JUST WHEN you thought the traumas of that agonising night at Windsor Park last month had subsided along comes a ninety-minute package designed to drag you screaming back through eighteen months of shredded nerves, sudden mood-swings and distended bladders. And we’re expected to pay for the privilege?!?! I’ll take two please!

The Road To America – One Team, One Nation, One Dream is the bouncing offspring of Treasure Films, a company set up by producer Robert Walpole and director Paddy Breathnach three years ago, and to arrive at the finished article the crew travelled to all of Ireland’s away games in Group 3 in addition to covering all the matches at Lansdowne Road, with the exception of our first outing against Albania, at which point the film was still in the dark and confined space known as ‘the pipeline’.

Although this is the most ambitious project Treasure Films have undertaken, the pair proved both their narrative knack and love of The Beautiful Game with Street of Dreams, an evocative look at junior club St. Francis’ participation in the 1990 FAI Cup Final against Bray Wanderers . . and this despite the fact that both the chaps are from Bray!