They were the best of times, when a packed Lansdowne Road of green-and-white flat caps swayed to the sound of Que Sera, Sera. Afternoons of inflatable yellow bananas and Pink Panther balloons sent skyward to crowd-surf across the terraces. An era when fantastical dreams became reality.
The 1990 World Cup will forever be a touchstone moment in Irish society but the qualification campaign leading to that breakthrough achievement placed the national football team on a pedestal it had never previously occupied.
The Republic of Ireland sealed their place at Italia 90 with a 2-0 away win over Malta in November 1989, but it was an earlier 2-0 home victory over Hungary in June that all but cemented second place in the group for Jack Charlton’s side.
Ireland and Hungary have met four times since that seminal 1989 encounter, but Saturday’s World Cup qualifier in Dublin will be the first competitive fixture between the countries in over 30 years.
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The pictures and video footage from the 1989 game generate a sense of warm, comforting nostalgia. There is an innocence and a giddy, childlike excitement to it all. Little old Ireland coming out of its shell to take on the world. It’s got all the feels.
It was a time when the Dart passengers could still get a brief glimpse of the action as it trundled by the stadium, while the advertising hoardings framing the pitch for the Hungary match included signs for Bus Éireann, Golden Pages, Jameson, Harp Lager and Opel promoting their latest Kadett model.
Fianna Fáil ads were also on show – a reminder that a general election was on the horizon.
“There was a lot of other stuff going on at the time,” recalls George Hamilton, who was on commentary duty for RTÉ that afternoon.
“It was a funny atmosphere in that sense, but what was also strange was that while there was hope on the back of the Euros, there was no kind of expectation that this game was going to be the moment that the dam was going to break, as it were, in terms of getting to a World Cup.
“There were lots of little subplots like John Aldridge still hadn’t scored a competitive goal, Mick McCarthy was missing because of injury, Liam Brady wasn’t starting, Andy Townsend was starting his first competitive match.
“So it could very easily have gone one way or the other for Jack. It could have gone wrong and who knows what would have happened had Ireland not won that game.”
Exactly one month before Hungary arrived to Dublin, Lansdowne Road hosted the social outing of the year – a show billed as The Ultimate Event in which Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli and Sammy Davis Junior performed in Ballsbridge.
For those four weeks Lansdowne Road felt like the nerve centre of the country, a monochrome movie reel of the great and good – from Sinatra to Charlton. Paradoxically, it manages to all seem so very grand and yet so very quaint now.
Charlton’s unbreakable conviction of doing it his way in terms of the style of football Ireland played had helped the team qualify for Euro 88. But despite their performances in Germany, Ireland were still fourth seeds in their group for the subsequent World Cup qualifying campaign – behind Spain, Hungary and Northern Ireland, and ahead of fifth-seeded Malta.
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The qualification campaign started with a 2-0 defeat to Spain in Seville, followed by a scoreless draw with Hungary in Budapest.
In his autobiography, Charlton wrote: “A couple of years earlier, a draw in Hungary would have been interpreted as a smashing result. Now the Irish press were complaining that we didn’t take our chances and that we should have won the game! I agreed with that assessment, but the criticism served to remind me that expectation in Ireland was now reaching a disturbing level.”
“It was an inauspicious enough start,” recalls Hamilton.
But a 1-0 win over Spain in late April changed everything. It was followed by a 2-0 victory over Malta one month later before the pivotal game in the group to determine second place – Ireland v Hungary, a 3pm kick-off on the first Sunday in June.
Paul McGrath broke the deadlock in the 33rd minute with a sweetly struck volley inside the box after an unconvincing clearing header by the visitors.
Packie Bonner pulled off a wonderful save in the second half and then, with nine minutes remaining, Ray Houghton got away with a push on a Hungarian defender before crossing for Tony Cascarino to nod home a very scrappy, very bobbly, very Irish goal.
“The ball bounced over and suddenly Cascarino has an empty net in front of him,” recalls Hamilton. “And that’s that, we’re going to Italy. That was the sense of it.”
Ireland would go on to beat Northern Ireland 3-0 before victory over Malta in their last game sealed the ticket to Italy. In truth, though, the fatal blow to Hungary’s qualification ambition was inflicted in Dublin.
Mick McCarthy was injured for the Hungary game but in his book, Captain Fantastic, he wrote: “I flew over for the match because I wanted to be part of things with the lads. The atmosphere in Dublin was something else.
“Tony Cascarino was rewarded for all his hard work in the previous games when he put the game beyond the Hungarians with a headed goal. Now the picture was somewhat different – five points out of eight. Here we go, here we go!”
Ireland had never beaten Hungary prior to that match – a winless record stretching back to the 1930s. But they have not lost to the Magyars now since 1969.
The road to Italia 90 had many twists and turns, but that victory over Hungary in June, 1989, has always felt like the moment a flag was planted, the day chests were puffed out in more than just blind hope.
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With Hungary vanquished, players and supporters started to truly believe the dream was about to become reality. Still, few could have predicted the transformative years that were ahead for both the team and the country.
As Peter Byrne summed up in his match report for The Irish Times the morning after the victory: “Hungary fell before the Republic of Ireland’s relentless march towards a place in the World Cup finals in Italy next summer. Million pound goals by Paul McGrath and Tony Cascarino produced a result which leaves Jack Charlton’s squad within touching distance of the prize which has captivated and cajoled teams from the Republic for more than 50 years.”
Twelve months later, history was made when nine of the same starting team walked out at Stadio Sant’Elia in Cagliari to play in the country’s first ever World Cup fixture. Ireland had arrived on football’s grandest stage, onlookers no longer.
The best of times.
Ireland team v Hungary; June 4th, 1989
Packie Bonner (Celtic), Chris Hughton (Tottenham), Steve Staunton (Liverpool), David O’Leary (Arsenal), Kevin Moran (Sporting Gijon), Andy Townsend (Norwich City), Paul McGrath (Manchester United), Ray Houghton (Liverpool), John Aldridge (Liverpool), Tony Cascarino (Millwall), Kevin Sheedy (Everton). Subs: Liam Brady (West Ham United), Chris Morris (Celtic)
