Dunphy on Busby, Media, Fai, Staunton

Busby, backhanders, brio and barbs

Interview/Eamon Dunphy: Michael Walker talks to Eamon Dunphy, and finds him, well, not as he - and, perhaps, you - expected

There were reasons to think otherwise - around the corner Bertie Ahern was squeaking his way through the Mahon mangle, while the Garda shot on North Strand was said to be stable. But up on St Stephen's Green, where the sun-dappled tranquillity was beguiling, it was possible to see why Dublin charms still. Even the resident dissident said so.

"I still love living here," said Eamon Dunphy. "I love the temper of the people, the calmness of an average day like this."

Taking a different stance is nothing new to Dunphy, some would argue, even himself sometimes, that it could be his job description. But it's not often that Dunphy would plump for the cosier aspect. Maybe sitting in a corner of the Shelbourne hotel contributed, Magda pouring tea for two, but Dunphy sounded sincere.

"I still love the people, the atmosphere, the ambience of Ireland. On the whole, the people are very nice, gentle, there is decency here that endures. There is some of the vulgarity, brashness and coarseness that the new wealth has inspired, that's there if you go to certain places and certainly people are consumed by materialism in a way that they weren't.

"Irish values have been infected by materialism, but that has to be put in some perspective - we had nothing for so long, now we're diving on it. But the vast majority of Irish people have a soul, the country has its own culture."

Measured and warm, this is a Dunphy many will not recognise. To a chunk of Ireland he is loud and bitter, a man revelling in controversy. This is Dunphy the soccer pundit, sitting in judgment alongside John Giles and Liam Brady and telling it like it is, or isn't - depending on your perspective.

But you do not require the insight of the Buddha to see a man can have more than one dimension, and Dunphy does. The reason for drinking tea together is to discuss A Strange Kind of Glory, the story of Matt Busby and Manchester United, a book Dunphy wrote 16 years ago, which has been reissued as the 50th anniversary of the Munich air crash approaches.

It is a fantastic piece of work, seminal, as they say; "the one thing I'm really proud of," according to the author.

You can understand why. This is some read as we are taken inside Old Trafford by someone who was there for five years from 1960. We are given the guts as well as glory.

In language Dunphy described as "deliberately understated", Busby is shown to be romantic, cruel, pure, corrupt, loyal, devious, a creator. The detail is striking, though Dunphy said: "I didn't want the book to end up being serialised in the News of the World. I didn't want the story to be obscured by anecdotes that were sensational.

"Busby was an awesome man. He was huge, very graceful, almost feline for a big man. Very clever. You'd never see him lose the head. He had a vision of what a football club should be, what values it should have, how the game should be played. It was uncompromising - you should attack, skill was everything."

Busby came from the mines of west Scotland to Manchester City as a player, then to Liverpool, and, as a manager, to United in 1945. He never did leave Old Trafford and, crucially, Busby allowed Dunphy back in. Dunphy's contention is that Busby is 20th century English football's true visionary and in a week of Champions League football, you can hear the argument.

"The other thing was Busby's vision of the English game and its place in the world. In the 1950s there was always this mystique about the Hungarians who came to Wembley and hammered England, and about Real Madrid.

"England didn't enter the World Cup for ages. The English game was insular, they felt there was nothing to prove to these continentals. Busby realised this would enrich English football and he was prepared to defy the Football League. Chelsea, who had won the league the previous year, had not been prepared to defy them and had given in. Busby did defy them - he was a serious rebel - and ultimately this, of course, leads to the Munich air crash.

"He was into floodlights and creating these great European nights, he was the visionary who saw this. No one else in England saw it. He opened up vistas. He put Duncan Edwards in the team when he was 16.

"The closest to him now is Wenger, as a purist. To be fair to Alex Ferguson, him as well, he has been faithful to the values of Manchester United when others might have been tempted otherwise, because this is the high-risk way to go. But there isn't anybody like Busby. He loved the game as a spectacle, he would not be interested in the functionality of a Mourinho."

A gentle Dunphy barb. The book has a few, there is a line about Maurice Setters, "lacking the coherence of real conviction".

It's quite a put-down, but then the professional dressingroom does not breed compassion. That is a theme.

"It's a bloody tough game," Dunphy said, "you couldn't survive without being tough. Busby was a miner during the General Strike, 1926. It was a hell on earth to be a miner, in the General Strike they were starved, they were out for six months. It was a formative experience in the lives of everyone there. The ruling class, led by Winston Churchill, were brutal.

"But Busby was a statesman, he was the first football man to be knighted. He should have had a knighthood the day he was born because he was a natural aristocrat. He had a bearing that made him extraordinary.

"He played on that and yet his story is rendered tragic by the Munich air crash. He was never the same man after that, but he went on to build another great team that won the European Cup. But a bit of the life went out of him."

Munich, Manchester and the early days of professional football, are portrayed with care. Two years after Munich, on his 15th birthday, on an aeroplane for the first time, Dunphy went to Manchester on trial. "It was 35 minutes and Busby watched. That was it, in Chorlton, a cricket facility. Just amazing."

Dunphy had done enough, he was to be part of a new United. "Munich was one of those JFK moments. I was 13 and in a barber's shop in Drumcondra when I heard. The pall of despair in this city is unforgettable because Billy Whelan was in the team and United had played here six months earlier. They beat Shamrock Rovers 6-0 at Dalymount Park and I was there. It was in the early rounds of the European Cup, September, '57. The whole city was 'waow', it was like Elvis or the Beatles coming. Magical. When they died it was 'Oh'. They were loved in this city.

"I remember that evening going out, just to find somebody. Because you didn't have television, you were going to find out what's the story. Busby's life was in danger for 48 hours before we knew he'd be okay. It was terrible."

Soon, Dunphy would be in his company, and that of Charlton, Law and Best.

He was able to return to them for the book.

It was not straightforward, Busby was secretive and, from 1945, had generally got things his way. But Dunphy was a United old boy, his foot was in the door.

In return, he showed respect.

"The book's understated. There was stuff I could have put in about Busby. It's there, but you have to look closely. He took backhanders - and I know because he took one for me. There was a match-fixing thing, well, they were betting on games and they did throw a game. God love him, Shay Brennan, a friend of mind, was in the middle of that. Busby used to come here, to Dublin. He was a gambler, big gambler, he had gambling problems. There's a reference to that, but no more than that.

"There's a methodology now to biography where the publisher would almost demand that you blow that stuff up and they can serialise it, be sensational. So you could have written the book another way, especially as most of the protagonists were dead and you can write what you want. But I wasn't into that. The Manchester United story, the Busby story, is the great football tale. I thought it spoke for itself."

Some would say this is a strange kind of Dunphy. From his columnist days on the Sunday Independent to RTÉ punditry, he has been outspoken, sensational. From John Hume to Cristiano Ronaldo, Dunphy has had his say, sometimes revising, occasionally reversing, along the way.

"I was going to write a memoir, which I will, and I was thinking of calling it Wrong About Everything. But the thing about journalism is that you have to write what you think on the day, you can't be second-guessing history."

It was Mary Holland who helped him break into journalism. Having left for United in 1960, Dunphy did not return to Dublin until 1977. He was with Giles at Shamrock Rovers, "on this grand project to make Shamrock Rovers the Celtic of Ireland. John had this vision, I shared it, Ray Treacy, Paddy Mulligan, we all came home. I was coach as well as playing. We won the cup, but after one year I realised it was a non-runner and I left. Financially, and because the other clubs pulled you down to their level, you couldn't do it. There wasn't the base.

"So I quit, went on the dole for one year while I tried to get a union card to be a journalist. That was tough in those days. You couldn't get a freelance card unless you had a portfolio and you couldn't get a portfolio unless you had a freelance card. Mary Holland, who was wonderful, she became chair of the freelance branch and she reformed that and allowed a lot of us to get in. That was a big break in my life."

Dunphy is 62, seemingly simultaneously mocked and cherished. He is conscious of what he does for RTÉ and how he does it, but said that does not make it false.

"I suppose the question is: 'Why engage in hyperbole?' The answer is no, what I try to do on television, what we all try to do on RTÉ, is forget the cameras are there and talk about the game as if you were with a group of friends. The only governing principle is that you cannot break the laws of libel, but just go for it.

"By saying what I think I can at least encourage a viewer to have another look. So you're challenging the prevailing orthodoxy, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, you don't even have to be right all the time, though you have to be right often enough to be credible. But it's genuine, it's only 9.30am and I'm wound up. I know they say it's manufactured and I understand why people say that, but it happens not to be true. So therefore, what's the problem with me?

"What I do on TV has to be seen against this backdrop - soccer people of my generation, Giles', we've lived with the FAI's ineptitude all our lives. As players, as fans, as journalists, mistake after mistake after mistake. Therefore you are forced into a position where you appear to be cynical, appear to be just controversial, saying the unsayable.

"I mean, John Giles said to me the other day that Jack was the worst of Staunton, Kerr, McCarthy because he had the greatest squad of players. Now that's a 'controversial' thing to say, but it's actually a point of view. You could argue that Jack took us to places we'd never been before - and he did - and he did give the country a great time, and he wasn't a bad man.

"But how far could that team have gone: Lawrenson, Brady, Moran, Packie Bonner, Frank Stapleton, Aldridge, Houghton . . . Ronnie Whelan! Paul McGrath! All these great players, he either threw them out of the squad or played them in the wrong position.

"I just feel the basic position should be that if you have these deep convictions and you want to express them then don't expect to be loved. And I don't think I'm the story. John Delaney is a good pal of mine, but the FAI's ineptitude is the story. Those of us on the soccer beat have had the misfortune to cover what I call yellow-pack managers. Now that's tough language, but I think managing the Irish soccer team is a privilege.

"I've had plenty of stick too, but I don't want to be loved. It doesn't bother me. I know that the soccer-going public here are fine with me. On the Staunton question for example, I think the public's opinion is accurate, that's he is not up to the job and he doesn't have the qualifications to do it."

The Staunton question. A week today and Germany are the visitors to Dublin. Dunphy does not expect to be won over.

He said he named three alternatives at the time of Staunton's appointment - Paul Jewell, Iain Dowie and Leo Beenhakker, who has taken Poland to the top of their group. This, he added, "is not rocket science".

"As Staunton himself said in Prague, he's been on an 18-month learning curve. I just don't think when managing a national team that you should be on a learning curve.

"Now, of course, when you're saying he should be sacked, you are asking for a man to lose his job. He's on €400 or €500,000 a year. I had a television show here on TV3 to take on The Late, Late Show.

"After 15 weeks it was pulled, I was

sacked, the press were saying, 'Sack him, Pat Kenny's the man'. Now I didn't take it personally or start whinging, I thought, 'you're getting paid a fortune to do this and you're not doing it very well'. It wasn't the press's fault."

"Part of the thing on television is that you can crystallise the doubts of others. 'Am I seeing?' Like, with Irish rugby I haven't a clue what's happened, but I want one of the pundits to tell me. I see it as, 'look, this is how I see it', and it's an informed view of someone who has been in the game all their life.

"The same with John and Liam and they're not headbangers. You can say I'm a headbanger. I don't think I am, but you could argue it."