I completely forgot we were seeded first for the Euro 96 draw. We were unlucky to get Portugal of the second seeds.
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I completely forgot we were seeded first for the Euro 96 draw. We were unlucky to get Portugal of the second seeds.
He's always claimed that he was fully fit and that Manchester City refused to release him. He also claims that Jack Charlton should have done more to pressue City to release him and was afraid to do so because he was English and hoped to get a job back in English club footballl.
You're actually right for once.
From an interview with the Mirror in 1997:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/My+Wor......-a061121357Quote:
Torn cruciate ligaments, sustained in a club game the previous November, was given as the reason for his absence from the squad. But he believes soccer politics also had a part in the decision which left him on the fringes in Florida.
"I didn't play in the finals, not because I was injured but because the chairman of Manchester City, Frannie Lee, didn't want me to play.
"The surgeon who performed the operation and my own doctor said there was no valid reason why I shouldn't have been fit some seven months after the operation.
"But Lee, presumably because he felt I might wreck my knee again, decided I wasn't going to make it. And at the end of the day, his was the voice that mattered.
"Reading Jack Charlton's book I discovered that he had ruled me out of his plans in March, a full three months before the squad went to the States. Now I don't know where he got his info, but that was way off the mark.
"At that point I was working my butt off to be ready. Now I learn that it was all wasted effort.
"That was the biggest downer of my time at City. And it left me with an even greater hunger to play in the World Cup finals again."
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I was astounded when I heard the OTB interview with him. He was spitting anger some fifteen years after the fact. Can't say I blame him. You wouldn't get away with that kind of thing nowadays.
Interesting he's maintaining that line today. This article suggests he was eased back into action with substitute appearances by City a good three months later. I wonder why they'd do that if he was actually fully fit.
http://www.scmp.com/article/87282/quinn-fit-comeback
He was fit according to the player himself and was working out with the World Cup as his goal. His chances were shot down a month before the tournament by Brian Horton who said he would not be released to go to USA. Quinn was gutted. Horton showed him no support at all in his bid to make the finals. And then Horton was gone from the club in a matter of months.
The very ones. John Salako and Andy Sinton were wingers by the way.
Wasn't David Platt in the middle of the park for that side too? And wasn't Palmer shining for a Sheffield Wednesday side who had not long since finished third in the league in 1992 followed by two cup finals in 1993?
You could be right, Townsend may have gotten a couple of caps for England but he wouldn't have made the 1990 squad or team. If he'd really believed he was good enough to play for them, he'd have declared for England.
Around the time he declared for us, he was playing very well. However, I would say that he may well have made the choice of playing for us and being a regular, rather than taking his chance with England. He would have noted that Ireland were a team going places - very good Euro 88 and would have felt that he could have played with us at the 1990 world cup, which he did. I'm sure he saw that we had a lot of excellent players at the time which would have influenced him.
I'm sure Andy grew up wanting to play for England, but feeling very Irish.
I do think that Andy would have won 50-60 caps for England without doubt. He was a top player and when he was at his best for us, England were pretty poor by their standards. Put it like this, he was a far better player than Palmer.
We'll agree to disagree so. Always thought Townsend was a good player but not a top player.
Even taking your opinion as being correct, the fact we had Bonner, Morris, McCarthy, Cascarino/Quinn in our starting eleven under Jack means we were carrything some fairly ordinary albeit committed players. Even Kevin Sheedy or John Aldridge never really stood out for me.
It wasn't like we had a glittering array of players that were the envy of the world. For my money, Jack got a tremendous amount out of them and deserves massive respect for what he achieved.
Agree with you that Jack deserves a huge amount of respect for what he achieved.
You are right that we had a few very ordinary players in our team back then, but we also had a number of really top players. I wouldn't say Andy was in the same level of players that McGrath or Whelan was, but I do think he would have walked into the England team.
Was it Townsend on his Ireland debut who, after the Irish anthem, turned to a team-mate and said "Well that wasn't too bright; what's ours like?"
Wasn't that Mancini on his debut at Dalymount?
Maybe it's a common plastic paddy experience.
What about the story of Haughey coming in to the dressing room after we were beaten by Italy in 1990 and giving a rousing speech.
Cascarino turned to Quinn and said 'Who the fack is tha''? Quinn embarrassingly said 'Shhhh it's the Taoiseach'
Townsend said to Cas, 'Who the fack is tha'"?
To which Cascarino replied 'I dunno. Quinny says he owns a Tea Shop'.
Yes it was Mancini
“I went over to Dublin for my first international game to face Poland, they’d just drawn with England in the previous match and knocked them out of the World Cup as a result,” says Mancini. “It was a great honour to be selected and I lined up at the side of the pitch desperate to get playing.
“All the pre-match ceremony seemed to go on forever then the music started playing and it went on and on and I turned to Don Givens and said ‘for f*** sake their national anthem don’t half go on’ and he said, ‘that’s ours Terry’. I didn’t have a clue.”
I can understand Quinns disappointment but that's probably a bit harsh on Jack. City would have been keen to protect an asset from early exposure to competitive football and wouldn't have given a monkeys about Irelands needs for the WC or Quinn desire to be there. Seemingly Roma were in for Quinn the previous autumn before he did the knee in. Citeh may have selfishly but understandably wanted to keep him in merchantable condition in case they or anyone else renewed their interest.
I read another story where Jack said he was waiting for definite news about Quinn at the end of May.
Jack Charlton
Irish Voice
05-31-1994
THE Jack Charlton PAGE: Barring Injury, My U.S. Panel Is Set; Quinn's a. Maybe, But Packie's Still No. 1
I HAVE named a panel of 22 players for the three games we have lined up against Bolivia, Germany, and the Czech Republic. (See Countdown to [B]USA `[B]94 on Page 44 for the names.) I don't have to name may final choice until June 3, but it is very likely that the 22 I've picked for the three friendlies will be the panel who will go to America.
I'll leave it until June 3, just in case we get an injury or two. And if Niall Quinn came good, for example, we would like to bring him with us. I haven't ruled him out so far - with an...
Thats all from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-2249279.html
I remember Niall Quinn telling the story on some free DVD I got with a paper. The Jack Charlton Years or one of those
Exactly, never understood why people have a big issue with this!
As regards Big Jack - people seem to forget that international football was generally muck back then - He did a fantastic job with us. I dont think too many teams were playing free flowing passing football, or at least any teams that I can remember. The game is so much different nowadays (which Trap is only just realising!)
I'm very grateful to Jack and for the great ride we has though his years- teamwork and team commitment underpinned the success.
My one gripe is that he did not quite have the vision to see what that team could achieve. His comment that the quarter final against Italy was "our final" and that we were pleased to get there set the expectation amongst the players and I think this was a mistake.
Still he has much more on the credit balance than the debit. And if he was in the hot seat today I don't think we would have so many man management issues.
Why were we lucky? We finished top of the group with most points. We were a better side than Bulgaria. If Scotland beat Bulgaria earlier in the group, there would have been no talk of luck. Teams qualify for tournaments not based solely on their own performances but also that of their rivals. Bulgaria were not good enough to beat Scotland at home. Bulgaria took 1 point from Scotland, we took 4. We were very unlucky to lose in Bulgaria. We beat Bulgaria 2-0 in our final match. We deserved our place and we finished with the most points.
Townsend supported England in the game in Euro'88, that's well documented. But who cares now?
He's been long since forgiven...
I'm not sure if it's that people are too young to have been around back then or they have short memories but the side under Jack was a serious outfit. Most of the players were at top clubs of the time.
All this utter nonsense about benchmarking players against 'would they play for england' is mind-boggling! Ireland, from about 1990 onwards, were way ahead of England in terms of quality of player. If we only had some more self-belief and maybe one more striker! The 1-1 draw in Wembley was one of the most dominant Ireland displays i've ever seen and how we didnt win that game is a total mystery. Our midfield, including the aforementioned Townsend, was in a different league to England's. I still maintain that if we had qualified for the 92 Euro's we would have won it. A total brainfart at 3-1 ahead away to Poland cost us that group, along with that Wembley game.
Totally agree - i was at all of the home games in that group and not once did we look inferior, unlike most of the games nowadays. We battered Bulgaria at home and were blatently robbed in the away game. Actually the away game was a typical eastern european away game of it's time - dodgy ref included!!
Have to agree with all of that. Euro 92 was a tragedy. I believe that we could have gone there and won it. We certainly had it in our locker to anyway. Only Germany, Holland and Yugoslavia who didn't play in the end because of their war were better teams than us on paper.
Uh, they were at the top English clubs of the time. When English clubs were banned from, and then relatively uncompetitive in, European competition. We're probably a few top players short of where we were under Jack, but below the top-tier players our current lot are as good or better as they've ever been.
The players Jack had at his disposal particularly from 88-92 were a class above any squads we have produced since. Easily. I can name 10 top class players, at least, during that time that could have walked into most european national teams/squads at that time. We could probably debate or argue the merits of another 10 as being top class.
I suppose the question then is why were they playing in England?
Agreed. Any team that could play Paul McGrath at rigth back to accommodate him had to have some quality. This percieved lack of ambition that has been mentioned is ridiculous! We were so happy to be playing with the big boys, beating them and enjoying the journey. Rather than lacking ambition I believe we remained grounded and were aware of our limitations. Unfortunately, since then expectations have developed and are often out of kilter with the reality of our ability.
The reason they played in England is simple. Players didn't really make the move to the continent to play. In fact such was the hysteria following Gascoigne's move to Italy that people asked if he could follow John Charles and Liam Brady in being a success in Italy. Channel 4 even bought the rights to Italian soccer so people in England could watch Gazza. Many a Sunday afternoon with a bad hangover I would stare at the television being bored by Italian football.
Well, they didn't move to the continent because they weren't good enough. The best players in England in the '80s did move to Italy. The rest stayed because nobody wanted them, or they weren't ambitious enough to better themselves.
Pretty simplistic stance on the situation, Charlie.