Soccer

'You coulda been a hero...' Ray Houghton, Jack Charlton and that night at Wembley

12 June 1988; Republic of Ireland's Ray Houghton, right, celebrates his goal with team-mates Ronnie Whelan, left, as John Aldridge and Paul McGrath run to join the celebrations, while England's, from left to right, Neil Webb, goalkeeper Peter Shilton, Tony Adams, captain Bryan Robson, John Barnes and Kenny Samson claim for an offside.
12 June 1988; Republic of Ireland's Ray Houghton, right, celebrates his goal with team-mates Ronnie Whelan, left, as John Aldridge and Paul McGrath run to join the celebrations, while England's, from left to right, Neil Webb, goalkeeper Peter Shil 12 June 1988; Republic of Ireland's Ray Houghton, right, celebrates his goal with team-mates Ronnie Whelan, left, as John Aldridge and Paul McGrath run to join the celebrations, while England's, from left to right, Neil Webb, goalkeeper Peter Shilton, Tony Adams, captain Bryan Robson, John Barnes and Kenny Samson claim for an offside.

HE sipped his beer at the back of the room and kept his head down among the throng of people who were coming down from the high of a breathless match.

He didn’t dare look at the doors but when he heard them burst open he just knew that Jack Charlton had arrived.

“Where is he?” demanded the Republic of Ireland manager.

No-one spoke, they all just looked towards Ray Houghton.

Big Jack had won the World Cup here (at Wembley) in 1966, he’d won the Cup with Leeds too and his Ireland team has just battered Graham Taylor’s England so, as far as he was concerned, he could say what he bloody well liked.

He started talking before he started walking.

“How the hell did you miss that?”

RAY Houghton still plays it over in his mind. ‘It’ isn’t his winner against England at Euro 88 or the audacious volley that drifted so perfectly into the Italy net in the 1994 World Cup opener at Giants Stadium.

His goals in Stuttgart and New Jersey will be certain starters in Republic of Ireland highlights reels long after he’s gone but there’s a chance that came between them, one that got away, that Houghton will agonise over until his dying day.

‘Och, why didn’t I just put my foot through it?’

On March 27, 1991 (30 years ago today) the Republic of Ireland travelled the short distance to London to meet England at Wembley in a qualifier for the 1992 European Championships in Sweden and produced arguably their best performance of the Charlton era.

Only eight countries (the seven group winners plus the hosts) made the finals of the Euros back then, so the game was a do-or-die duel that pitted past or present team-mates from Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal against each other.

The teams had drawn 1-1 in their first meeting at Lansdowne Road but the Republic’s 5-0 hammering of Turkey meant they topped the group on goal difference when they walked out onto the perfect pitch.

For a generation brought up on watching FA finals, Wembley was ultimate and before kick-off the Ireland players regarded themselves as favourites.

“We were in good form and our form had been good for a while,” recalls Houghton, born and bred in Glasgow until his Donegal-born father took the family to live in London when he was 12.

“The confidence really came into that team when we went to Hampden and beat Scotland 1-0 (in 1987) and from then on we were a difficult team to play against. If you look at our results, they were very good.

“At that stage we didn’t fear anyone and we were going there (to Wembley) for the win. We weren’t hoping we were going to win – we were thinking: ‘We can win this’. The mentality had really changed from where we were when we first got together with Jack. By that stage we were really confident in our abilities.”

Lee Dixon sent England (semi-finalists in the World Cup the previous summer) ahead early on with a jammy goal that ricocheted off Steve Staunton’s knee past Packie Bonner but from then on the Republic had the upper hand. Charlton’s put-em-under-pressure doctrine was made for nights like this and the Republic battered their hosts, launching ball after ball into the England box.

The pressure was relentless. Peerless Paul McGrath and Andy Townsend provided the heart in midfield and out on the flanks Kevin Sheedy and Houghton produced the art.

McGrath had a shot cleared off the line, Kevin Moran hit the post but the equaliser finally came with clinical quality. Houghton passed to McGrath who swung the ball into the penalty area where Niall Quinn, unmarked, side-footed it precisely, almost casually, past Peter Shilton and wheeled away in delight, doing windmills with his right arm.

The tackles flew in. McGrath nobbled his Man United mate Bryan Robson and then Moran did the same but Houghton insists there was “no real aggro” between the teams.

“We knew each other inside out, the two groups’ of players knew each other’s game,” he says.

“There was a load of Liverpool boys (Peter Beardsley, John Barnes and Mark Wright for England and Houghton, Steve Staunton and John Aldridge for Ireland) in both sides and things like that, so there was no animosity.

“The English knew they were in for a game. We proved it at Euro ’88 and at the World Cup in ’90 (1-1 draw) and then we had played them earlier on in the group stage at Lansdowne – they had gone 1-0 up and ‘Cass’ (Tony Cascarino) scored the equaliser.

“England were finding us a bit of a bogey team at that stage – they were finding us a bit of a struggle but I don’t think they anticipated how well we would play.

“There was a spell for about 10 minutes when they hardly got a kick of the ball – it was just pure pressure and when they did (get the ball) they were kicking it straight back to us.”

A no-nonsense centre-half in his playing days, Charlton would have applauded the high press most teams play with today but he would not have tolerated any attempt to play the ball out from the back. In his teams everything went long and defenders were given a clear safety-first brief: clear your lines first and worry about it afterwards.

“We weren’t going to play the ball around at the back – that wasn’t our game,” says Houghton.

“It was all pressure, a bit like teams today where they press high up the pitch and win the ball back in good areas and then play from there. That was our brief and we were very good at it.

“We closed down as a group, not as individuals – one would go and we’d all go in together and it worked really well. Jack’s words were always the same: ‘Believe in yourselves, go out there and do your jobs’. There were no grey areas with Jack, it was black and white: ‘This is what I want you to do, this is what I don’t want you to do’ and it was as simple as that and we carried out that plan.”

But Houghton says it wasn’t all “punt and run”. Charlton insisted on no-nonsense in Ireland’s half but he encouraged his players to express themselves in the final third.

“When you won the ball, you could do what you wanted,” says Houghton.

“In your defensive third and the midfield third he was very clear about what you did but up front you could do what you wanted – I used to try shots from anywhere! He would never tell you off, you could do what you liked in the final third. He was a little bit easier on the attacking players than he was on the others.”

WELL into the second half and the Republic were still in command. The breakthrough they deserved hadn’t come but it seemed only a matter of time until it did. Then McGrath curled another ball into the box and Tony Cascarino nodded it down on the edge of the penalty area.

Houghton timed his run perfectly, his silky smooth touch took him through on goal and, from near the penalty spot, he struck the ball with the inside of his right foot.

Time stands still. Shilton dives to his left, clutching.

Fans rise off their seats, waiting for the net to bulge.

Ahhhhhhhhh…

Then.

Ohhhhhhhhh….

The ball drifted just past the post.

“I can remember it now,” says Houghton.

“I made a great run through the middle to get into the position and when I got the ball all sorts of things go through your head. What I wanted to do was just nestle it in the bottom corner.

“I wanted to keep it away from the keeper and put it in the corner but, in hindsight, I should have just smashed it.”

With his head in his hands, Charlton cursed his luck. Opportunities to beat England at Wembley are few and far between and he feared the Republic had missed a golden chance. He was right. The Boys in Green continued to push and press but England held out to scrape a 1-1 draw.

Houghton knew well he’d get “some stick” from Charlton afterwards but he managed to stay out of his eye-line as he walked off the pitch and into the dressingroom.

“He didn’t catch my eye – he didn’t see me, he couldn’t get me,” says Houghton, who returned to Wembley the following year to win the FA Cup with Liverpool.

The Liverpool star had a dip in the bath and got dressed… Still nothing from his manager but he knew it was coming and he knew he’d have to take it on the chin.

“You have to front it up,” he says.

“I went up to the players’ lounge – my wife was there and some of my family members – and I had a pint waiting for me. I was drinking my pint and I had this sixth sense, I could sense that there was something wrong but I couldn’t work out what it was.

“Then the doors at the back of the lounge banged open and there was the manager, big Jack. His neck was throbbing, you could see the veins popping and he only had eyes for me. He came over to me and he says: ‘You coulda been a hero again! How the hell did you miss that?’

“There were hundreds of people in the room and he gave me a bit of stick. I remember my missus saying to me: ‘Are you going to let him talk to you like that?’ I just said: ‘After that miss he can say whatever he wants’.

“But he said in a funny way: ‘You coulda been a hero…’ It was just the way he said it. He said his piece and then he just went and had a pint with the rest of us, that’s the way he was, he was carefree.

“He knew it was a game we should have won but there was no malice in what he said to me – he said it in a nice way, in a funny way.

“I should have scored and I could have been a hero. Jack knew the importance of it against one of our rivals in the group. Even now I still think back on it and I think: ‘If only…’ If that had gone in new would have gone on to qualify for Euro 92.

“There are iconic games that you remember, they stand out in your mind, and that was one of them. I played over 700 games professionally and that’s not including internationals (73) and I can hardly remember a lot of them. But I remember that England game!”

A POINT gained or a point lost? Ultimately it was the latter. The Republic didn’t lose a game in that qualifying campaign but a pair of draws with Poland – 0-0 in Dublin and then 3-3 in Poznan after they’d let a 3-1 lead slip – cost them dear.

England won the group with nine points (the Republic finished on eight) and went on to the finals which proved to be a debacle for manager Graham Taylor. Houghton is confident Ireland would have done better.

“We didn’t lose a game in that group but we still didn’t qualify,” he says.

“When you’ve played so well and you just didn’t get over the line it is tough to take.

“That was back in the day when there were only eight teams in it and you had to win your group. It was very elite and you had to do something special to get there but we had been there in 1988 and we’d been to the World Cup so we knew what tournament football was about.

“We were a strong unit around that time. A lot of the players were at the right age – around 29-30 – so we were experienced players who knew the game and knew the system that Jack wanted and we played it well.

“When you get a taste of big competitions and you find out what it’s like to go and play in them, you’re thinking: ‘Right, when’s this next tournament? We’re up for that’. Tournament football is great, it’s great for the players, it’s great for the country and you’re putting Ireland on the map on the football side of things.

“So when I watched England at the 1992 Euros I was thinking: ‘That should be us’. We were as good, if not better, than them at the time. We missed out, we all thought that.

“That night people saw the football we could play and the chances we created… I think we got a bit of respect from that night at Wembley. I think people would watch that now and say: ‘You know what, they weren’t a bad team’.

“The game sticks out in my mind for the way we played and also for the miss – the miss was huge.”

Two out of three ain’t bad Ray.