It was a day to be a Liverpool fan of a certain vintage in Dublin yesterday.
Sport for Business and the British Irish Chamber of Commerce hosted an evening conversation with Ian Rush, Neville Southall (fo a bit of balance) and Wales FA CEO Noel Mooney which we will report on next week while across Merrion Square John Aldridge and Robbie Fowler were toasting Carlsberg’s 30 years of partnership with Liverpool FC.
Aldridge spoke of the ten years he spent playing in the Irish shirt as “the best years of my life,” and of manager Jack Charlton as “my favourite manager by a mile.”
“I still miss him now. He had so much of a bearing on all of us. I just loved him. I get emotional when I think about him and talk about him. That’s the stamp he put on me and a lot of our players.”
He also spoke of the horrendous draw that Ireland had been given in the next Euro’s, facing France, the Netherlands, and Greece as well as Gibraltar.
At an earlier launch of RTÉ’s World Cup coverage, Shay Given spoke about flying over yesterday morning on a plane with Stephen Kenny and how he was impressed by Kenny being less daunted by the excitement of taking on the top teams.
It perhaps made Ireland’s absence from Qatar a little keener being reminded of the glory days of Italia 90 and USA 94 but that is the past and while it guides the future and layers the way we think of football, it will be pushed to one side over the coming weeks and then we can start to dream again.
