Death by misadventure

Arriving in Skopje

SUPPOSE interior design had died in the Seventies. Then you can picture the airport. A brave mix of bright coloured plastics and dull-stained woods. The arrivals area is separated from the departures area by a row of chairs.

In the arrivals area there is a long, winding queue shuffling towards the passport desk.

Big Cas, passport in hand, is putting down the time telling jokes. Keeping Andy Townsend amused. Cas knows how to spin a yarn, draws a person in with his gentle Londoner's pitter patter and the darting brown eyes and the funny voices.

"This feller, see ...

He pauses. Draws Mick Byrne, Charlie O'Leary, Alan Moore and a couple of journalists into the circle.

"This feller and he goes into this pub right, and he's looking for a bit of `elp about the house. No missus, no money, no nufflng roight."

People are leaning in now, cocking one ear to Big Cas's story. The man inspecting and stamping the passports glances up. Big Cas is going strong.

"Oooh," says the feller, "Oi've got so much to do, so much to do, there's just 50 much flippin' work. I need a bit of help. Gotta have a bit of help. Looked everywhere. Can't afford no house keeper nor nuffin'. Ooh. Roight bit of bovver.

And he has a pint and lights, up a fag.

"Oooh! Right bit of bovver.

Big Cas is so good he becomes the man with the bit of bovver. He shakes his head sadly, rolls his eyes, just a little smile dancing on his lips. Enjoying himself. Relaxed.

Leaving Skopje

Mick McCarthy is on the other side of the seats now. The departures terminal. Wearing a good suit and a crumpled face. Maybe 20 tape recorders are thrust at his face like weapons. Must be easier ways to make a living.

He bats the questions away without artifice or spin.

"Bad day, Mick?"

"Yeah, bad day."

He came away from it in one piece though. Looking back.

"I got up the next morning and I tried my best to be like that. I know I've done the best I possibly could. I did my work and I enjoyed doing it. I was right up for it, and then I'd had a major disappointment and, well, I still feel dreadful right now.

"No matter what I say, the kids, the house, that I'll do this and this and that. It doesn't matter. All I'm doing is delaying the inevitable because I feel dreadful but . . One piece.

I've put the suit on Thursday morning, put a smile on my face and faced the world, and that's what I'll continue to do. At the end of it I will always do my best. If it's good enough, wonderful. If it isn't, well we all know what happens."

Sucker punched. All week everyone had been whispering about how relaxed Mick McCarthy looked. In his element.

Sure enough, he prefers the away trips. None of the claustrophobia that clouds the view when the team is in Dublin. None of the distractions. Away from home you don't have a whole country tugging at your sleeve.

He liked Macedonia, too. The friendly, obliging people. The sense of humility and simplicity which hung over the population. Now he was speaking into tape recorders about "massive blows", "huge shocks" and where it all went wrong".

Quite calm.

"I'd had a chat with the lads after dinner on Wednesday night. I got it all out of my system then. I was just drained, physically and emotionally after that."

Ian Evans, Packie Bonner and some of the staff went downstairs for a quiet pint in the midst of the Irish supporters. McCarthy turned in.

"I watched 48 Hours with Eddie Murphy. Cursing and swearing and Macedonian subtitles, and funny thing is I could associate with it. Just sat and watched TV till one o' clock. Dozed off. Woke at three. Woke at five. Put some cotton wool in my ears and slept till eight. Got up and I felt fresh. Didn't want to face the world with a hangover. I wanted to at least feel bright physically. I feel emotionally upset and disappointed."

So he tells the tape recorders the story of what went wrong as the players sit around and fidget with their boarding cards.

Big Cas is enjoying himself now. Back with the boys, rolling with the punches when the jokes about playing for a team called Nancy start up.

"Well then," says the bloke behind the bar after a while, "I might just have the answer. Might just have the right thing for you, might have somefink right up your street mate."

"Go on then," says the feller, "I'll try anything me. Desperate for a bit of `elp I am. What you got?"

"Well," says the barman, "You tried getting a centipede yet?" ,

Andy Townsend is shaking his head. Cas! Cas! Cas! Same old Cas. This is going to be a centipede joke, is it? Rare genre.

"A centipede?" he says, "What good's a bleeding centipede? I don't want no centipede around my manor. What good's a centipede to me?"

And the barman, roight, he nods his head and he says:

"Take a shufty at this lot then."

And he brings the feller round behind the bar and there, roight, there's this centipede and he's washing glasses and cleaning trays and making sandwiches and clearing taps."

"`Pon my word," says the fella. "Look at that! Well I never! Strewth! I'll take him, I'll give 'im a try."

There's a perspective to be had on all this if anyone is interested. It's not fashionable to talk about perspective, but Belgium and Denmark have dropped competitive points to Macedonia before. After Wednesday, Ireland are left in a dogfight for second place. Realistically, Ireland were always looking for second place.

In the short term, post mortems, not perspective, are what it's about.

Mick McCarthy sat with his team on Wednesday night and drilled them. Is the training wrong? Is the system wrong? The hotels? The travel? The food? Me?

Screw perspective. However low expectations are, nobody ever imagined losing in Macedonia, surrendering a lead, handing over an initiative.

What's wrong, McCarthy asked. Me? The system?

"They have no problems on that score. I'm asking myself questions. I'm saying come on, give it to me if you want to give it to me. There was no comeback. At the end of it, no matter what is said, after 10 minutes - which is crazy because we performed well for 10 minutes - we stopped playing. Why that is, well I don't have an answer for it. We did what we were supposed to do for to minutes."

That first goal. Football unfolding the way it was supposed to do. Roy Keane whipping a cross over from the ape of the area. Big Cas behind his man dipping his head to it. Alan McLoughlin thundering through from midfield. Take it out of the net.

Where did the promise seep away to? Big Jack's team would never have lost a lead away from home. Good old Jack.

"This team is more docile than the old one, says McCarthy. "We had that discussion after the game on Wednesday. Does anybody fall out with each other on a night like that? No, is the answer. They haven't been playing together that long. They haven't got that male bonding thing that footballers have where you can have a fallout with a player on the pitch, and it doesn't mean anything.

"When I was playing I'd tell Packie he was a twat because he dropped a cross and I'd upset him, and then he'd catch the next one and he'd look at me and have a go, and then if I let somebody turn and run at me he'd be there, `Ya useless git McCarthy, hold him up don't let him turn'. I'd give it to everybody. So would Packie.

"Today Andy and Stan will impart information, but there are ways of doing it. You can upset somebody. Wind each other up. Ray Houghton was another one. We used to have dogs' abuse on the field. Nasty ding dongs. He didn't half provoke me, but there'd be that surge of adrenalin, you'd make sure it's not going to happen again. We're best of pals, but we'd get the best out of each other. On Wednesday, there was a lack of passion. Not consciously, but there was a lack of it. It wasn't like an Irish team."

He closes down again. This team is malfunctioning on intangibles. The world isn't brimming with solutions. He brought 19 players to Macedonia and few would have argued that he didn't pick the best 11.

"I've got to have a look at the people who've played and have to look at the people, and formations who've given me that passion in the past. Every Irish team I have known have shown a passion for playing. I'll have a look at it over the next four weeks and ask a few questions."

Speaking the unthinkable. Are some of the senior players just gone, Mick?

"I have my opinions but they'll be kept between myself and Taff and Packie. We'll have a chat. I'll never talk to the papers about individual players in that way. You must respect that."

He pauses again.

"I don't see it as me and them or the management and them. It's us. We. We're all in this together. That's how we'll work it out."

In the meantime he doesn't know.

One man show. Big Cas is playing the part of the man and playing the part of the centipede.

So he brings this centipede `ome and he's knackered now cos he's walked all the way, and he sits down in his chair and says, "Oooh me slippers, I've gawn and left `em upstairs," - and he goes to get up but the centipede says:

"Nah, you sit down mate. You rest your feet. I'll get those slippers."

And sure nuff next thing e's down there with the slippers and the fella says to himself this ain't bad. And he says:

"Ooh, I don't `alf fancy a cuppa," and he goes to get up and the centipede says:

"What did I tell you. Go on you, sit down. I'll get you a cuppn tea. That's what I'm here for."

And the centipede brings `im in this lovely cup of tea and a slice of toast with marmalade and the fella says:

"Ooh, cracking toast centipede. Thanks very much."

And he puts his feet up and the centipede does the hoovering, does the dusting, washes the windows. The business. Too good to be true. The fella is thinking he should have got a centipede years ago.

Everyone is thinking they should have got a centipede years ago.

Duties. The match was followed by a surreal press conference. McCarthy went and saw his players for quick post mortems. Then got dragged away and parked at one end of a table in a nightclub with half of Macedonia hooting deliriously. Mick McCarthy's head was elsewhere.

I went straight in to speak to the players after the game. It's a difficult circumstance at international level, though. I really felt like lambasting them, having a right pop. We've been beaten before and we'll be beaten again, but it's the manner in which we've been beaten that I couldn't accept."

There were people to have a pop at. Players who abandoned the system. Players who abandoned their form and, at the end, players who abandoned professionalism. At international level Mick McCarthy was staring at a room full of players who didn't deserve absolution. Have a pop, then boss.

"At international level, if I do that if I have a go, then I don't see them for another month it's very hard to build those bridges again. At club level you can have it out with somebody and then the following morning you see them and sort it out and get on with it. At international level you can't do it.

"There was a few harsh words, not screaming and shouting. I don't do that. A few home truths. Then I was whizzed off up to the press business. Strange. There's that void between seeing them again, so you take it easy."

Silence. The words "no more Mr Nice Guy" come to mind.

Big Cas is edging towards the passport inspector. His audience shifting that way too. So what happens the centipede?

Eventually the fella gets up and says:

"Right centipede, you stay `ere, I've got to go down the shops. I'll be back in a few minutes. You take a little rest."

But the centipede's not having it.

"No," he says, "No no no no. You sit right down. You've had a hard day. You just write out a list, give me a few bob and I'll do the shopping."

"Well, I don't know," says the fella.

"Go on," says the centipede. "Relax. It'll be alright."

So the fella writes out this list and gives the centipede a hundred quid and sits down and reads his paper.

About an hour later he thinks to himself, "Cor that centipede is taking a while inne?", but he goes on reading the paper and anuvver hour goes by and he thinks, "Cor, hope nothing's happened to that centipede and me hundred nicker," and he goes to the window and looks up and down the road.",

Football home truths. Macedonia was a glimpse of the bad old days. We have a simple view of sport and a child's need to know who to bless and who to blame. Mick McCarthy? Umbro? Players? Officials?

The verdict is far from unanimous. Everyone has their snag list. Roy Keane came too deep to collect balls from Gary Breen. The three midfielders appeared to play in a line, one in front of the other. The three central defenders seemed to bunch together for comfort. The wing backs never got to the byline. The strikers struggled on poor service. The pitch was bumpy. The ref was bent. The tide was out.

From the stands, there appeared to be a lack of cohesion between the component parts. Players out of synch with everything and everyone. Does everyone trust Gary Breen fully, for example. Why not let him carry the ball forward?

"That's the impression maybe when you look at what went wrong, but Gary Breen came in for me at the start when I took the job and did brilliant. I believe in him."

Breen may be the prototype, however, when it comes to explaining the difficulties with young players mingling with gnarled seniors once a month or so. They take a long time to gel.

"Just take Gary's situation. He didn't enjoy playing on the right hand side on previous occasions, but he got on with it. Long term, I feel he is the ideal person to play in the centre of that three. Whether they are comfortable with him or he's comfortable with them I don't know. He's played better I think when he's alongside the young lads. Almost equals, and he's not worried about what they are thinking of him.

"He looks more confident to express himself in among his peer group. Maybe he doesn't view some of the other senior players as his peer group. Sometimes at international level you have to play about 15 games to recognise yourself as an international player. Maybe that's a general problem with the mix of players.

"It's an unfortunate fact of life that Gary Breen went from Birmingham, who were getting spanked every week, to Coventry, who, are getting spanked every week. It has a severe effect on confidence for a young fella. How do you get over that? You give him the ball and say, `Come on Gary'. You have to help him out of that. I'd have faith in him. I think he did well."

If not the personnel, is it the system? Mick McCarthy accepts that when he began changing Ireland's style of play he created a specific and specialised role for Mark Kennedy. Both that job and Kennedy's career have withered ever since.

"That has made a difference. Under the circumstances of the performance in Macedonia I might have to look at him again. I thought Harte did well over there. Those people, the ones that gave a lot before and were hungry and gave me the performance characteristics of an Irish team, perhaps I'll have to look there. We did well in America, and perhaps they were people who were not indoctrinated in other ways and were up for it and positive.

"I believe in our system of playing. I don't think they troubled our back three in terms of getting through them. No. Not a problem with the system. We went to America and the kids handled it, played well later against Holland and Portugal and Croatia with the system. Did well playing that way. I know playing for World Cup points is different but the principles are the same.

"Here's what gets me. Now we are playing a bit more football people are saying we don't have the players. Under Jack we played 4-4-2 and spanked it and people said we have better players. What I'm trying to achieve is something in between. Have fellas passing and playing with passion. People are going to complain about that.

"There's always feedback comes back from the players, I listen to that. Maybe we do play better when the ball is put forward. I accept that. When the ball is put forward quicker we play well. I'm not talking about hitting it from back to front constantly. Then again, I've never said to anybody at the back, `Right, you three get it and have two passes then roll it back to Alan Kelly and put him, under pressure'.

"If we can play out of the back we'll continue to play out of the back if we can do it quickly and with purpose. A ball being thrown to either wide centre back and he can make progress to the centre line perhaps and hit a ball forward and drop it into somebody. We've got to look at the people, the way we play. So many variables."

Meanwhile the only thing that keeps passing is time.

Cas is almost at the front of the queue now. About an hour later he's getting really worried and he's walking up and down. He's in a right old sweat now. He thought he had it made. He just don't understand what could have gone wrong with the centipede. He's worried, but he's concerned `cos he thinks maybe the centipede has gone and done a runner with his hundred quid.

So he picks himself up and says to himself better go down the pub and see the barman and get all this palaver sorted. So he gets up and goes out the hall and there's the centipede right there. Can't believe it.

And he says:

"Oye! You! Centipede, what you doing? What's the story?"

"Oh just putting on me shoes," says the centipede. "Just putting on me shoes."

Big Cas throws his head back laughing. Everyone is laughing. The man, stamps Anthony Cascarino's passport.

Welcome to Macedonia. Ooh. Feeling loose. Not a cloud in the sky. Good week ahead. Fit and limber, the last of the players passes through into Macedonia.

Just putting on the shoes, eh? Jaysus Cas.

Leaving Skopje

Many days older. The team is tense and downcast and slightly embarrassed. The players are scattered about the place in small groups. They whisper grave things to each other. Laughter seems inappropriate.

Denis Irwin and Roy Keane have been picked up the night before by the Manchester United jet. Big Cas has scooted off on a military plane thinking that he'll find a quicker way of getting back to Nancy. Jason McAteer is wondering what the gaffer is saying about his sending off. Andy Townsend is doing the forensics on handball offences.

"I think what I am doing is right," says Mick McCarthy. "They'll not deflect me from that, my beliefs in the way the game should be played. I don't think we competed on Wednesday and that's for me to resolve. It will take more than Wednesday night to knock my resolve and confidence."

"Want a paper?" asks the Aer Lingus stewardess brightly as McCarthy steps on board.

"Eh no thanks," says Mick McCarthy.

"Think I'll skip them this morning."

He slips into the corner with Packie Bonner beside, the old goalie forming a barrier between the manager and the world. He thinks about the weekend, about getting away with his son.

"Going to get away from it all, me and my lad. Just a lads' weekend. He's too young for pubs though. Lucky I suppose.

He can't clear the football from his head though. What ifs. Old ghosts. Ray Houghton would have given a different buzz to midfield maybe, so and so would have whipped the wing backs to the byline.

Mick McCarthy picks himself up, heads on in time towards Bucharest. Lots of work to be done, getting all the shoes on the centipede before the shop shuts.