This will be one instance when the modern FAI won’t be lambasted for reverting to old habits.
From 1985 in the case of Jack Charlton to Giovanni Trapattoni all of 23 years later, five Ireland managers in a row were announced in the first six weeks of the calendar year.
For the last two appointments, Martin O’Neill followed by the combo of Mick McCarthy and Stephen Kenny, November was the month for the big reveals but the tradition of Christmas mystique around the biggest job in Irish sport returned for this latest vacancy.
The FAI remain on course to have their new man named by February. A scheduled board meeting on January 30 represents the date for a name to be delivered and rubberstamped with the UEFA Nations League draw nearing the following week but that won’t preclude the timeframe tilting should the preferred candidate be decided upon and terms agreed sooner.
A modern anthology of Ireland managerial anointments applies a health warning to cementing specific dates. Ballot chicanery, the Son of Jack, Alex Ferguson denials, mystery benefactors, kingmakers, Saipan rapprochement and succession planning are just some of terms worthy of entry into the lexicon when it comes to past recruitment crusades. And how could we forget Philippe Troussier.
Even against the team’s current low ebb, a special place is reserved for public interest in the identity of the person spearheading the Ireland side.
History has decreed it’s seldom straightforward, between the delays from knockbacks and shadowboxing.
Here’s the last six bouts of purgatory, one lasting almost four months and the last time delivering two managers for, literally, the same price as their predecessor.
Following in the footsteps of Ireland’s greatest manager constituted a mammoth task so why not maintain a degree of continuity by installing his Captain Fantastic, known in pejorative terms as his clone? Mick McCarthy had started his managerial career at Millwall, leading the Championship team to the playoffs, but he wasn’t necessarily first-choice.
“The first priority is to define the job we want done and then look at the people most likely to meet the requirements,” an FAI spokesperson said as January creeped around. “Things tended to be done the other way round in the past, but this was as good a time as any to change.”
Notions of grandeur had engulfed the FAI, perhaps due to three major tournament qualifications and peaking at seventh in the world, so the aspirational among the hierarchy had Kenny Dalglish and Joe Kinnear in their sights.
The latter’s club, Wimbledon, may not have achieved their desire of relocating to Dublin but the former Ireland defender could if he wished to activate a release clause in his contract. Money, or the lack of it, apparently cooled the interest of Eamon Dunphy’s nominee for the job, leaving the FAI with a straight shootout between two of Charlton’s alumni, Kevin Moran and McCarthy.
Dicing with democracy was once again the preferred decision-making method. Unlike the Charlton appointment in 1985, when contortions within the 19-man FAI council scuppered a tap-in for favourite Bob Paisley, it was six blazers entrusted with this call.
They were five officers – Louis Kilcoyne (president), Pat Quigley, Michael Hyland and Des Casey (vice president), Joe Delaney (treasurer) – along with late addition Finbar Flood.
The unexpected absence of one proved pivotal, for with his backing Moran would have prevailed due to the casting vote of President Louis Kilcoyne. Rather, McCarthy edged it 3-2, cueing up awkward Son of Jack questions as the opening salvo of his unveiling at Lansdowne Road.
As with McCarthy’s arrival – 1996 featured the The Night of the Long Knives – his successor was coming into the employ of an association deep in turmoil.
Saipan and the World Cup six months earlier highlighted deficiencies which led to the Genesis Report but also left the team without its best player in Roy Keane and McCarthy ultimately fighting a losing battle with supporters.
In their quest to ditch the incestuous tag, outside expertise was sought for this headhunting mission but the oddities began with the FAI’s selection – ex-Northern Ireland player and manager Bryan Hamilton.
He had left them high and dry by retreating from the Technical Director’s job on the eve of an introductory press conference His brief entailed scouring the UK and beyond for exploratory talks with a list of contenders stretching to midteens in volume and by mid-January furnished his shortlist.
Kevin Moran was back in the frame, his Manchester United links cited as potentially helpful to a Keane return but his former teammate Bryan Robson held supremacy on that front.
Eventually, though, their guru was hiding in plain sight, for Brian Kerr emerged from the final interview process with the contract.
Joe Delaney had backed the wrong horse in the previous search by voting for Moran and his son John also didn’t get his way when plumping for Robson.
Support from Milo Corcoran and Kevin Fahy shaded the three-way battle but at least the feelgood factor around a home-produced boss distracted from the heat the Treasurer was under over his role in McCarthy’s World Cup bonus.
Step forward Delaney, by now atop the greasy pole of officialdom as FAI chief executive. With Kerr dismissed after just one full campaign came the grandiose declarations of world-class managers and a four-year plan to boot. Instead, they settled on a supremo whose coaching CV reached a crescendo of assistant boss to Paul Merson at third-tier Walsall.
It had all begun with the misplaced idea of landing Martin O’Neill. His wife Geraldine’s cancer diagnosis curtailed his golden spell at Celtic but the allure of a national job came too soon for the Derry man.
There was also a link to Alex Ferguson, then in-situ as Manchester United overlord. Delaney never shied from describing Fergie as a ‘good friend of mine’ but the speculation, fuelled by what the Scot insisted was his player Denis Irwin, being misquoted, was dismissed in Manchester rather than Dublin.
Gone was the ‘Hamilton’ approach for a more direct outlook, according to Delaney, but as time ticked by it was evident he was plunging through the alphabet in plan sequence. That Frenchman, Troussier, required little invitation to abseil into the dwindling field. “It makes it even more of a victory for me that my name is being linked with this job,” said he, without any evidence of any substantive link to the job.
It was romance of an altogether persuasion when Delaney rocked up at the Bescot Stadium to hammer out a compensation package you could fit in a standard envelope to secure Ireland’s first centurion. Ominously the accord was brokered for Friday 13th newspapers, seeing Staunton share the front page with a ‘look-no-touch’ headline about Pete Stringfellow’s expansion into Dublin.
The great JD possessed an ability of foreseeing flak for plucking a novice and so lined up the inveterate Bobby Robson as minder for Stan, who asserted his authority in the Mansion House on that cold afternoon with his ‘I’m the Gaffer’ proclamation.
Albeit not for long.
“It’s unfortunate that I’ve been personally linked to the appointment when there was a sub-committee of three that made it and it was ratified by the board of the FAI, which is a committee of 10,” said John Delaney on the unmitigated disaster that was Stan’s spell. An arm’s-length span for plausible deniability marked the corrective action for his next tilt.
Abominations like the results in Cyprus and San Marino meant Delaney had a reputation to repair and swathes of premium seats to shift in the coming years, heightening the importance of getting this exercise right.
Unbeknown to the public at the time, billionaire telecoms tycoon Denis O’Brien was so aghast at the hammering in Nicosia that he contacted Delaney to offer financial support to attract the next manager.
That bolstered the salary on offer into the Premier League realm but the first boss from that gene pool to be approached, Paul Jewell, spurned the opportunity.
John Giles had made the running on Delaney’s behalf but as time weeks turned into months, they normalised the ‘Kingmakers’ cult by nominating caretaker boss Don Givens, along with Don Howe and eventually Ray Houghton to survey the market.
That bought time to overlook the lack of white smoke but the target date of the February friendly against Brazil came and went without the royalty fitting a crown, much to the chagrin of players like Shay Given, whose opinions were elicited by Delaney in Cardiff two months earlier.
Various names occupied the favourite’s pouch; Gerard Houllier, then working as the French FA technical director, was prominent for a few weeks while the candidature of Terry Venables was pressed, earning endorsement from Robbie Keane and Damien Duff.
El Tel, though, was no match was El Del and the plea for patience as the media were camped outside a board meeting in Citywest was vindicated by the ferocious force of Trapattoni gusting from leftfield.
Liam Brady was crucial in persuading the Italian legend to go green at the age of 68 and an exclusive on February 11 confirmed the coup on its front page. Waiting until May for Trap’s release from Red Bull Salzburg wasn’t an obstacle.
A disappointing and pointless return to the European Championship finals stage in 2012, compounded by the humiliation of a 6-1 home defeat to Germany at the start of the World Cup, ensured Trap’s days were numbered and recruitment race kickstarted early.
Brian McDermott, born to Irish parents, had won admirers in Abbotstown for the job he’d overseen at Reading and was in the frame early in 2013 yet O’Neill was the standout across the board. The only surprise was his choice of assistant.
Sunken into history was the Three Amigo model of the previous trawl, although Delaney favourite Houghton was back on the books, flanking newly-appointed High Performance Director Ruud Dokter in devising and refining the list.
In reality, that list contained one name and the job was O’Neill’s to turn down. That he didn’t do but neither did he say yes, opting to stall and analyse before accepting a package that rivalled Trapattoni’s original wages before FAI cutbacks arising from ticket sale shortages were shared.
Into the void during that wait wandered a couple of wacky entrants, among them the Italian goalkeeper Ireland faced at the 1990 World Cup, Walter Zenga, but the unavailability of former teammate John Robertson to renew their 16-year connection as manager and assistant didn’t deter O’Neill from belatedly accepting the invite Delaney tabled over dinner.
On the Friday of the October long weekend, news emerged of Roy Keane slipping into the Robertson berth, dredging up Delaney’s part in the Corkman’s pre-World Cup walkout on a certain Pacific island. That murky past was parked, if not resolved, in the name of the greater good as a new era loomed.
The swiftest and sharpest turnaround of them all carried a trademark Delaney stunt into the bargain.
Similar to Trap, the showbiz veneer of O’Neill and Keane gradually waned over a grim 2018, with the anger again turning on the chief executive. Protest flags being confiscated upon entry to the Aarhus stadium in Denmark where the reign ceased spiked tensions.
A petition calling for the end of Delaney’s 13-year term attracted over 7,700 signatures, while an online poll by supporters group You Boys In Green gleaned 94% from over 2,500 respondents called for him to be replaced.
By the following weekend, Delaney was sitting in Lansdowne Road gleaming at unfurling not one, but two, managers. Subsequent leaked board meeting notes indicated Robbie Keane was proposed to comeback king Mick McCarthy as assistant on the basis of eventual promotion but the hardball tactics employed by League of Ireland favourite, Stephen Kenny, guaranteed him to be heir apparent in a succession plan once his schooling as U21 chief concluded.
Dokter, still around the building, accorded this farrago his blessing and, as had become customary traced back to the halcyon Charlton era, the instant gratification of a new but familiar voice in the dressing room and before the cameras detracted from the systemic failings of the Irish football industry.