Ghost Town comes back to haunt analysts Tony and Andy

TV VIEW: IF WE have this right the last time Munster were beaten by an Irish team at Thomond Park was the same month that Ireland lost to Holland in the Euro '96 qualifying play-off at Anfield, a match that signalled the end of the reign of Jack Charlton.

Teenager Patrick Kluivert, who was nine when Jack took the Irish job, scored twice. Where is he now? He's sort of retired but half looking for a new club, passing his time by doing movie voice-overs, like Alex the Lion and Marty the Zebra for the Dutch version of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Kluivert that is, not Jack. Although if they ever do a Geordie version of the film he'd be the perfect voice for Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe. Jack that is, not Kluivert.

All of this just goes to show that life is moving along at a Usain Bolt-ish pace, fellas you think should still be in the thick of the action only popping up now and then in "Where are they now?" features.

Take Boris Becker. Where is HE now? "I just need to stay cool. Don't give away anything. Think about something else. What's the recipe for pancakes? Four eggs, 250 grams of flour, two spoons of honey and a bit of salt. Gotcha." That was Boris yesterday, on a Setanta ad for an online poker site, 24 years after he boom-boomed into our lives by winning Wimbledon.

Now he's urging people to gamble and make their own pancakes, all at the same time.

Unbecoming, we felt, especially when you can buy freshly cooked pancakes for half nothing these days.

Where are Andy Townsend and Tony Cascarino now? Well, two of the team that played at Anfield that night - everyone of them, including subs, now alarmingly retired - were on punditry duty on ITV yesterday for the FA Cup clash between Gillingham and Aston Villa.

Cascarino, you might remember, was sold by Gillingham to Millwall when Ronald Reagan was president - although those two facts weren't actually related — for a transfer fee of a set of tracksuit tops and some corrugated iron.

Reagan's best friend, of course, was Margaret Thatcher, to whom The Specials dedicated their seminal 1981 tune Ghost Town, a tribute to the effect her policies had on the towns and cities of Britain.

And what tune nigh on drowned out Tony and Andy's efforts to analyse the first half of Gillingham v Villa? Ghost Town. Which is what Gillingham has occasionally been called in its time, but it wasn't exactly a rousing choice of half-time music by the stadium DJ. Simply the Best, We Are The Champions or I get knocked down but I get up again might have been better.

Tony's shoulders did sway a little, though, in rhythm to "This place is coming like a ghost town, no job to be found in this country, can't go on no more, the people getting angry" while Andy, through the din, attempted to analyse Gillingham's largely successful efforts at marking Villa's Ashley Young - who, at the severe risk of labouring the point, was born four years after Ghost Town was released and was minus three when Peter Withe knocked in that winner for Villa against Bayern Munich in the 1982 European Cup final.

And later on in the day Setanta showed us a reunion of the Southampton team that won the 1976 FA Cup by beating Manchester United in the final with an offside goal.

Maintaining the theme here, Shay Given was born a fortnight before the final, so he'll remember the perms, sideburns, chipped teeth, unrepaired broken noses and shorts so tight it was a wonder the players could breathe.

Those were, indeed, the days.

Peter Rodrigues was the Southampton captain that day. He's 64 now, has since flogged his winner's medal to pay a bill or two, and now drives for a living in the city.

"It's hard to believe it's 30-plus years ago," he said. We felt his pain. Even if Bobby Stokes' winning "goal" was several miles offside.

After the final whistle the United players walked around like they'd seen a bad accident, which, funnily enough, is how Setanta's Daire O'Brien described the demeanour of the Munster players at the conclusion of their 37-11 drubbing by Ulster.

So, is that the end of Munster, then? Ciarán Fitzgerald giggled, which we took as a no.

In fact he pitied Munster's forthcoming opponents, reckoning they'd bear the brunt of the almighty pride-stung backlash.

True enough, life might be rattling along at a Usain Bolt-ish pace, but some things never change: like a peeved Munster taking out their vexation on those unfortunate enough to cross them.

Besides, you get the feeling Ronan O'Gara and Peter Stringer aren't quite ready yet to do Marty the Zebra and Melman the Giraffe in the Munster version of Madagascar, nor indeed to share pancake recipes. Time enough.

"Take Boris Becker. Where is HE now? 'I just need to stay cool. Don't give away anything. Think about something else. What's the recipe for pancakes? Four eggs, 250 grams of flour, two spoons of honey and a bit of salt. Gotcha.' That was Boris yesterday, on a Setanta ad for an online poker site