Farry’s Free-Kick
By Ocean FM’s Gerry Farry

We are just a short couple of weeks into the ‘Trapattoni era’ but it now seems to be an appropriate time to compare his coronation to that of some of his predecessors.
The man that springs to mind straight away is Jack Charlton, a man who got the Irish manager’s job pretty much by default. I vividly recall a certain journalist questioning Big Jack so much on the selection process that the big Geordie proposed settling the matter with his fists outside.
That first day set the scene for the Charlton years. Big Jack effectively bullied the media from that day forward.
The biggest thing that Jack had in his favour was that the results he attained ensured that he had the backing of the public to do whatever he wished to the journalists.
Therein lies the secret to the entire success or otherwise of the upcoming reign of Giovanni Trapattoni.
International soccer, in common with all team sports, is a results-driven business. If Trapattoni can guide us through the minefield of the upcoming World Cup qualification group, then he will be hailed as a god.
If he falls short, then he will most likely be hounded out of office.

Harsh

If that sounds a bit harsh then that’s because it is a harsh world.
Big Jack managed to get better results than the quality of the players should have achieved. Every other manager since then has been judged by what he achieved.
However, it is worth noting that despite what Charlton achieved, he ended up on the wrong end of the journalists’ comments.
In short, his earlier achievements became something of a noose around his neck. As we know, Jack walked before he was pushed, but mark my words, he was about to be pushed.
Mick McCarthy was next into the firing line and all seemed well at first.
Mick was something of an enigma as he epitomised everything that Jack seemed to hold dear. He was hard as steel and loved to play his football simple and direct as a player.
Under Jack’s stewardship, like many of his colleagues, he had overachieved. What surprised almost everybody though, was that he promised to get Ireland playing a much more refined passing game and remarkably, he succeeded in doing that.
McCarthy coached Ireland to the 2002 World Cup finals with Roy Keane as the main driving force on the field but, as we all know, a combination of two major egos and, even more importantly, gross ineptitude on the part of the Football Association of Ireland, all conspired to end in a row of cataclysmic proportions in Saipan which, six years later, can still start an argument in any pub in Ireland on any given night.

Fallout

Ireland would, no doubt, have done even better in the 2002 World Cup if circumstances had been right but the fallout from Saipan was ultimately to cost McCarthy his job.
Brian Kerr was next in line and, although his appointment was warmly welcomed in some areas, his paranoia with the media soon became obvious and he soon became a figure of some ridicule at the hands of the very same people who had welcomed his appointment.
The harsh truth is that, although his win ratio of 53 per cent in 32 matches was better than any other Irish manager, the statistics can be misleading.
Under Kerr, Ireland were very good in friendly matches but actually failed to win a competitive international against serious opposition during his term of office. Consequently, his sacking was merely a matter of form and was mourned by precious few.
Next in line was Steve Staunton, with Sir Bobby Robson as his guiding influence, and this was a combination that might have worked if Sir Bobby’s health had held up.
As we all know, Robson was unable to hold Stan’s hand and, on his own, he looked, sounded and acted badly out of his depth.
The two qualifiers against Cyprus brought the whole ugly mess to its inevitable conclusion and it was sad to see a man, who was so revered as a senior player, being treated with such disdain and practically becoming a hate figure by the same fans who had so admired his prowess as a left-back for so many years.
The reason for this trip down memory lane is simply to jog the minds of all our fans of the Irish team and to remind everyone that things can turn sour very quickly for whoever is in charge of this Irish team.
Big Jack gave us a taste of the glory, glory days and anything less than that will be seen as a failure by all those who are now praising the appointment of Signor Trapattoni.
I wish him well and, in his favour, he has a wealth of managerial experience.

Tune into Gerry Farry’s sports show every Friday from 7-8pm on Ocean FM.