Analyse This

Hot Press, brilliant! What are you drinking?”
I know that Ireland’s most fortnightly publication is loved wherever it goes, but even so the effusiveness of Andy Gray’s welcome as we sit down for a chinwag in the Shelbourne is touching.

“Have you seen this?” asks the Sky Sports man as he opens his new book, Gray Matters, to the page on which there’s a photo of him relaxing in the bath with a 1978 special Ramones edition of Hot Press. “I used to read your magazine all the time while I was at Aston Villa.”
Gray may have been au fait with da bruddahs while in Birmingham, but as you can see from the snap he was still sporting a decidedly un-punk bubble perm. One doesn’t like to kick a former Evertonian when he’s down but, Jesus Christ Andy, what the fuck’s going on at the moment with Scotland?
“Whatever about losing 1-0 at home to Norway, going to Moldova who are officially ranked the worst team in Europe – San Marino and Liechtenstein included – and only getting a draw is desperate,” he almost literally cries into his sauvignon blanc. “I know we haven’t got the talent that we used to possess, but I refuse to believe that Malta, Cyprus and the Faroe Islands all have a better squad of players than us. Bertie Vogts has to go now and somebody like Gordan Strachan, Joe Jordan or Walter Smith brought in who appreciates how much its football team matters to Scotland.”
Of course, not all Celtic nations are making such a pig’s ear of their World Cup qualifying group.
“10 out of 10 to Brian Kerr for what he’s achieved since taking over from Mick McCarthy,” Gray enthuses. “That point against France was probably Ireland’s best result since beating Italy in the ‘94 World Cup. Roy Keane being back in the fold is a huge boost and you’ve youngsters like Andy Reid who are going to get better and better. The sooner he finds himself a Premiership club the better because he’s as good a prospect as Ireland’s had in the past ten years. Every time I’ve seen him for Nottingham Forest he’s been the best player on the pitch by a mile.”
So are Ireland going to go one better next year and beat Les Bleus at Lansdowne?
“Honestly? I don’t think so for a couple of reasons – 1) By then you’d expect France to have recovered from their post-Ziddane hangover and 2) The impetus will be on Ireland to attack which leaves you open to the pace of Henry and whoever’s playing alongside him. The game I’d be worried about as much as that, though, is the away trip to Israel. They’ve that thing of not knowing when they’re beat, which combined with home advantage makes them very dangerous opposition. Bringing a point back from there would be another great result.”
Ireland to qualify out of the group?
“They’ve every chance, though I think France will be the team to do it automatically.”
What does Gray think is missing from the present team?
“Frank Stapleton and Paul McGrath,” he laughs. “I know Robbie Keane broke the goalscoring record the other night, but you don’t have a world class number 9 or somebody who can put a last ditch tackle in like Big Paul. Somebody asked me recently, ‘Could he have been a better player if he hadn’t had a drink’, and I said, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I was Paul’s coach at Villa and he was great. I sampled his problems first-hand for a year, but what I’d say is that if you were in the trenches and needed someone to hang your hat on, I wouldn’t pick anybody other than Paul McGrath.”
What does Andy make of his old gaffer Ron Atkinson’s return to the air with Dublin’s Newstalk 106?
“Ron’s still a pal of mine – always was, always will be – and he made a huge mistake. It’s a word that’s not in a younger person’s vocabulary. But Ron’s in his sixties and he’d have used it during his lifetime without fear of it being thought of as racist. Rightly he was censured and rightly he was punished, but I don’t think he should never be allowed to work in football again.”
The question that I know all HP readers are itching for me to ask is, “Was Andy pissed off that Danny Boyle chose Archie Gemmel’s goal for the shagging scene in Trainspotting rather than one of his?”
“No,” he chuckles. “If you’re putting in a Scottish goal it has to be that one or one of Denis Law’s or Kenny Dalglish’s. Mine were always bundled in over the line which is appropriate in some cases I suppose!’

Andy Gray’s Gray Matters is published by Macmillan. Tony Cascarino is back from holiday in our next issue.