ONE FROM THE ARCHIVE/NORTHERN IRELAND v REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, November 17th, 1993:OH AMERICA! A night of jangled nerves and jumbled memories. Love and hate and much between. Songs. Chants. Shocked silences. And in the end? Lo, it came to pass. Happy days are here again.
Sing it. In an arena where charity and the assisting wind of passionate support were always absent, the Republic of Ireland soccer team drew on the deepest wells of passion and commitment and prevailed.
It was a Belfast night not to be forgotten, the last stage of a painful footballing passage to America. Nails were chewed to the quick and beyond, and when the long whistle finally sounded the dream was reality. Just think of it.
For some long heavy minutes, the golden thread seemed broken. A lone visceral howl of spite rent the northern skies as one Jimmy Quinn rustled the Republic's net with a sweet volley as the game lay three-quarters dead. The Sash My Father Wore rang around the ground.
Nobody, it seemed, was going anywhere but home next summer.Always Look on the Bright Side of Life came the teasing tune from the stands in the triumphalist aftermath of Quinn's goal. Always took on the bright side of life. It was hard, it was hard. Life seemed drained briefly of its colour.
What the national soccer team have come to mean to a bedraggled nation was suddenly shockingly clear. The air was hissing out of the national morale. Back among the also rans we were. And then BOOM!
Alan McLoughlin, scarcely long enough on the pitch to have broken a sweat, gave the kiss of life to a fatalistic race. One apiece and all the news from Seville was good news. Southern fists silently punctured the air. Out of hiding came the faithful, eyes fixed greedily on America.
Yes. After weeks of worry and poison in the end it was mostly about football last night. The Windsor Park crowd huffed and puffed with the ersatz menace of a mob without a foe.
God Save the Queen was punctuated with sharp cries of "No Surrender ". Orange scarves bore the legend "For God and Ulster". The Union Jack hung from most railings. The Sash got an obligatory airing every few minutes.
In all, though, it didn't amount to very much intimidation for professional footballers.
It was a football night, a night not suited to insularity. Football grounds throughout Europe bristled with news of each other. . . San Marino winning, then losing. Wales trailing, then clawing for air. Holland ahead, hee hee. And, critically early on, an expulsion, but no goal in Seville. The football itself was a largely unpretty tangle of two stolid teams.
Northern Ireland all short passes and cutery, their southern neighbours more direct and passionate. Hopes that this meant nothing to the North were banished a full three-quarters of an hour before the kick-off when Billy Bingham, that silvery fox of Northern football, taking charge of his team for the last time, took the field to prolonged and lusty applause, which he milked shamelessly until it was amplified 10-fold.
Half-time and hearts were heavy. The bulletins dripping in from Seville brought no news of goals. Jack Charlton evidently spent the 15 minutes profitably and his side swirled passionately around the northern goal after the break. The gods, it seemed, were conspiring amenably.
The wires from Seville brought news of a Spanish goal and that, together with the resurgence of Charlton's team, seemed to suck the last spark out of the home support until, that is, Quinn set the evening alight again. After that, the happy story is already well-thumbed.
Jack Charlton, mobbed briefly at the finish, declared his feelings in predictable terms. "Wonderful" he croaked, his voice hoarse from overuse. "It's been a long, hard trip for us up here and in the end it wasn't a great performance, but we got the goal and we got the news that Spain had done us a favour. I hadn't expected that. I don't know what was wrong with us, the spirit was willing, but the football wasn't good, but our heart saw us through. I think I'm getting the flu, you know."
With that he was gone seeking out his adversary, Billy Bingham, for some words of reconciliation. "I won't enjoy my pint tonight if I feel like this all through."
As for Alan McLoughlin, the saviour of the hour, the emotions welled more freely.
"It's the first goal I have ever scored for Ireland. I am thrilled, so thrilled, I did it for my wife and family back home, for everybody. It's a great night for us. I am thrilled."
And with that the curtain of heavy but discreet northern security fell again and the victorious squad went about their business until that magic moment one minute before midnight when a boisterous plane left northern soil and all thoughts turned briefly to happy journeys to come. A familiar chant echoed. "Here we go, here we go."
