Playing the game from footballer to manager to TV pundit

VB: Were you surprised the finalists in the Champions League are Valencia and Bayern Munich?

JG: A little bit. Real Madrid and Manchester United were the favourites but the most important thing, I think, is the two teams who performed best got into the finals. My feelings at the moment would probably go with Valencia to win out because they've got a little bit more flair.

VB: Although they won the Premiership, there's a sense of disappointment in Manchester United about their season.

JG: Well, I think so because the Champions League is now the major competition. But they did win the Premiership by a mile, which is a big achievement.

VB: Do you have a sense that Manchester United has gone off from its form of two seasons ago when it won everything?

JG: Well, it's only gone off relatively speaking, because next season the likes of Leeds, Liverpool, Arsenal, still have to catch them, and Manchester United, I think, at the start of the League will be favourites to win it again. I don't think there's a crisis there by any means as some people have suggested.

VB: What do you think they need to do? You suggested, for instance, they should sell David Beckham.

JG: Well I would (if I were manager). I don't think there's an awful lot wrong with the personnel at Old Trafford but I think the relatively easy way they have achieved success in the domestic league has made them a bit complacent. They will make a couple of signings, bring in some new blood and it will give them a new impetus for next season. But in the Beckham case, which is a separate thing, I would sell him. I would get the money and get a couple of high-class players instead of Beckham.

VB: Why Beckham?

JG: I think there's an uneasy relationship with Alex Ferguson and Beckham, that's my guess. I don't think Beckham has performed this season. I don't think he's played with the passion and the hunger he should have.

VB: Alex Ferguson said in an interview towards the end of the season that the best player in Britain was Roy Keane. Do you agree with him?

JG: I do. I think he's been the most influential player. VB: Did you enjoy your period as a football manager? JG: No. I never enjoyed management.

VB: Did you not enjoy your first stint at West Brom?

JG: No.

VB: Why not? You did very well.

JG: Well there's a difference between doing well and enjoying it. I didn't enjoy management generally because you're responsible to too many people: players, directors, press, supporters. I wake up most days thanking the man above that I'm not in it.

VB: But you were very committed to it, you went to West Brom after Leeds and then you went to Vancouver, and then you came back to Shamrock Rovers. There were great plans for Shamrock Rovers.

JG: Well, I felt I could do it. It was also my living and it was the only way I knew to make a living. So I had to do something. When you're doing the job, you have to be committed to it, but I never enjoyed it.

VB: Did you make much money in football?

JG: No. Well, little or nothing. When I played football, we got good wages but you couldn't accumulate any money. I never made more than £12,000 a year at Leeds in peak years. We had a Labour government for a few of those years and you couldn't accumulate money. (Laughs). You don't believe me do you?

VB: I do, yeah. Did you consider doing anything other than football?

JG: No. I couldn't do anything else.

VB: Why?

JG: I went into football when I was 15. It was the thing I knew best, it was the only thing I was really qualified to do.

VB: You could have become qualified.

JG: Well, maybe I was too lazy to do it.

VB: How did you get into being a commentator?

JG: It happened by accident. When I finished football at West Brom, I did have a few bob, I had been to Vancouver. I made a few bob there, I wasn't too badly off. The commentary thing came by accident in 1986. I wasn't doing anything and it was the time of the World Cup. Eamon Dunphy was doing the World Cup for RTE and he suggested that I could do something on the World Cup. I think people at RTE weren't too keen on it. I had the reputation as a manager of being very close, of never giving anything away. I wouldn't say anything.

VB: Did you ever think of going into politics?

JG: No. I wouldn't be devious enough for that.

VB: I don't know about that. Anyway, have you enjoyed the commentating role?

JG: Yeah. I've quite enjoyed it. When I started, it was for the summer only and I took it fairly light-heartedly. After that they were doing live matches, and Tim O'Connor [head of sports at RTE] suggested that I would do the odd commentary on the live matches. I quite enjoyed it. I don't find it hard work, you know.

VB: Have you made much money out of it?

JG: A living.

VB: Of course, you write for the Express and the Evening Standard.

JG: I do a few things. I make a reasonable living. I do a bit for the Herald and a bit for the Express and the television. Between them all, it's been very good to me in the years that I hadn't planned to be doing anything in the media.

VB: Have you found just the exclusive concentration on football limiting in your life?

JG: My interests are not exclusively football. They were exclusively football when I was in it and in management. When I played, I didn't want anything else but football. It consumed me in my life, and I didn't want it any other way. But when I got older and matured a bit, football didn't mean as much to me as it did when I was younger and playing. I wanted then the freedom to do what I wanted to with my own life, just the freedom.

VB: What's that?

JG: It doesn't have to be anything. It's the freedom to get up in the morning to do what I want to do, rather than being responsible to so many people in a job, as in football management.

VB: Do you think Ireland will qualify for the World Cup next year? We have drawn away against Holland and Portugal and have won our other matches, but we are not in the same league as Holland or Portugal, and it seems implausible that we will make it at the expense of these.

JG: Well, we've got a good chance. If we were in such a different league, we should have been hammered by Holland, we should have been hammered by Portugal. In fact, when we went to Holland, we should have beat Holland. So, it sets us up. You've got home matches to come against both of them and it puts you in with a good chance.

VB: There isn't much quality in the Irish team, apart from Roy Keane. That's about it really nowadays, isn't it?

JG: Well, they don't have the players that they had under Big Jack, that's for sure. They had a lot of good players, a lot of very good players under Jack but, you know, you can make up a team. That's the most important thing. I don't think anybody expects them to be as good as players like Liam Brady and Ronnie Whelan and Paul McGrath and those people. You can only do what you have with the players at a particular time. But the fact is that it now comes down to the Holland and Portugal matches in Dublin. The record in Dublin is very good against any opposition so that's why they're in with a chance.

VB: Do you see your colleagues in the old Leeds team much nowadays?

JG: I see them now and again but not as much as we should see each other. You know, we talk about getting together and then six months go by, 12 months go by. There are a few coming over on the 25th of June because I put my name to a charity thing to raise money for Home Farm in a golf classic in the summer. I think Norman Hunter and Peter Lorrimer, probably Eddie Gray, maybe Alan Clarke will be coming over for that.

VB: What happened that team, where are they now?

JG: David Harvey is up in the wilds of Scotland. He always wanted to go into farming. Paul Medley is in Leeds. Paul was in a family business in DIY and sold out a few years ago for a few million. Paul Reaney is in Leeds, he does a bit of coaching. Gerry Cooper has just retired, or semi-retired to live in, I think, Tenerife. Big Jack you know about, he lives up in Newcastle. Norman Hunter does a lot of afterdinner speaking and radio work. He lives in Leeds. Billy [Bremner] unfortunately, as you know, very sadly passed away three years ago. Peter Lorrimer runs a pub in Leeds. Alan Clarke works for an industrial cleaning company in Scunthorpe. Mick Jones is near Sheffield, back in his hometown, he's not doing an awful lot. Eddie Gray is at Leeds. Mick Bates, who played for us, works for Allied Dunbar. Joe Jordan is assistant manager at Huddersfield, Gordon McQueen is at Middlesboro. That's about it.

We did get together about 18 months ago, they had a do at Leeds where they were going through the history of the club and they had votes out to pick the best ever Leeds team, so they had a lot of old players back, before my time even, such as John Charles and then up to Gordon Strachan and Garry McAllister. All our lads turned up that night and that's the first time we had been all together for a long time.

VB: Were you picked on the best Leeds team ever?

JG: I was, yeah. I wasn't too bothered but it was nice.

VB: Did most of those fellows have happy lives afterwards?

JG: Well I think so. They were very good lads and very good characters. I think all of us could have done with a few bob. There's no bitterness from the lads or anything like that. They enjoyed their time together.

VB: I remember you saying one time that as a player you were surprised to note how often other players didn't bother with what they were good at, and continually got into positions which exposed their weaknesses.

JG: I tell you what I found with great players - they knew what they could do and had the confidence to do it but, more importantly, they knew what they couldn't do, so they didn't try to do it. Now the bad players always tried to do what they couldn't do. So, obviously in the end, they make a b . . . . . . s of it!

VB: It's true of life generally, isn't it?

JG: Well, I haven't had as much experience in the business life, but from what I can gather, it seems to be the biggest failure in business life as well as in football. People insist on proving that they are good at what they are bad at, and ignoring what they are good at.