Fantastic story from the Irish Independent as Eamon Dunphy tells the tale of Irish football's 'special relationship' with the Poles in the 1960s.
An FAI official who Dunphy held in high regard (he referred to him throughout as a "rural Irish arsehole." Quite why the word "rural" was so important here is not known and has annoyed some commenters on the article) was seen busily negotiating "a deal" with a young Polish woman.
He eventually succeeded in purchasing her the princely sum of a "bottle of scotch and 200 Marlboros."
Dunphy and his compadres Joe Kinnear and, you guessed it, Johnny Giles, observed this and said to each other "C'mon lads, lets fuck him up"
The Indo takes up the story
They got the man's room number and rang the phone. In broken English, Dunphy asked to speak to his "girlfriend" and the FAI official "panicked" and put the girl on the line.
"Whatever he's giving you, we'll pay more," Dunphy told her, arranging to meet her at the lift on the fifth floor.
"His door opened and the girl emerged carrying her 'wages': a bottle of duty-free Scotch and 200 Marlboro. As she hastened towards us, your man appeared naked except for his open shirt.
"As he began to chase the girl down the corridor looking to retrieve his swag, the little bastard spotted us laughing at him," writes Dunphy.
"We gave the girl 50 dollars and saw her safely into the night," he adds.
Dunphy noted elsewhere in the article that "Ireland played Poland six times between 1964 and 1970. All the games were friendlies. The remarkable frequency of our trips to Poland did not go unnoticed in the soccer community."
