlton held on for a week and tried to postpone a decision on his future as Ireland manager until the New Year, but he had lost control of that process. <\/p>\n

Over the previous 12 months, results had gone the way of every stock market bubble: held to a scoreless draw by Liechtenstein, beaten home and away by Austria, thrashed by Portugal in Lisbon. Drinking stories had leaked out, team discipline had cracked, the magic carpet was grounded. <\/p>\n

In his autobiography Alan McLoughlin tells a story of a trippy video analysis session in the build-up to the Holland game. \u201cAs the camera scanned across the two teams standing for the anthems it showed 11 anonymous faces in orange shirts surrounded by an empty stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI squinted at the Dutch team on screen, unable to make out Kluivert, Bergkamp or any of their other stars. After five minutes it became abundantly clear to everyone that this was a video of the Dutch under-21 team. Everyone, that is, apart from Jack and Maurice [Setters, Charlton\u2019s assistant].\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland started that game with two full backs in midfield and finished it with seven defenders on the pitch. Searching for a goal in the closing minutes, John Aldridge was replaced by Alan Kernaghan, a centre-half. The cupboard was bare. <\/p>\n

It is 30 years since that match: December 13th, 1995. Everybody knew where we had been and, just like with the Celtic Tiger, nobody thought we\u2019d ever see a poor day again. But if this was such a transformative period in Irish football, what is its legacy now? Or was it just something of itself? <\/p>\n

\"NetherlandsNetherlands manager Gus Hiddink in front of Jack Charlton the manager of the Republic of Ireland at Anfield in December 1995. Photograph: CliveBrunskill\/Allsport <\/p>\n

Some of the stuff that changed first and most dramatically had a flighty quality. In the lead-up to Euro 88 Ireland played three home friendly matches against Romania, Yugoslavia and Poland, attracting pitiful crowds of 15,000, 12,000 and 18,500. Many of the people who would later swear a blood oath to the Boys in Green were nowhere to be seen. <\/p>\n

After the tournament, though, packed houses became the norm. A whole subculture developed around the team. There was a commercial scene, a pub scene, a celebrity scene, a media scene, a bandwagon scene. Even people who weren\u2019t emotionally invested in Irish soccer or particularly interested were caught being curious. Some of that was wholesome, a lot of it was disposable, elements of it have survived.<\/p>\n

I remember Packie Bonner coming to New Ross after Italia 90 .. He arrived by helicopter … It was like U2 had come to town<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Kevin Doyle<\/p>\n

Looking back from this remove, the greatest dividend of the Charlton years was propagation of the faith. Driving through villages in the 1980s you didn\u2019t expect to see a soccer pitch, but it would be astonishing if you didn\u2019t see one now. The game spread like clover. <\/p>\n

For generations soccer had been concentrated in cities and towns, but during the Charlton years and afterwards it blossomed in places where the GAA had an uncontested lead. When Sean O\u2019Keeffe first took on a role with the Kerry District League in 1989 it was home to no more than 20 clubs; in the years since, those numbers have doubled. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard to get soccer established,\u201d says O\u2019Keeffe, \u201cbut out in the country fellas decided they wanted to play soccer because they were watching the Charlton era. We had no facilities. Fellas rented a pitch off a farmer, stuck up some nets and off they went.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ireland'sIreland’s Andy Townsend and Gary Kelly tackle Glen Helder of the Netherlands at Anfield in 1995. Photograph: James Meehan\/Inpho <\/p>\n

But none of that nationwide expansion was systematic. The chemical reaction between the team and the greater public didn\u2019t escape from a FAI<\/a> laboratory. It happened around them and in front of them and maybe in spite of them. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an organic growth,\u201d says Brendan Menton, former general secretary and treasurer of the FAI. \u201cI don\u2019t think the FAI had that much to do with it. I don\u2019t think it was an overriding strategy. It was spontaneous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noel Kennedy was secretary of the Connacht Football Association for 23 years and is still secretary of the Sligo-Leitrim league. In various capacities, he held a formal role in FAI affairs for more than 40 years. His memory of that time is clear and blunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the powers-that-be ever really harvested it [the sudden spike in interest],\u201d says Kennedy. \u201cWhat you have to look at there is the calibre of individuals involved. Hindsight is an exact science, but they were thrown into a world they weren\u2019t accustomed to. <\/p>\n

\u201cNothing really came down from the FAI to the grassroots. An awful lot came up from the grassroots. There was a seed planted by Jack and the players and it grew \u2013 but it wasn\u2019t any magical stroke that the FAI did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PatrickPatrick Kluivert skips past Phil Babb for the Netherlands against Ireland in December 1995. Photograph: Billy Stickland\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Many of the FAI\u2019s records from that period were lost in a fire in their former offices in Merrion Square years ago but Menton\u2019s recollection is that playing numbers virtually trebled between 1988 and the end of Charlton\u2019s reign \u2013 from \u201c80-90,000 to a quarter of a million,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A generation of young people were swept up on that tide. Kevin Doyle, the former Irish international, was only five years of age when Euro 88 exploded on these shores, but the impression it made on him was immediate and lasting. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have vivid memories of being out in the lawn trying to recreate Ronnie Whelan\u2019s volley against the USSR,\u201d says Doyle. \u201cI used to be Niall Quinn, I used to be Packie Bonner. I have massive memories of Italia 90 and USA 94 \u2013 trying to do Ray Houghton\u2019s goal [against Italy]. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be fairly confident I wouldn\u2019t have been a professional footballer only for Ireland\u2019s success then. My mother is from a hurling family \u2013 she played camogie for Wexford. My father would have played underage hurling for Wexford. I had no reason to be into soccer only for the Irish national team doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though Wexford was a GAA stronghold there was a good network of schoolboy soccer teams across the county ever before the Charlton years. In Adamstown, where Doyle was from, there was a club on his doorstep. <\/p>\n

\u201cA few things like that aligned for me. All I cared about as a kid was the Irish national team and their games. I have pictures of me in a Dunnes Stores Italia 90 jersey. Every kid where I was from was the same.<\/p>\n

\"RepublicRepublic of Ireland fans, who didn’t appear to be so numerous before Jack Charlton started delivering success. Photograph: Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember Packie Bonner coming to New Ross after Italia 90 \u2013 he was doing a thing for Renault. He arrived by helicopter. My mother brought me and my brother in. It was like U2 had come to town. Thousands of people queued up. I got nowhere near him. That was the sort of hysteria and excitement around the players on the Ireland team.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there was no big-picture thinking. There was no scheme in which the bounty from those years could be invested as a nest egg for the future. <\/p>\n

\u201cJack had no interest in football in Ireland,\u201d says Brian Kerr<\/a>, who managed teams at every level of the game. \u201cHe had no interest in underage development. He had no interest in the League of Ireland. He understood that he contributed to the development of the game because of the success.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe route to that success was making the best of the players who were available and the players that were eligible. He had no interest in developing coaching structures. He did one thing for the managers in the League of Ireland at that time in relation to coaching. In my view it was fairly shambolic. There was nothing in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Kerr, Liam Tuohy had been the most successful manager of Irish underage teams. Under his guidance in the early 1980s Ireland had qualified for three successive European Youth Championship finals and a World Youth Championships. Charlton, though, was barely in the door when Tuohy felt undermined by him and resigned. Setters was appointed in his place. <\/p>\n

\"BrianBrian Kerr with Damien Duff in 2003. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons I went into managing [Irish] youth teams was because of the shambles it had become during Jack\u2019s time where himself and Setters had no interest in it,\u201d says Kerr. \u201cThey were taking heavy defeats. They were picking the wrong players. They never looked like qualifying for tournaments and I remember the frustration I felt about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack\u2019s legacy was that there were more people interested in the game and the idea that we could be successful. Outside of that I don\u2019t think there was any great legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jack Charlton obituary: One of Ireland\u2019s greatest adopted sonsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Within weeks of Charlton stepping down, the first serious questions were raised about what the FAI had done with the money from the boom years. An investigation by Veronica Guerin in the Sunday Independent revealed dealings with a ticket tout who had stiffed the FAI for a quarter of million euro at USA 94. At a meeting of the FAI council in March 1996 heads rolled in a public bloodletting.<\/p>\n

According to Paul Rowan and Mark Tighe in Champagne Football, their seminal book<\/a> on the FAI, the association \u201cmade a loss\u201d from the two World Cups that Ireland had reached under Charlton. At that time, the FAI\u2019s accounts were still kept \u201cin an old fashioned ledger\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople forget that not long before Jack took over the FAI were famously close to getting a loan from the junior part of the game to try to keep afloat,\u201d says Brendan Dillon, who was a member of the FAI board when Ireland qualified for the 2002 World Cup. \u201cThat\u2019s how impoverished the FAI were.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Capturing Irish hearts and falling asleep in the Vatican: Jack Charlton in his own wordsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Somehow, the Charlton years didn\u2019t change that either. <\/p>\n

What were we left with? A soccer pitch in every village in Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It ended in a strange kind of euphoria. Ireland had been gutted and filleted 2-0 by the Netherlands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,191722,596,93344,26434,191721,90969,85],"class_list":["post-347001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brian-kerr","tag-football","tag-football-association-of-ireland-fai","tag-gaa","tag-jack-charlton","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}