Footballer’s grit as a good sport

Martin O’Neill
Henley town hall
Saturday, October 4

“DAD, just win!”, Martin’s nine-year-old daughter implored, as her famous footballer father dipped his toe into management at Grantham and Wycombe Wanderers. The youngster was already fully aware of the atmosphere around the house on Saturday night if Dad’s team didn’t win and when Dad’s lovely sense of humour had temporarily abandoned him.

For many of us of a certain vintage who have perhaps enjoyed the company of Pat Nevin and Liam Brady in recent years, an hour or so listening to Martin O’Neill OBE at the town hall was an absolute joy (despite the sound quality).

A man of intelligence, as well as wit, he could have enjoyed a successful career in the law, following his grammar school education in Northern Ireland.

Indeed, he tells fondly of a week in his early days at Nottingham Forest, circa 1975, where he was trying to do his studies on a Tuesday and playing against the likes of Best, Law and Charlton at Old Trafford on the Thursday evening (and he scored!).

He worked, of course, with the legendary manager Brian Clough, with whom he had a rather mixed relationship — “The linesman is having a better game than you, son” being just one famous comment on Martin’s performance from Cloughie.

Reflecting on the entitled players and man management skills of the top managers today, particularly Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, O’Neill said, with feeling, how nice it would have been to have just occasionally received some praise from Mr Clough!

One senses a grit in the character of Martin O’Neill necessary, not only to survive as a player at the highest level, but to contend with challenging European games, as a manager, where the referee, and just about everything else, appeared to be against them.

Martin reflected eloquently on VAR and the billiard table pitches of the modern game, compared to the quagmires of old, reminding us of the abilities of the winger John Robertson. “Get the ball out to little fatty,” Clough told Martin, and they won the European Cup in 1979 and 1980, on the strength of it.

That grit was also evident in his encounters with Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, but he is equally praiseworthy of achievements of others when appropriate.

Martin lovingly described his childhood sweetheart and mother of his children as a lunatic but he was clearly devoted to his family.

Get a copy of his book, The Changing Game, an insightful account of, perhaps, one of very few fully qualified to comment.

John Parnham