Ireland manager Martin O'Neill spoke at the GAA Awards last night and told a tale of how some seats from Croke Park's old Nally Stand ended up in his garden.
O'Neill, who was managing Celtic at the time, was in Ireland for a preseason friendly against a League of Ireland team. His family was also in town and he decided to take them to see Croke Park. The stadium was being refurbished so he asked if it would be possible to acquire two of the seats as memorabilia as he had sat in the Nally with his mother while watching his brother play in 1958.
The Nally Stand end was being fixed. I went down to a couple of the workmen and they directed me to a fellow down by reception and I said to him 'I wonder, would you give me a couple of these seats, please? Or when you're taking them out you wouldn't save me two seats' because that's where I sat with my mother in 1958.
They were the old iron benches and they were numbered. So he said 'I will do'. Anyway, long story short I never heard anything for over a year, maybe 18 months. And then one day, my secretary at Celtic said there's a van just pulled up outside Celtic Park. This fella came in and said "Is there a Mr. O'Neill in here?". I said 'yeah, that's me'. He said 'I've got a bench for you out there'. I went out to see it and there was this bench with two seats, the numbers 32 and 33. Obviously not the seats that I sat on, I just can't remember but they did come from the Nally Stand.
As this minute they're in my garden. When winter comes in, they're the only thing that I lift out of the garden. I put them back in the shed again. I've had them painted three times back to their original colour. Because when we scraped it off, it was all the old green. They're absolutely pride of place.
I've written a will. My daughters I've excluded from everything. But the only thing that they're getting is the two seats from the Nally Stand.
via Independent.ie
