Can I Speak to the Manager please?

IT S TWO o clock on a Tuesday afternoon and Mick McCarthy is doing something completely out of character nothing.
Well, until we arrive on the scene, that is. The Republic of Ireland gaffer is meant to be grabbing a week s R&R in Galway but, not being much cop at this relaxing lark, has decided it s time to grant Hot Press an extensive interview.
There s a lot to talk about with the recent postponement of Ireland s Euro 2000 qualifier in Macedonia; the Under 20 s departing for Nigeria amidst howls of protest from David O Leary; and old Elastaplast nose, Robbie Fowler, managing to insult just about everyone with his posterior-patting, line-snorting antics.
There s also the not entirely inconsequential matter of Mick McCarthy s health. While the FAI have been studiously mute on the subject, word has it that an old war wound from his playing days has flared up, leaving the Yorkshireman in considerable pain. More serious still, it s kept him off the golf course.

STUART CLARK: So Mick, you re in Galway to recharge your batteries?
Mick McCarthy: I don t need me batteries recharging, mate! I ve had a bit of bother with an injury, but it s OK now. To be honest, I d rather not talk about it.
I m not sure if you re aware of Nick Cave but he has this great line about Irish people constantly coming up to him and saying, Isn t it wonderful how you re left alone here . Have you experienced the same thing?
They ll come over and have a chat but very, very rarely will they give you any aggravation. The job of Ireland manager carries with it a certain amount of accountability, so if somebody wants to bend my ear from time to time, fair enough. I might bend it back of course, but that s just the way I am.
Is it all business when you come to Ireland, or do you manage a spot of socialising?
It s pretty much always work. There are certain things I can t really do, like going into a boozer for a pint. As much as the idea sometimes appeals, I couldn t go swanning round Temple Bar on a Saturday night because you re going to stick out like a sore thumb, and have a constant stream of people asking if so-and-so s fit or whether whatsisname is going to get a call-up. I like a beer and a crack but you don t want to be inundated.
Would you be a Reynard s or a Lillie s man?
No. I ve been in them but they re not really my scene. I m not glamorous enough!
I know your Mum s from Barnsley and you re Yorkshire born and bred, but did you get to come over and see your Irish relations in the school holidays?
Not really, no. I brought my Dad back to his home village, Tallow in County Waterford, for the first time in 45 years. He was a bit overwhelmed by it all, but it s something I m glad we did together. One of his mates, who he hadn t seen since God knows when, came up to him and said, Charlie, you haven t changed a bit! I m afraid I had to give him the 9 o clock news afterwards which is that he s certainly changed since I was a lad.
All Yorkshiremen are supposed to be potty about cricket, but I ve never heard you espousing the virtues of a good googly.
I was in the school team but, to be honest, I could never see the point of a game where you spend as much time off the pitch as you do on it. Batting and bowling were okay but sitting around in the pavillion bored me senseless. I wanted to be involved in the action all the time. I still do!
Come 4.45 on a Saturday afternoon, whose results do you look for first?
Barnsley, Man City, Celtic and Milwall in pretty much that order. They don t carry the French results, so I have to get Lyons from the paper. Playing for a club is such an all-consuming experience or it should be that you never lose interest in how they re doing. I was disgusted with Barnsley for waiting til I d left to get into the Premiership! They came straight back down again, of course, but for a club that hadn t won anything since the turn of the century, it was a brilliant achievement.
It s for that reason your Wimbledons and Watfords climbing up the divisions that I d hate to see the present pyramid system being scrapped. Imagine having to tell 10,000 Fulham fans, Sorry, we ve done away with automatic promotion between the second and the first. The same goes for the 2,000 or 3,000 who go week in, week out to see the likes of Yeovil and Stevenage. Ask any of them what their dream is and they ll tell you it s their team making it into the Football League.
Did playing for Celtic give you a keen sense of Irish history?
You re aware of it, but not to the extent where it interferes with what you re there to do, which is to play football. I used to get that bit more fired up for Old Firm games, but no more so than if I d been in a Barnsley team playing against Bradford. There s always an edge to local derbies.
Do you know the words to Fields Of Athenry off by heart?
I do, but with a voice like mine, I very rarely sing them. Whenever we recorded a team song, I was the one who was given the maracas. I played them out of tune, as well.
What are your own musical tastes?
Wide ranging. If I had to pick one group, it d be U2. Jack always used to play ballads on the team coach, but I prefer a blast of Pride or New Year s Day . You certainly don t want to be listening to love songs when you re on the way to a game.
So no Phil Collins or Luther Vandross?
Not really me cup of tea. The wife and myself went and saw Bryan Adams last year at The Point, and I have to say he was excellent.
Talking of U2, has Bono been in contact with you about the bid himself, Jim Kerr and Kenny Dalglish are supposedly putting in for Celtic?
No, he hasn t. You hear the odd thing on the grapevine, but most of what I know about the consortium comes from the papers. Actually, I was just reading that Joe Vengelos is meant to be leaving at the end of the season. You do get the impression that something s going on behind the scenes at Celtic, but whether that includes Fergus McCann selling his shares, I honestly don t know.
Although Kenny s the frontrunner, there have been one or two whispers around Glasgow about you being a possible for the Celtic manager s job.
My name s been mentioned before which, given that I m an ex-player and Ireland manager, is fairly natural. I dare say someone will put two and two together and make five if Joe Vengelos goes, but I m happy where I am, thanks.
Do you subscribe to the theory that football is the new rock n roll?
With the advent of Sky TV, it s become very, very big business. Where there s money, there s glamour perceived or otherwise and people wanting to get involved with the game for the money or the reflected glory. It s a handy vote-winner for politicians too, isn t it? Being spotted at your local ground. I m not saying any of this in relation to Bono and Jim Kerr who, from my understanding, are genuine fans, interested in helping their team out.
Some footballers David Ginola for example are making almost as much from their modelling work as they are their footballing endeavours. Have you ever fancied a stroll down the catwalk?
You ve got to have the face for that. Anyway, those are the sort of jobs that go to centre-forwards, not centre-halves!
What about groupies? If the recent tabloid stories about Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole are true, you d be fighting em off if you were playing now.
I don t even talk about things like that. A question I m constantly asked is, What would you change about your career? , and I always give the same answer nothing. Sure, if I was playing now I d be on a lot more than the fourteen quid they started me off with at Barnsley, but would I have got to play for Ireland in the World Cup Finals? Given the job I m doing now, I d like to think yes , but you can t have any regrets about leading your team out against England at Italia 90.
Is being Ireland manager more or less stressful than doing the job at club level?
When it s going well, less stressful, because you ve got a couple of months to enjoy your victories. The whole country loves you, especially if it s a big qualifier or you ve won convincingly. Lose, though, and the frustration of not being able to put things right straight away can be unbearable. You want to call the squad in the next day to sort out what went wrong, but you can t, cos they ve got to go back to their clubs.
Does being in charge of a national side mean, on ocassions, that you have to administer national-sized bollockings?
I ve never been one for chucking cups of tea around, but if harsh words are needed, I m more than capable of saying them. It s very seldom that I have to do that with the Ireland team because you re dealing with players who are at the top of their profession, and wouldn t be in the squad unless they were hundred per centers. The other thing you ve got to remember is that, unlike at a club, you can t come in on Monday morning and say, We were both behaving like berks, weren t we? If a problem s not sorted there and then, it festers away until the next time you meet up. On the plus side, I don t have to get involved in contract negotiations which is the biggest source of tension between managers and players.
Much has been written about Glen Hoddle studiously ignoring David Beckham after he got red carded in the World Cup. Was that the right approach?
I m neither condoning or criticising Glen Hoddle but, personally, I d always go and talk to a player after they ve been sent off and clear the air. Roy Keane didn t need me to tell him that he d let himself and the team down when he got sent off against Russia. To be honest, there for the grace of God go I. No one means to get sent off. It s a reaction that comes from being fired up and letting your discipline slip. The fired up part I approve of, but if you do silly things at international level, you re going to be punished for them. As David Beckham found out to his cost. I actually felt very sorry him. He didn t deserve to get sent off and the hammering he took from the press and so-called fans was a disgrace.
Giving flair players protection is one thing, but do you think that football is in danger of being neuteured by over-zealous referees?
I remember a United/City game at Old Trafford where myself and Norman Whiteside had a right go at each other. This wasn t handbag stuff. It was a real, ferocious, physical contact battle that nowadays would ve got us both sent off in the first-half. We were still able to have a pint and a laugh about it afterwards. Well, he did the laughing because Man U had won! What I m trying to say is that sort of argy bargy has always been part of the game. As are verbals. Players are forever telling other players that they re earning more money than them or, in my case, that they ve got a big nose.
Paul McGrath told me that if someone called him a bastard, fair enough, but black bastard was unacceptable.
I agree with Paul, totally. There are certain lines that shouldn t be crossed and one of them is making racist remarks. I d include in that calling somebody a French bastard or an English bastard. One of the things that s heartened me about football crowds in recent years is the way the majority have turned on the minority and said, We won t tolerate that sort of behaviour. While telling a person to shut up won t necessarily change their opinions, it lets them know that they re unacceptable.
What if the word black is replaced by gay ?
I know what you re getting at. I don t agree with players making homophobic remarks or gestures but I assume we re talking about Graeme Le Saux and Robbie Fowler here the best response, when it happens, is to ignore it. If they re calling you names, it s usually because you re getting the better of them on the pitch. The same goes for the crowd. I used to love it when the opposition mob were giving me a goading because it meant I was doing something right.
Have you ever been aware of a player being gay?
Never. I mean, who s going to admit it? The stick you d get, both on and off the pitch, would be intolerable.
Back now to the Ireland job. Brian Kerr made the point in a Hot Press interview that, unlike Jack Charlton, you don t try and dictate how the under-age squads are run.
There s no point in me interfering because I m not going to be with them all the time. The only thing I insisted on was the ball being brought down and passed around, but I m sure Brian had that in his own mind anyway.
He also joked about you nicking all of his best players for the senior team.
He got Robbie Keane and Damian Duff for the Under-20 tournament, so I don t think he s too upset (laughs). My attitude has always been if they re good enough, they re old enough. One of the reasons I m optimistic about Ireland s short-to-medium-term prospects is that we have a young squad who, if they keep playing together, can only get better. Ian Harte, Alan Maybury, Keith O Neill, Richard Dunne they re only nippers. In fact, with the exception of Cas who s 36, going on 37, there s nobody on the verge of retiring. For a manager who s got to think about the World Cup qualifiers as soon as the European Championships are over, that s an enormous plus.
Would you agree with what Brian said about Robbie Keane having it in him to become one of the Irish greats?
When anybody comes into a national side and performs the way he has, they re going to be a top class player. Indeed, he s a top class player now. There are still things he needs to work on like his left-foot and taking up better positions, but when he adds that to his game he s going to be awesome. I say when, rather than if, because he s the sort of lad who keeps plugging away until he gets it right.
Do you fear the day when Keane rushes in and says, Boss, I ve got engaged to a Spice Girl! ?
You re indirectly trying to make me have a go at David Beckham which I m not going to do. I mean, how can you when he s as consistant as anyone who s playing for Manchester United? As long as it s not detrimental to their football which it obviously isn t in Beckham s case I don t care who they go out with or marry. The other question I ve heard asked is, Will Robbie Keane be able to handle the fame? Well, Michael Owen s handled it. Alan Shearer s handled it. Sol Campbell, I m sure, has all the trappings of success and what a player he is.
What s your take on Everton and Leeds being so reluctant to let their youngsters travel to Nigeria?
The way it works is that if someone s called up, the club in question are duty-bound to release them. That said, it s the worst possible time to hold the competition, with championships being chased, relegation battled against and all the cups, domestic and European, coming to their climax.
David O Leary was miffed to the extent of flying over after a game and airing his grievances on Kenny Live. Was he over-reacting?
From the way he was carrying on, you d have thought he d lost all his best players. Stephen McPhail would be on the verge of the first team but the rest are still turning out most weeks for the youths and Leeds reserves. Damian Duff, on the other hand, is a regular in a side that s fighting to stay in the Premiership, and Robbie Keane is arguably Wolves best chance of being promoted. I can understand managers complaining about losing their star player, and about the timing of the competition, but a lot of it was blown out of proportion.
In relation to the senior side, what are the chances of you being able to complete your European Championship qualifiers?
That s the million dollar question. I have no idea. How on earth can anyone go and play Yugoslavia at the moment? They can t. We re due to play them on June 5th. Can they come and play us then? Will it still be going on? Nobody knows. How can anybody go and play in Macedonia at this time? With God knows how many thousands of refugees flooding into the country every day, it can t be done.
Rather than Yugoslavia and Macedonia being slung out of the competition, it s been suggested that their games could be staged in a neutral country like Switzerland. Is that a workable solution to the problem?
You end up being a politician, which is not why I got into football. NATO seem to be at war with Yugoslavia, yet we re expecting the Yugoslav football team to travel freely around Europe. When there was a question mark about us going to Yugoslavia, we were told that if our game was switched to a neutral venue, they d all have to be switched, so that no one gained an advantage. If UEFA decide that Macedonia, Croatia and Malta should play Yugoslavia in Switzerland, we d have to ask for the game we lost in Belgrade to be replayed there. I don t think it s ever been done for those reasons, has it? We could talk about this for hours and hours and none of us come up with an answer.
Reading between the lines, it was obvious that the FAI and yourself always expected the Macedonia game to be postponed.
Yeah, everybody thought it was going to be called off. I convinced the players on Monday morning that it was on, because that was the professional thing to do, but I wasn t the least bit surprised when UEFA delivered their ruling. What we musn t lose sight of is that compared to the suffering of the refugees, the cancellation of a football match is pretty inconsequential.
Talking to you today, you seem a lot more at ease answering questions than you might have been a couple of years ago when you were new to the job. Is that because, initially, Big Jack was a tough act to follow?
Partly. I have a good relationship now with most of the press guys. I ve learned to deal with that better myself. I ve become better at the job, no question. There are one or two who get very personal, and when they do that, I ve no time for them.
One thing you seem to have inherited from Jack is a dislike of Eamon Dunphy. Indeed, he claimed a couple of years ago in a Hot Press interview that you challenged him to a fight outside Joy s nightclub in Dublin.
I m not going to waste my time discussing that.
Who s your favourite pundit then?
I think Andy Gray and Sky in general are very good. Them showing first, second and third division games is one of the reasons why there s so much interest in the Nationwide League at the moment. n