Re: Mick MCarthy
Draken said:
old big head did'nt rate him ,How wrong he was :-)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMP3zVs_MI4[/youtube]
Big Mick had Robson and Lineker in his pocket that day,theres only one captain fantastic
Nah, not having that. That day remains one of my happiest football memories. We thoroughly deserved to win and, more pointedly, England thoroughly deserved to lose. I know he has his troubles now, God bless him, but Sansom doing Frank Spencer impressions on live tv, on the bus to the game, summed up England's attitude, that day.
It didn't seem to occur to them that they were playing v the core of a great Liverpool team (Lawrenson, Whelan, Houghton, Aldridge) plus McGrath, Irwin and Quinn.
Man of the match was Packie Bonner - and rightly so.
Sadly, Ireland's quality didn't impress itself on Big Jack either.
He had Ireland play a high line to stifle the English midfield, especially fearful of the threat of Beardsley and Trevor Steven(s), as well as Robson who could always burst through with a goal.
Linekar got in behind the high Irish defence enough times to win the game. Usually, when Celtic's Chris Morris had been drawn out of position but, at least twice Big Mick was caught out by his pace. Certainly, enough times that you couldn't argue that anybody had him in his pocket. To give Charlton credit though, he had foreseen this and had Bonner training in a sweeper role, all week. It was unorthodox but it clearly worked. Bonner cleaned up and when he didn't, he saved magnificently. In fact, Ireland shoulda won by more with Whelan hitting the bar & Quinn missing a sitter.
The English media later spun some story about Linekar having an illness that day. It may be true but it did come across the Irish Sea as so much sour grapes. They might have been better bottling that one up.
It was a coming of age for Irish football, that day. Nobody has ever underestimated Ireland since. We went on to the 1990 World Cup and were drawn in an almost identical group.
The Dutch had been raving about some guy called Van Basten. Waxing lyrical about his pace, his agility, his turn, his goals etc etc... Somebody read their quotes to McCarthy. He drawled:
"Can he do all that with a limp, an' all?"
