Oh how the mighty young have fallen

Sideline Cut: That's the trouble with internet search engines; they can take you places you really never intended going, or wanted to go - and by the time you've tired of the tangent you've embarked on you can't remember what information you were looking for in the first place. A simple query about Robbie Keane and there we landed, like you do, on the website of Hemel Hempstead Town Football Club of the English Southern League Premier Division.

"An industrious engine room of a player who can turn games. Signed from Brackley Town after successful spells at Dunstable and Hitchin," read Keane's brief biography.

There are, it seems, two Keanos, of the Robbie variety.

Hemel's last game was a 0-0 draw in the league against Team Bath, a fixture that was watched by the club's biggest crowd of the season so far, 234 - or 2,766 short of their Vauxhall Road capacity. A homely club it appears to be, founded in 1885, just 30 years before the birth of their current kit man, 91-year-old Fred.

It's a big day today for Hemel. They play Harrow Borough in the second qualifying round of the FA Cup. Their supporters, you'd imagine, aren't quite anticipating a trip to Wembley just yet (or Cardiff, if the builders are still at it in London), but a win over Harrow would at least keep them dreaming. It might even earn the footballers a more substantial mention in the local Gazette, which has been giving over most of its sporting space of late to Hemel Hempstead native Luke Donald, he of Ryder Cup fame.

Aside from Robbie Keane, the other name to catch the eye in the Hemel squad is that of Shaun Byrne, the same Shaun Byrne who captained the Irish team to success at the 1998 European Under-16 Championships, scoring both goals in the semi-final win over Portugal before that memorable defeat of Italy in the final.

Back then, Byrne, who could play in defence or midfield, was a member of the hugely gifted West Ham youth team, which featured Joe Cole and Michael Carrick, amongst others. He made his first-team debut for the club in January 2000, soon after being offered a new contract. Byrne, it seemed, was as highly regarded by West Ham as he was by Brian Kerr.

The rest of the tale is sadly familiar. Seemingly endless injuries, never quite developing as his admirers would have hoped and West Ham's relegation ultimately resulted in Byrne, now 25, being released by the club. From then he trailed around Britain and Ireland looking for a second chance. A brief spell at Swansea, trials at Wycombe Wanderers, a short stint at Dublin City, then managed by Roddy Collins, before moving to non-League football in England. Chesham United, Burnham, and now Hemel Hempstead Town.

When Steve Staunton named his squad for the upcoming games against Cyprus and the Czech Republic, just three of the under-16 starting line-up that beat Italy in McDiarmid Park that night were included - John O'Shea, Andy Reid and Liam Miller, with only the first two playing Premiership football these days.

Only Richard Dunne and Robbie Keane (the Spurs player, not the Hemel Hempstead lad) survive from the under-18 team that won the European Championships in Cyprus later that year.

But such, of course, is the way with any youth team - no matter how successful and how promising the players might have seemed at the time, inevitably only a small percentage will prosper. Some of us thought Manchester United's Russell Beardsmore was the new Messiah 20 years ago. He went on to become the old Kieran Richardson. We've long since learnt: you never can tell.

But that just three of that under-16 team (and two of the under-18s) are part of the current senior set-up, at an age when they should all be coming into their prime, is a particularly gloomy indication of unfulfilled promise. Back in 1998, Ireland's footballing future seemed blindingly bright; eight years on and even the manager seems to be dismissing any hope of even qualifying for the 2008 European Championships.

And even the three who have survived are suffering mixed fortunes of their own. Take a visit to any United supporters' website and you'll see O'Shea being the target of dog's abuse, of the unrepeatable kind, the Waterford man's regular inclusion in the United team a source of almost as much angst as Darren Fletcher's continuing employment at the club.

O'Shea was simply outstanding in his first full season at United. They even released a record in his honour (Johnny Comes Marching Home Again), but last season they were booing him off the pitch. If it wasn't for the wage packet, he must have longed for the tranquillity of, say, Hemel Hempstead Town.

Miller, too, is struggling. Shaun Byrne's midfield partner from 1998 must now start rebuilding his career at Sunderland, much as Reid must do at Charlton after being sold by Spurs during the summer. But all three can be regarded as the lucky ones - take Graham Barrett, their former under-16 team-mate. Since 98? From the star of the youth team at Arsenal to . . . Bristol Rovers, Crewe, Colchester, Brighton, Coventry, Sheffield Wednesday, Livingston and, now, Falkirk. A journey that would fell a lesser man.

When Graham Kavanagh and Steven Reid withdrew from the Irish squad this week with injuries, Staunton's only real options, in terms of replacements, seemed to be Lee Carsley and/or Matt Holland. Both in their 30s, both having retired from international football, but both willing to return if needed.

No harm in that - Carsley, in particular, has been quietly excellent for Everton the last couple of seasons, but it says something of Staunton's current options that he may have to consider bringing one or two out of retirement for these qualifying games, when we hoped the class of 98 would leave the international manager, eight or 10 years down the line, fretting over who to leave out.

Apart from the players from those under-16 and under-18 teams (Ger Crossley, Richie Partridge, Liam George) others such as Stephen McPhail, Mark Kennedy and Colin Healy were the future once, but it wasn't to be.

A couple of generations of unfulfilled promise, that's a whole heap of misfortune for Irish football.

We could do with the gods giving us a break over the next decade, seeing to it that a healthy percentage of the new breed (Terry Dixon, Alan O'Brien, Paul McShane, Owen Garvan, Billy Clarke and Shane Long, and so on) aren't turning out in the second qualifying round of the FA Cup in 10 years' time.