Gary Doherty knows nothing about group masturbation sessions in Nigeria. That was the main takeaway from the Team 33 interview with the ex-centre half/centre forward this week.
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Some of you may recall Richie Sadlier telling Second Captains of a competition which took place in Nigeria during the U20 World Cup in 1999.
Nigeria, by all accounts, did not have much to offer a bunch of young lads in terms of diversion. There were no mobiles, there was no English speaking channels, no laptops and no internets, and calling home was an ordeal and a half. One had to fork out a medium sized fortune for a three-minute phone call home. They couldn't leave the hotel.
They were forced to get creative. This is, after all, how all sports are invented. Their original game of trying to hit a ribena bottle with a golf ball - they were lucky enough to have a putter with them - got old after a fortnight.
One of the lads suggested a competition whereby - as Richie put it - 'we pleasure ourselves and the fella who can complete the job first is the winner'.
Richie painted himself as a quasi-conscientious objector to the proposal, remarking that he and another player left the room before the starter pistols were fired in this epic battle.
But he was still able to confirm that the event did indeed take place.
Doherty, also a veteran of that World Cup, protested his ignorance of the episode. He did so strenuously and with great ferocity.
No, no, I wasn't anything to do with that. I can imagine it because that was how bad it was over in Nigeria. We had no TVs or no electronic stuff ... I don't know nothin' about that no! I thought it was going to be a drinking game because I remember we were drinking the Nigerian beer out there.
Gary's defence had a ring of honesty about it. We can cross his name off the list of potential participants. The hunt for the men involved goes on. Given the code of omerta which exists among most old boys outfits, we only reach the identity of the involved parties by a process of elimination.
Gary painted Nigeria as a dangerous place where boredom was mandated by the armed presence.
The beer was strong. But it needed to be because there wasn't much going on in Nigeria at that time. And we were kinda locked away. There were armed guards outside your door. It was quite a dangerous country to be in at that time. So, that was quite frightening actually for eighteen or nineteen years old. We had to get from the airport to the hotel under an arm guard. It was six hours and we weren't allowed stop. You had to wee into bottles and stuff just cos of the kind of danger you were in.
Doherty was born in Carndonough in Donegal - also, a place where Tommy Tiernan spent a portion of his youth - before he left for Luton aged six.
We moved to Luton which has a huge Irish population. Of my mates at school, half of them supported Ireland and half of them supported England. So, there was quite a good rivalry growing up. Any kid growing up. You love your country and you love your football and you love seeing the football.
Doherty scored his first goal for Ireland on a flooded Lansdowne Road pitch in a pre-World Cup friendly against the USA. It wasn't sufficient to win him a ticket to Japan. However, he would become a borderline ever present in the Brian Kerr, emerging as the top scorer in Ireland's Euro 2004 qualification campaign.
However, he would become a borderline ever present in the Brian Kerr era, emerging as the top scorer in Ireland's Euro 2004 qualification campaign. Still, the Kerr reign is a source of some regret.
With the aftertaste of Saipan still lingering, Ireland's 2004 campaign was doomed from the opening two matches, a loss in Moscow and, even more damagingly, a home defeat against Switzerland. McCarthy departed and Kerr faced a tough challenge in resurrecting our qualification hopes.
In the mid-noughties, Ireland boasted Premier League players in every position, had attackers in their prime and benefitted from a returning Roy Keane. Still, a horrible and somewhat surreal group caused them to miss out on Germany 2006.
I remember the Brian Kerr era. We had a great team. We had all Premier League players. But I guess other teams were just a little bit stronger than us. I remember losing out in Swtizerland in one game. And probably not many of their players would have got in our team. I don't know... maybe the fans got them through but... I don't know where Ireland were missing out because we had very good players in every position. We had goalscorers, we had good centre-halves, we had a great goalkeeper. To look back at it, it was a very disappointing time.
Doherty retired from football at the end of 2014. He is currently working on getting his coaching badges.
Listen to the interview below:
