It was in the year of eighty-eight, in the lovely month of June
Oh dear. Another nostalgia-laced post accompanied by a YouTube clip. Not even a week in and we're resorting to this. Doesn't bode well, does it?
Well, screw it. I'm going to wallow and I don't care who sees me. Today is the twentieth anniversary of Ireland's first ever game in a major championship, in the 1988 European Championships. As if this weren't momentous enough, it was against them across the water ; and blow me down if we didn't go and win 1-0.
Actually, Euro '88 came around a bit too soon in my life for me to have any concrete memories of it (Italia '90, on the other hand, I remember as if it were yesterday). But somehow this doesn't lessen its impact on me. Watching the footage - Ray Houghton's goal (and the slapstick routine that created it), the Lineker misses and the batten-down-the-hatches drill that preserved the lead, the awe-struck celebrations - is a bit like being sat down to be told the story of your great-great-grandfather who, passing by the river one day, saw a drowning man and dived in and saved his life.
Okay, that's stretching it a bit. But my point is that the wave of pride that washes over me is as great as it would have been had I been there.
Ireland is a pretty good place to be these days, what with the economic miracle that somehow made its way to us a decade-and-a-bit ago. Twenty years ago, however, it was, frankly, shit. Defined by theocracy, terrorism and an economy that was barely functioning, the place was a misery. Anyone who could get out, did, which of course dug the country into an ever deeper rut.
So this was more than just a sports team winning a game. For one thing, here we were on an international stage, actually being good at something. We weren't the most talented team in the world, but we were competing with the elite, sometimes even winning, always at least giving
them a mighty fright. Maybe, even if only for one day, people would think of Ireland without simultaneously bringing to mind the IRA, or those thick Paddys immigrants in their neighbourhood.
As well as this, it served simply to make people happy. Perhaps oddly for a country where soccer isn't even the number one sport (though it's getting closer), whenever we've been involved in a major competition, the country has been consumed by it to the exclusion of almost everything
else. It's really quite amazing. When we play a game in a tournament, everyone forgoes whatever it is they'd normally be doing and watches. People with no knowledge of football, and no interest otherwise, become not only as engrossed as the hardcore fan but instant experts. And when we achieve something special, as luckily we have done in each tournament
we've been in, everyone come together and shares in the elation. There has
been no unifying force like it.
And this unity and joy were especially important in 1988. When the nation was slowly drifting away in a sea of despair, here was a taste of the purest of pure happiness, no strings attached.
Of course, a lot of the pride felt at such moments derives just from being a small country bucking the odds. By dint of our small population, it's not often that we're the best, or among the best, at any sport. Personally, I'm not all that patriotic, and I'm certainly not nationalistic, but when Pádraig Harrington wins a British Open or Sonia O'Sullivan a gold medal, it still generates that feeling of "that's one of us". I often wonder whether someone from one of those enormous
countries that hog the medal table at the Olympics can feel that with the same intensity; surely the regularity of success dulls the emotions.
Ireland went on to draw with the Soviet Union and lose to Holland by a late, lucky, lucky goal, and were eliminated. The team was welcomed as heroes by hundreds of thousands on their return. Two years later, we reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup, and the country nearly melted down.
It's been argued that these tournaments were the beginning of the Celtic Tiger, giving a shot of inspirational confidence to a demoralised people. It's a nice theory, if a tad far-fetched. Still, perhaps it says something that this idea can be proffered without being totally laughed out of
court.
Reading back over this, perhaps I'm over-sentimentalising it, viewing it through football-tinted glasses, as someone who wasn't even conscious of it at the time; take that at a caveat if you will.
As a reward for reaching this far in the post, here's that YouTube clip I mentioned. I could have posted a highlights clip, but this is somehow more evocative; it's a rendition by Christy Moore of his song 'Joxer Goes To Stuttgart', depicting a trip to the Euros by a band of intrepid Irishmen.
Lord knows what anyone not Irish will make of it, but hey:
