Supporters rally round to make up poor return on Hand benefit match

The game itself might only have attracted 1,500 people to a rain-soaked Tolka Park but the tickets were still selling for Eoin Hand's testimonial the day after as Irish supporters tried to make post-match amends for failing to turn up at the former Irish soccer team manager's fundraiser on Tuesday night. The switchboard at the FAI's headquarters at Merrion Square, Dublin, was jammed yesterday, according to the association's general secretary, Mr Bernard O'Byrne, as people phoned to buy tickets to make a donation to the fund for a man who, since leaving the Irish job in 1985, has suffered a series of setbacks.

"We were obviously terribly disappointed with the crowd on Tuesday," said Mr O'Byrne, "but the reaction of people once they have seen in the media what has happened has been tremendous and we are hopeful that things will turn out a good deal better for Eoin than it appeared they would at first."

Immediately after the game, which paired a Republic of Ireland XI with a National League representative team, things certainly did not look too great for Hand, who is seriously ill in a Dublin hospital after undergoing major surgery last week.

Initial estimates put the figure raised by the game at considerably less than £5,000.

Yesterday, the FAI agreed to pick up the cost of the insurance cover for the game - around £10,000 - as a "one-off goodwill gesture", while the number of donations promised has been "very encouraging", according to Mr O'Byrne.

Organisers of the game are baffled as to why so few people turned out to see a fullstrength Irish team. Mr O'Byrne pointed out that junior footballers train on a Tuesday night, ruling "a huge number of potential punters out of the equation".

However, Peter Byrne, soccer correspondent of The Irish Times and a prominent member of Hand's testimonial committee, expressed dismay at the attendance.

"Mick McCarthy co-operated, the National League co-operated, TNT (the sponsors) co-operated, everybody co-operated except the general public," he said last night.

"It just strikes me as astonishing that people from Ireland will head over in large numbers to see Liverpool and Manchester United play at huge expense and yet they won't pay a tenner to see the same players when they are playing here in Dublin for one of their own."