The boy Dunne good

In a remarkably frank interview, the Irish defensive kingpin talks to Stuart Clark about Brian Kerr’s demise, the media savaging of Steve Staunton, nightmare trips to Nicosia and why he wants to finish his career at Shamrock Rovers.
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The last time I met Richard Dunne was at 6.45pm on January 30, 1999, at Liverpool Airport.

Recognising myself and two equally traumatised friends as Everton fans who’d witnessed that afternoon’s home defeat to Nottingham Forest – 0-1 and we were lucky to get nil – the then teenager came over and apologised for the X-rated nature of the performance.
“Sorry we were so shite, lads,” he said looking like the winner of the World’s Most Miserable Man competition. 22 months after that magnanimous gesture – “I don’t remember it, but then again we did a lot of apologising for results at Everton!” – there were mixed emotions among the Goodison faithful as Dunner headed down the M62 to Manchester City.
Yes, the manager had carpeted him for overzealously celebrating the new Millennium and missing training, but on the pitch the Tallaght lad was starting to look like the real centre-half deal. He’d certainly done enough to persuade Mick McCarthy that he was worth a place in the Ireland squad, with April 2000’s home game against Greece earning The Honey Monster the first of his 33 full international caps. Numbers 34 and 35 will doubtless be acquired this week, as Dunne anchors a defence that will have to keep the likes of Ryan Giggs, Craig Bellamy, Marek Mintál and Róbert Vittek quiet if the Boys In Green are to have any chance of going on an Alpine holiday next summer.
As for his Premiership career, when further disciplinary problems lead to then-manager Kevin Keegan telling Dunner to shape up or ship out, he went for the former option and landed not only Man City’s 2004/05 Player of the Year award, but also the club captaincy.
You wonder whether all that adoration has eroded his magnanimous streak, but no, the 28-year-old has forgone a rare lie-in to keep a 10am appointment with hotpress at City’s Carrington training complex. You can tell Stuart Pearce is in charge from the motivational signs on the wall, which say things like: “You’re never too experienced to improve” and “Enthusiasm is the key to achieving your goals.”
Their ethos isn’t lost on Dunne who, in a shocking display of eagerness, arrives five minutes early for our tête-à-tête and then proceeds to answer our questions with the same exemplary gusto he displays on Saturday afternoons for the Blues.

STUART CLARK: Before we start, I’ve a message that Noel Gallagher’s asked us to pass on to you – “Richard Dunne, you’re a fookin’ legend!”
RICHARD DUNNE: (Looking like the cat that’s got the entire dairy) That’s brilliant! We’ve just got in contact with Oasis through my agent ‘cause we’ve named our 10-month-old daughter ‘Lyla’ and want to get some things signed that we’ll give her when she’s older. One’s a guitar that we’re hoping we can get the lyrics written on.
When you’re not hogging it with your Oasis albums, what gets played on the City dressing-room ghetto-blaster?
The gaffer is a demon for the Sex Pistols, Micah Richards is majorly into his R’n’B and Joey Barton’s always bringing in some obscure indie band. It’s very rare that a CD gets left on for more than one song!
Rewinding to the start of your professional career, what was it like pitching up at Everton FC, aged just 15?
Coaching-wise I was fine because the standard of the Dublin School Boys League is double what it is over here. I’m sure Robbie Keane will agree with me – he used to score 40 to 50 goals a season in the league we were in, which was a pain ‘cos him being from Springfield and me from Killinarden we were on different teams! It wasn’t until Ireland Under-15s that we were on the same side as each other.
Me signing for Everton was actually a bit bizarre ‘cause I’d grown up supporting Liverpool and wanting to be John Barnes or Ray Houghton – always the flair players, never a defender! Arriving at Goodison was a bit disheartening ‘cause although it’s what you want to do, there’s no one to see you do it. You have to realise that when you go home for dinner you’ll be sitting down with a strange family rather than your own folks, which is tough at that age. I was getting fifty quid a week plus an extra £15 from one of the coaches to help pay for my calls back home.
Football apprenticeships have always struck me as having a bit of the Tom Browne’s Schooldays about them.
(Laughs) Yeah, we had to clean the first-team’s boots and be prepared for a mouthful if we’d missed a spot! That doesn’t happen any more, which is actually a shame ‘cos it taught you to respect the senior players and the opportunity you’d been given. We knew we were in for a long, hard slog, whereas nowadays your average 16-year-old gets a contract and thinks he’s made it.
How crucial is the manager to a young player’s development?
Once you’re in the first-team reckoning, very. I was talking there about respect – well, both Mick McCarthy and (Everton’s) Walter Smith taught me it. I needed to grow up and mature, and they helped me do it. I’ve huge respect too for Kevin Keegan. He gave me a great chance after what had happened when I was younger, and really did have the mentality that it was okay for them to get three as long as you scored four!
Is it true that you very nearly joined the Crazy Gang instead of Manchester City?
Yeah, after Everton had accepted Wimbledon’s £2.5 million offer, I went down to London, did my medical, agreed personal terms and flew back to Liverpool to say ‘goodbye’ to the Everton lads and collect my stuff. Returning the next day, I was met at the airport by their Chief Executive who told me the deal was off. I was back in the departure-lounge wondering what the hell I was going to do when the ‘phone rang and it was Joe Royle asking if I wanted to come to Man City.
Before Mick McCarthy handed you your senior Irish debut, you were part of Brian Kerr’s enormously successful youth set-up. Sticking for the moment with that part of his career, was he a good coach?
Yeah, very good and in-depth about everything. Even at Under-15 and 16 levels, he had a scouting system in place, so that he could tell us exactly what an individual player was going to do. He was also a very good motivator, and him and Noel O’Reilly did an unbelievable job really in making Ireland the only nation that’s won both the Under-16 and Under-18 European Championships.
How does his time in charge of the national team rate by comparison?
I thought he was the ideal person for the job. A lot of the lads who’d been in those winning Under-16 and 18 teams had progressed to the senior squad, so it seemed the perfect solution to get the manager they knew to take the reins. But it just didn’t seem to work out for him. He spent a lot of time listening and worrying about what media people were saying, rather than listening to the players and letting them have an hour to themselves to relax. It was meetings and doing different things all the time. We visit kids in hospital, which is great because it shows us how lucky we are, but it’s always done at the right time. I remember going to a hospital in Ireland the day before a match on the way back from training. It just didn’t seem right. There were TV cameras there, and I felt that was the reason we went rather than giving something back to the community.
It’s been said a lot recently that the Irish media has caught up – in a bad way – with its cross-channel counterpart. Fair comment?
Big time. It’s worse now I think than the English media. The papers are being driven through London-based companies and told to get some dirt on the players. You don’t mind getting criticised if you’ve had a bad game – it’s part of the job and you accept what comes with it – but for people to be digging into your personal life for no reason… Rather than being new or sensational, it’s stupid little things. Damien Duff had a go about them taking pictures of his girlfriend walking along the street to the shops. That’s never ever happened before, which is why the relationship between player and media was fine in Ireland. Now they’ve gone to another level where they’ve become a bit intrusive, and yet still want the same freedom (to talk to us).
The players have escaped comparatively unscathed compared to Steve Staunton.
It’s ridiculous. They push it so much – “Stan is definitely the man for the job, ra ra ra” – and then 180 minutes into his tenure, it’s “What the hell is he doing?” Perhaps they want a new manager all the time so that they can interview him and sell more newspapers.
Spoken like a true media marketing man! What are the trademark traits that Stan brings to the job?
He’s relaxed around the place and tries to get us into a positive frame of mind. We’re allowed to express ourselves on the training ground, and if we’ve any input he’ll listen to it. I think it’s very good for the players to have someone they can openly go and talk to and voice their opinions and not feel it’s just being thrown out.
Is it a help or a hindrance that the boss used to be your teammate?
He only hung his boots up a couple of seasons ago at Walsall, so he knows about the pace and quality of the modern game. The experience of an older manager who played in the ‘60s or ‘70s is worth a lot – but it’s different. One of Stan’s big things is that he talks to everyone, not just the captain or vice-captain. That includes kit-men and physios and stuff.
Is he one for dossiers and preparatory videos?
Brian Kerr did it quite a bit. He used to send DVDs and newspaper cuttings and everything to your house, but you’ve so much going on at club level that you’re better leaving it ‘til you’re with the squad and it’s fresh in your mind.
Us fans always profess to being devastated when our team loses, but it’s got to be even more painful for the players.
Do badly at the weekend, and you just wish you could crawl under a stone until next Saturday, but no, you’re back in on the Monday or Tuesday to start all over again. If you win a game you’re over the moon, and if you lose you’re the worst player ever. There’s too much up and down, especially at this club because we’re not as consistent as the big teams.
You can’t have had a more up/down game than the one in Nicosia where you scored a goal, 34 minutes later got sent off and then had to watch from the sidelines as Cyprus completed their 5-2 demolition job.
(Looks like he’s re-entered that World’s Most Miserable Man competition) It was embarrassing really. We didn’t perform and got slaughtered by a team of players that wouldn’t get into our English club sides. The Cyprus game really knocked us because it was there for the winning and we blew it.
Are you thinking, “God, if Cyprus can do that to us, what’s going to happen in October when we come up against Germany again in Croker?”
They beat us 1-0 in Stuttgart I know, but it was a deflected goal and they weren’t otherwise that dominant. There are better players in the Premiership at times, so while they're worthy of respect, we shouldn’t fear the Germans.
One of the big pluses for Steve Staunton as he prepares for the Wales and Slovakia games is a fit-again Kevin Doyle. Just how good a player is the Reading striker?
Very. His attitude when he came over from Cork City was, “I’ll give it my best shot,” and it’s worked for him. Reading beat us 1-0 at their place and Kevin was a real handful. A lot of centre-forwards try and twist and turn you when they’ve got the ball whereas he just kicks and chases it! Whether it’s at the goal or towards the end-line, he always runs in a straight line and either gets a shot in or a corner. Along with that directness, he can hold the ball up, head, tackle and pick out a pass. He wouldn’t be a world-beater in any one department, but that doesn’t matter when there are five things he can do to a very high Premiership standard.
Another player who could be pivotal at Croker – not least because of his last gasp poaching skills – is your Man City colleague Stephen Ireland. The lad’s a bit special, isn’t he?
He’s the one player in the City squad who has the ability to open up defences and create chances for us. Stevie’s a confidence player who, given the chance, can do the same for Ireland.
Are you glad to have Lee Carsley back in the fold?
Really, he’s the player we needed. We’ve a lot of midfielders, but none with quite Cars’ level of experience. He’s been Everton’s unsung hero for the past two seasons – effective without being flashy and a marvellous presence in the dressing-room.
Talking of which, how do you think Robbie Keane’s bedded in as captain?
It takes a couple of games to get used to the role, but in the Czech game I thought the amount of running he did was frightening. With him, Lee and Shay Given in the side, there’s no lack of leadership.
You’re being nice about everybody else, so let’s turn the tables. Are you aware that your Man City teammate Micah Richards recently said, “Ever since I’ve come to this club, Richard has just been quality. I play with him week in, week out and I think he’s one of the best players I’ve played with. I’ve played with John Terry and Rio Ferdinand in the England squad but Richard is right up there with them.”
(Turns a gentle shade of beetroot) Er, no, I hadn’t. Umm, that’s great!
What’s the buzz among the squad about Croke Park?
It’s a stadium that every Irish person’s proud of so, yeah, the excitement’s quite childlike! The only thing that concerns me is how I’m going to get enough tickets for the family. The Lansdowne order used to be 16, now it’s about 40!
Tallaght boy that you are, have you been for a peek at the Shamrock Rovers ground being built?
I’ve been looking at it for the last five years! I hope they get it finished ‘cos potentially it’s such a great thing for the area. Me Da was with Rovers, my Uncle Theo was manager of UCD for nearly 20 years, I have other uncles who played for Shelbourne and St. Pat’s and my cousin took over Galway at the end of last season, so I’m from a big League of Ireland family.
With allegiances so split, whom do you shout for?
Rovers! You hear Irish lads saying, “Oh, we’ll probably end up playing in League Two,” but I’d definitely consider ending my career at Rovers. Getting players to come back is definitely something the FAI should look at, ‘cause it might add 200 or 300 to attendances and start helping the clubs out a bit more. I know from talking to them that a lot of our English-based players would be up for it.
Head on the chopping-block time – should Ireland supporters continue with their German lessons or not?
If we can get both our confidence and points tally up by beating Wales and Slovakia, we’re back in business.b