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SPORT: JOHN O'DONNELLreviews Lansdowne Road: The Stadium; the Matches; the Greatest Days, By Ger Siggins and Malachy Clerkin, O’Brien Press, 352pp. €17.99 and Lansdowne through the Years, By Edward Newman, Hachette Books Ireland, 289pp. €13.99
IN MARCH OF 1970, aged nine, I attended my first Five Nations match. I had no ticket. My father had given me a ten-shilling note – enough to buy five terrace tickets – in case I met a tout or was able to grease the palm of a turnstile attendant. My mother, alive to the possibility of biting winds, insisted I wear a pair of her black woollen tights. I loitered with intent but without success outside Lansdowne Road for hours beforehand. Three minutes before kick-off I ran into the brown coat of my father’s friend Dan Daly, a Sunday’s Well man. “What ails you, child?” he asked. When I explained he led me to a turnstile. “This little fella’s lost his ticket” he said, his huge hands (said never to have dropped a pass) lifting me up and over the stile. I was in. Against all odds, Ireland beat Wales 14-0, and I was hooked.
