Yes there'll be some people telling us to let it go and we understand that because in all seriousness, we have (kind of). However, given that today, the 18th of November 2014, is the fifth anniversary of the most crushing moment in Irish football history, let us indulge in a spot of melancholia. Some of us here in the Balls office have decided to cast our minds back to that horrible night and we'd like you to do the same. Reply in the comments or on social media and let us know what you were doing and how it affected you.
If ever there was a piece that needed to start with 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,' it's this one.
Back in 2009 I was in college in Maynooth and on the day in question we had spent the afternoon playing astro turf. Any time my mind drifted to the upcoming match in Paris I was filled with nothing but pessimism. I didn't think we stood a chance.
However, my housemates brother had come up for the astro turf and to watch the match, and after a quick trip back home to get changed he drove us back to the SU, where we took up residence with what seemed like the entire population of Kildare. During the car ride he put Put 'Em Under Pressure on and rolled down all the windows. In the space of that ten minute journey I had gone thinking we wouldn't get a kick of it to being fully convinced we would not only qualify but would in fact go on to win the World Cup.
Inside the SU the good vibes multiplied. You could barely breath it was so packed but thanks to a lot weaving and so damn hard work, a group of about ten of us managed to take up a position right at the bar. From there we started bellowing out 'Who the fuck is Zidane, we've got Kevin Kilbane, na na na na' and the whole place started to hop. Over the next two hours or so I can safely say it escalated into what was for a while the best night of my life. There was so much joy; so much good will; just so many people looking absolutely delighted.
Then it happened.
The thing from the incident that has always stuck with me is the Shay Given's face; etched in absolute anguish. Every time I've seen him since my mind is cast back to that faithful night. The memory of Given sprinting after the referee and then the linesman, furiously banging his right hand of his left arm – a language of 'handball' that anyone could understand. Back in the SU our night was ruined. I battled on to continue the night out but most of it was spent with my head in my arms on bar. I wasn't the only in that position either.
Like many others I had little faith that the Irish team could recover from an agonising defeat to the flukiest of Nicolas Anelka goals two weeks earlier, so all I had wanted from the game was someone to go in hard on Lassana Diarra after his incredibly French comments to Keith Andrews on that same night.
I was in college during the day, and the idea was as soon as my last class finished at 5pm I would head to a friend's house with several others where we would drink and then go out on Harcourt Street to drown our sorrows. I noticed a strange buzz of optimism around UCD that day. Maybe it's because nobody gave a shit, but the negativity and dread I was feeling earlier had been replaced by cautious optimism by 5pm, and by kick-off time, I was ready for Ireland to trounce Les Bleus and march on to South Africa.
Eight of us crammed into a living room to watch the match via one of those one-for-all ariels you buy in a €2 shop, so quality wasn't optimal, but we could see the game. We were beside ourselves when we saw the performance the boys in green put in, and by extra-time we were trying to get in touch with our South African mate to see if he knew someone we could stay with next summer.
Then it happened.
I remember being completely numb. Some of the lads were cursing and punching the couch, I just sat there watching Shay Given and Keith Andrews shake their arms in futility. I couldn't believe it. The atmosphere had dropped so staggeringly, that when a friend (non-Irish and uninterested in football) arrived late to the party, he couldn't believe what he saw. It was like someone had died. I guarantee you will never forget the night he arrived to what he thought was pre-drinks before hitting Town, only to walk into a funeral with four cans of Dutch Gold and a naggin of vodka.
The game ended, more drinks were had, but at one stage before heading out someone put on 'High' by the Lighthouse Family and I just broke down. There's something about those opening notes that just compounded the misery. I never snapped out it, and while most of our crew had a decent night on the town, I wandered around Dicey's like a miserable zombie before cutting my night short and heading back to the house.
The next day my utter depression was replaced by feelings of pride. Pride in the performance, and pride in the team. We probably would have flaked out on the South Africa plans anyway.
We were seated upstairs in the Roost pub in Maynooth. The upstairs in the Roost is not closed off from the downstairs part, but overlooks it like a balcony. We sat there, having wolfed down a steak sandwich, peering down on the yobs in the terrace below. The big screen that hovered above them was eye-level with us.
Robbie Keane’s goal remains one of the greatest moments I’ve had watching Ireland. Not even the events of extra-time can obliterate the memory of it. I think this is because the goal produced a curious double-whammy type of celebration.
For the previous 40 minutes, there was a sense that Ireland’s good, positive play amounted to nothing more than a poignant last stand.
We went along thinking the game was going to be a formality. The final nail in our coffin. Then it turned into something entirely different.
When Robbie, with remarkable casualness, side-footed the ball home - I let out a strange, animalistic, elongated roar, everyone leapt up in the air, celebrated madly and then realised almost simultaneously ‘hang on, we’re still alive here. This is on!’
George Hamilton’s cry (though I didn’t hear it at the time with the sound of my own and everyone else’s roar) captured that mood perfectly.
‘And Ireland are level. In every sense!’
As the game wore on, Ireland continued to play with remarkable brio and assurance, but you got a strange sense of foreboding every time they spurned a chance. We’re going to pay for these misses later on.
Depressed after the goal went in, seeing that Henry had in fact handled the ball, made me curiously hopeful - the completely irrational thought struck that there was somehow some slight chance that this injustice be righted. I didn’t think this for very long (or at all) and realised the best we were likely to do was engage in orgasmic levels of outrage over this. That was no small thing at the time.
There were a bunch of French students, mainly girls, sitting at a table nearby. They started laughing and eyeing each other guiltily as the slow-motion replays began to be played on the screen.
I put a status on facebook to the effect that in Muslim countries they chop thieves hands off and that we could learn a lot from those countries. It got a respectable number of likes.
One of my facebook friends vowed to run over Henry with a car if he saw him.
Ultimately I wasn’t as disappointed as I should have been. Ireland had acquitted themselves so well on the night. For the first time in what felt like years, you could be proud of the Irish football team again.
A French girl came up to me later on outside Supermacs that she had run into the toilet and tried to run the French flag she had painted on her cheek off her face.
I rang my Dad at home to see what he made of it all. His reaction would have met with approval at the Ipswich Town press day.
I said ‘So, what did you think?’
‘What the hell was McShane at?
Every now and then you drift apart from good friends. It's not necessarily anyone's fault, it just happens. We learn to live with it and we move on. After a couple of years you look back and you can't really remember when or why it started happening. However, in this case, I can.
I wouldn't dare name the individual in question for fear of turning him into a pariah.
Down to the pub we went with little hope of anything other than the usual heroic defeat. Then it stared, Keith Andrews was Xavi, Glenn Whelan was Iniesta and we bossed the French for 90 minutes, at least that's how we all remember it.
We found the perfect environment, excited, friendly but with ample room for gesticulating wildly without knocking out everyone in the vicinity.
Keane scored and we were all set for added time. Hold out to penalties, that's all we wanted to see. Darkness. Head in hands darkness. Then came the rage. Beer mats flying like we were hoodlums in the hood (or something similarly menacing).
How? What? Why? All the questions but no rational answers.
We left the pub and we had to go home, no chance of heading into town after that. We popped into the chipper on the way, cursing Henry and all of his descendants, except for one of us. He was strangely silent and I not only noticed but I knew why.
There wasn't a name for it at that moment but we later came to realise he was an Henry sympathiser.
You see said friend was and is (probably, we haven't talked) an Arsenal fanatic and he loved Henry. Really loved Henry. We got back to the house and then it all came out. Perhaps he offered his opinion, perhaps I pressed him on it, but one way or another he said he understood why Henry did it and it wasn't his fault. Red rag meet bull. I couldn't take it. Do they still hang people for treason?
Sure we calmed down eventually and we talked after a couple of weeks but it was never the same again. When life put obstacles in our way we happily allowed them to stay that way and I'm sure it all stemmed from that night.
After all these years, I have come to forgive him, nay, I have come to understand his point of view. However, the divisions caused that night are probably too deep to repair. Things will never be the same again. Do you see what you've done Thierry.
