Authors: Trevor Keane
Those preparation skills, not to mention his success with Limerick, saw him catch the eye of the FAI, but if they needed further proof of his talent, a match against Real Madrid in the European Cup, Limerick’s reward for winning the League, was a good start. That year Real Madrid reached the European Cup final and only conceded four goals during their run to the final. Two of those goals were scored by Limerick FC’s Des Kennedy. The Lansdowne Road match ended in a 2–1 defeat; but for a couple of late goals and some unusual refereeing decisions, the result could have been very different. For Johnny Matthews, the Real Madrid games played a large part in Hand’s appointment to the role of Ireland manager: ‘Those were the games that brought him to the attention of the FAI. His preparation over the two legs made people sit up and take notice of him.
‘It’s interesting to note that the FAI claim League of Ireland football is making a lot of progress, but I think the reality is a lot different. Back then you only had one champion from each country qualifying for the European Cup, not like today when there are in effect four champions from some Leagues. Back then it was more luck of the draw, as the draw itself was open, and there were no qualifiers, as there are today. I suppose you could say getting drawn with Real Madrid was either lucky
or unlucky, depending on your point of view, but for us it was amazing getting to pit our wits against superstars ten times better than us. However, we were not overawed. ‘We gave them an awful fright in that first game, and it could have been a different story, as I had a goal disallowed. That said, the second leg was a different affair. We travelled to Madrid and were on the end of a 5–1 defeat.
‘The experience of playing in the Bernabéu was one of the highlights of my career and one which will stay with me forever. I remember the day before the game we trained on the pitch and practised crosses. Eoin was studying the angles of the lights for the crosses, as the game was being played under floodlights. The next morning we trained again on the pitch, and it was rock hard, so we decided to wear soft studs. Well, once everyone had left the stadium the Spanish turned on the sprinkler system and soaked the pitch. That evening when we returned for the warm-up before the game we kept slipping on the pitch. Eoin sent one of the backroom boys back to the hotel in a taxi to get the screw in studs. Eoin had been naive and they had caught him out, but he did not let it hamper our build-up.
‘Unfortunately, we lost the second leg, but we still managed to give mighty Real a fright, and who knows what might have happened if my goal in the first leg had not been disallowed. Afterwards a few of us got the opportunity to go out on the town with Laurie Cunningham [Real Madrid’s first English player], and that in itself was an amazing experience. Cunningham was delighted to have some English-speaking friends to show around the town, and he definitely showed us the nightspots. He was like a god over there, with doors opening for him wherever he went. It was an insight into the life of a top footballer.
‘I think League of Ireland football teams were more honest in their approach to games and were naive to the tricks of European sides. I remember being at Waterford United, and we were drawn against Omonia Nicosia. Alfie Hale gave us a perfect start, and we were 2–0 up after ten minutes. Then Omonia changed their goalkeeper, who had never played on grass, and he managed to keep them in the game before they pulled a goal back, though we still fancied our chances.
‘When we got to Cyprus for the second leg we were in for a shock. The “pitch” was a dirt pitch and not only that, there was a power failure, so the game was moved from a 7 p.m. kick-off time to a 2 p.m. kick-off, so the match was played in searing heat. The dirt pitch was being watered, and we kept running behind the goals to where the water cannon was to cool down.’
Des Kennedy was also a member of the successful Limerick team of the late 1970s and 1980s, and famously scored against Real Madrid in the European Cup. He recalls Hand as being ‘strict but fair. You did what he wanted you to do, but it helped that he would do it too. If he wanted you to run ten kilometres, he would do it as well. And he never demanded things that you could not achieve. I mean, I was a different player to say the likes of Gerry Duggan, who was fast, so he worked to those strengths.
‘When he first took charge we used to train in the market field, but shortly afterwards he moved training out to the university. There were all-weather pitches and running tracks out there. It was much more professional. He had played in England, and it showed. He trained us like we were professionals. We trained Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with a light session of set-pieces on the Sunday before a game. He took us up another level and raised the bar.
‘The Madrid game was the reward for winning the League, but the League was the greatest thrill, as it had been twenty years since we had last won a title. Eoin set everything up for us to win that title. He treated each game differently, although he liked us to play a certain way. But, again, it was down to the set-up and facilities. If we were playing Sligo or Dundalk, we would travel up the night before. These things help.
‘If you gave it your all and did the business, Eoin appreciated it. The bus home would be great fun. Eoin loved a bit of fun and a singsong. We would often stop for a bite to eat after a game, and if we had done well, Eoin would say, “Have a pint on me, lads.”’
Johnny Walsh was also a member of that famous Limerick team: ‘He had played in England, and when he first came to Limerick as player-manager he was in his mid-thirties and still very fit. Limerick were only semi-professional. We weren’t used to the full-time training. It was very different to what we were used to. There was a lot of focus on ball work and organisation.
‘Eoin was a good man manager and treated everyone as individuals. When he took the Ireland job he was very good to me. He gave me my only cap. It was on a tour of America, and we played against Trinidad and Tobago. A lot of the players from England were unavailable for the tour, and I got called in. It was a wonderful experience. We played four games in total over there, and I was involved in two of them, although only one was a full international.’
Hand’s reward for his success with Limerick was the biggest job in Irish soccer, the job of Ireland’s national team manager. Initially he worked both jobs, but eventually he resigned from Limerick to focus on the Irish job. As Eoin himself states, ‘I had been the assistant for Alan Kelly’s only game in charge, and then
the chance to manage Ireland came about because of my time with Limerick. Alan and I were good friends from playing together for Ireland. He had been Johnny Giles’ assistant and had also just become the Preston North End manager. Preston put a bit of pressure on Alan, and he also had a sports business in Preston, so in the end he decided to return to England full-time.
‘I was caretaker for one game, against Argentina. We put on a decent show and ended up only losing 1–0. Maradona played. I was then interviewed by a panel of twelve people for the job. Paddy Mulligan also went for it, but I ended up getting it. I was Ireland’s youngest-ever manager.’
Hand was very young when he was put in charge. In fact, he was only thirty-four when he found himself thrust into the position of managing the golden crop of Ireland footballers, players such as Mark Lawrenson, Frank Stapleton, Kevin Moran, Kevin Sheedy and David O’Leary. These were big-name players, playing for the biggest sides in England at the time – Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Everton. If you compare the Ireland side now to then, John O’Shea is the only player who plays for a top-four side. There were, therefore, a lot of big personalities in the changing-room in those days, but although they were trained by top managers, they still needed to be managed on the international stage.
According to Kevin Sheedy and Gerry Peyton, who both played for Ireland at that time, Hand suffered a little from a lack of experience at international level and this led to some problems. ‘Eoin had experienced success with Limerick FC,’ says Sheedy, ‘but he was not prepared for international football. The demands and expectations are different. There were big players in the team at that time, and Eoin did not have the
necessary experience to know how to handle them properly. They would often dictate how we played. There were a lot of big personalities within that team. It was different when Jack came in. It was a case of his way or the high way. Eoin was a bit too easily influenced by others.
‘I remember we played against Switzerland and won 2–0. I scored one of the goals. We then travelled to Russia for the next game, and I was not even in the squad, never mind the team. Eoin struggled a bit with the man-management side of things. He would chop and change his mind, but there was a lot of pressure on him.’
Peyton backs up Sheedy’s point of view: ‘Eoin was Alan’s assistant for the game against Switzerland and was already known to the FAI, as he had done a great job with Limerick, so he got his chance. Being honest, I think Eoin is a good guy, and I like him as a man, but the role might have been a bit overwhelming for him. There were a lot of big personalities in that team. Liam Brady, David O’Leary, Frank Stapleton, Kevin Moran, Paul McGrath, Mark Lawrenson and Ronnie Whelan were all playing with top sides. Eoin might have been a little intimidated by the players.
‘It was hard to know where we stood under him. I don’t think he ever knew his best squad. For example, Packie and I rotated the support-keeper role under Seamus McDonagh, and the two of us rarely travelled together.
‘That said, we were very unlucky not to get to a tournament under Eoin, and we came close to qualifying for the 1982 World Cup. We were a “hit the post team” under Eoin – nearly but not quite. Ireland had a very talented group of players at that time, but you need confidence, and qualifying for a tournament would have given us that confidence.’
Eoin’s first qualifying tournament with Ireland was for the 1982 World Cup, where they finished level with France as runners-up behind Belgium, but goal difference cost them a place in Spain. In fact was it not for a perfectly legitimate goal being disallowed in the away game to Belgium, then Ireland would have been on the plane to Spain and their first place in a World Cup. If that decision had been reversed, Ireland could have embarked on a golden era long before Jack Charlton took over.
Hand remembers it all too well: ‘I think the Belgium match wasted us. We had a perfectly good goal disallowed. It was a Brady and Stapleton routine from the Arsenal training ground, but for reasons unknown it was disallowed. Their goal was even more dubious. They got a corner, and we managed to clear it. The ball fell to Eric Gerets, and he wangled a free-kick out of Steve Heighway. The free-kick came in, and one of their players nearly came in on top of Seamus McDonagh, but Jan Ceulemans scored, and that result cost us. Belgium ended up topping the group.
‘If we had managed a draw in that game, we would have been in the World Cup. After the game Jack Charlton came into the changing-room. He told us that we had been robbed and that the decisions had been crazy. If things had turned out differently in that match, Jack might not have become the manager.
‘We knew we had a good team, though. We scored seventeen goals that campaign. Everyone was disappointed, but we played some really attractive football, and the players were allowed to express themselves. We used to get only two days to prepare for games. If we had qualified for Spain ’82 we would have had a six-week build-up. Success breeds success, and if we had been able to prepare together like that, we could have done well.
‘As a manager, however, I didn’t think of myself. Naturally I was disappointed, but I was more disappointed for the players, the likes of Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton, Gerry Daly and Tony Galvin, all good players who deserved to play at major tournaments.
‘As a reward for nearly qualifying we got a tour to Brazil. The Falklands War between Britain and Argentina was going on at the time, so we struggled to get a team together, the English clubs being very reluctant to release their Irish players. [The initial itinerary included a game with Argentina and they felt it was inappropriate for representatives of English clubs to be involved in such a game.] I remember voicing my concerns to the FAI, but I was politely told I was a manager not a politician. [The FAI eventually smoothed over the situation by cancelling the game with Argentina but the damage had been done.] Ron Atkinson was very angry about the tour, and a lot of fellas did not travel. As it was, we had a weak team, and we lost 7–0 to Brazil, who managed to reach the semi-finals in 1982.
‘There was a bit of picking up to be done for the 1984 European Championship qualifiers, where we were drawn with Spain, Holland, Iceland and Malta. We managed to draw 3–3 at home with Spain but lost away, and we lost twice to Holland, although we beat both Iceland and Malta. That second campaign was tough – it was a case of second-season syndrome, but in a qualifying tournament sense. We were missing a couple of key players during that campaign and were never able to put out our strongest team.
‘My final campaign was the qualifiers for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. We were drawn with Denmark, the USSR, Switzerland and Norway. We lost our first game to Norway,
who, although not the force they are today, were on the up. Again, we did not have our strongest team out – that always seemed to be the case. We had a great team but a small squad, and we felt every injury.
‘We needed to beat the USSR away in Moscow. I knew that over in Moscow you ran the risk of “Moscow tummy”. I wanted to bring over our own chef to avoid any such risks – most national sides always travel with their own chefs these days. Anyway, the FAI did not see the logic of it, so I brought along my wife to cook food for the team.