Ciaran Hanley

As with most of my sporting awakenings, tv coverage of the 1991 Rugby World Cup got me playing the oval ball game. It was mainly to do with the fact that Ireland, with Ralph Keyes and Jim Staples, reached the quarter finals, only losing narrowly to the Australia of Michael Lynagh and David Campese at Lansdowne Road in Dublin but it was the small scrum-halves like Nick Farr-Jones and Rob Saunders that made me think "I could do that". That day, it was Northern Irishman, Gordon Hamilton who scored the try that put Ireland ahead when he ran onto an inside pass from Jack Clarke and improbably scampered away from the lightning quick Campese then fought off a last ditch tackle from the winger coming across from the far side to go over in the corner. Landsdowne Road erupted. Fans spilled onto the pitch. Ireland were seven minutes away from defeating the mighty Aussies to set up a semi final with the All Blacks. Moments later the old stadium was silenced when Lynagh brilliantly picked...

  I was in a pub in Cork City the day before the 2006 World Cup Final. I was down there on a stag do. Apparently Cork is famous or infamous for its weekend night time door policy - if you look like you've even a few pints on you, you'll not get in anywhere. Hence the almost empty city centre bar on a Saturday afternoon. On the wall, there was a framed Celtic shirt signed by one of the Rebel County's greatest sons and  the Saipan debate reignited  among our party. Roy Keane famously fell out with manager Mick McCarthy on the eve of the 2002 World Cup when differences in opinion about the Republic of Irelands preparation and in particular the facilities at the Pacific Island paradise, led to Keane being sent home, seemingly putting an end to the Republics chances of getting out of the group. It was interesting that the only Keane shirt on the wall in his home city was a Celtic one and there was no sign of the two teams he represented most famously but fell out with so publi...

My Granda asked me how the football team I played for had done earlier that day. “We lost” I told him, “You need to get Joe Fagan to manage yous” he replied. It took me far longer than it should have to register who he was talking about and I think I actually asked “who?”. If he had’ve replaced Joe Fagan with Kenny Dalglish, I’d have got it straight away. Kenny was Liverpool to me at 8 years old but at that stage Joe was still the manager who’d won the League, League Cup and European Cup treble the previous season and I didn’t even recognise his name.  Liverpool fans idolise our managers and that is often displayed by the gaffers name being sung loudly, home and away. I’ve seen footage when Shankly’s name was chanted. Kevin Keegan mentions in his autobiography that Shanks was welcomed by his people on the Kop shortly after he retired singing “Shankly, Shankly, here he is’. You can watch the Liverpool fans singing “Paisley, Paisley” to the tune of Amazing Grace when he appeared on ...