Just what good friends are for

Details of some of the problems that former Irish defender Paul McGrath had to endure during his international career were revealed yesterday morning by former Irish manager Jack Charlton.

Speaking on the Marian Finucane Show on RTE Radio, Charlton explained the great lengths to which he and other team members, notably captain Andy Townsend, went to protect the gifted but wayward player from himself and potential media scandals. McGrath fought against a serious drink problem for many years.

His unusual talent and his immense value to the Irish team was illustrated in a number of ways by the former manager, many of the incidents involving a great number of people co-ordinating their efforts.

During a trip taken by the Irish team prior to the 1994 World Cup in the USA, the defender, according to Charlton, was taken off the pitch during an international match because he was drunk.

"I saw him in a game in a little tour we went on in America before the World Cup," said Charlton. "We were watching the match and I said, `What's up with Paul McGrath?"

"One of the lads said to me he'd had a few drinks on the plane. He said we'd tried to keep him away from it but we couldn't do it."

"He's still drunk here," I said. "Get him off."

"You could see it on the pitch. It's one of the only times in my life that I hadn't cottoned on. He must have stayed out of my way, never caught my eye 'coz he'd got on the pitch and he was . . . gone."

Charlton went on to describe the extraordinary co-operation he received by both the Garda and Aer Lingus in keeping track of McGrath. "Paul would fly in from Manchester or Leeds to Dublin," said Charlton. "We'd be expecting him to fly in from Birmingham (where his club, Aston Villa, were based). When we were expecting him to fly in from Birmingham he'd fly from Manchester coz he'd know we'd have someone to meet him at the airport.

"We asked Aer Lingus to inform us what flight he was on so we'd meet him at the plane and get him to the hotel before he could go out with his friends."

Although the Irish team management and players at the time were regularly afforded special status, a spokesman for Aer Lingus confirmed yesterday that this practice of naming individuals on particular flights arriving into Dublin is strictly against their rules.

"It shouldn't happen," said Aer Lingus official, Declan Conroy. "We're fairly black and white about it. The only channel we would have for making the exception is if there was a family bereavement or something." Charlton, who managed Ireland for 10 years to enormous success in both European competition and at the World Cup finals in 1990 and 1994, also spoke of the gifted McGrath simply disappearing, prompting team members to rally round. "Andy Townsend summed it up. Paul had disappeared," said Charlton. "Andy said we were all going to get him back - because he wouldn't come back with anyone except the players. "Andy said, `Don't worry, it's as much in our interest to have him back playing for us as it is for you. We were a better team when we'd a good, sober, understanding Paul McGrath than when we'd someone over the limit'. "The police were tremendous. They went out and found him one night. The players then went out and got him back. Not a word in the press."

Charlton also detailed the almost absurd lengths management went to in order to keep the player in check and how they organised people to sleep in the corridor outside the bedroom of the player's room to stop him slipping out at night before matches.

"Yeh, we'd get someone push a bed across his door. Staff people. They wanted to do it. They wanted to keep Paul in," said Charlton.

The defender, in another incident, refused to get off the team bus for a match at Lansdowne Road. Charlton claims he spent an hour on the bus outside the ground trying to convince McGrath to leave, show his face in the ground and then disappear. McGrath, however, refused to budge and the manager gave up, allowing McGrath to take a car back to the team hotel.

"It was difficult," said Charlton. "But he had such ability, he was such a great player that we'd have bent over backwards to have assisted him."