Where now for Ireland?

I first started really getting into football in the mid- to late-1980s, with the first major championship I can vividly recall being Euro 88. As an Englishman, my own team's performance was hugely depressing - though, in stark contrast to a number of occasions since, one I had seen coming for several months. England, of course, began our ill-starred campaign against a Republic of Ireland side which was widely ridiculed in the British media: its manager, Jack Charlton, portrayed as a loveable eccentric who didn't know what day of the week it was, let alone how to manage an international football team; and the side itself written off as consisting of a bunch of journeymen, most of whom didn't even know the words to the Irish national anthem, and who had qualified to play because one of their grandparents had drunk a pint of Guinness.

Much of the coverage leading up to the game was patronising and even racist, playing up to the appalling, lazy cliches so many English people had held about Ireland for so long. Yet in truth, it all played into Charlton's hands: he was able to maintain a cheery underdog's demeanour, and keep all the pressure off his players: players he had moulded into an indomitable, passionate, increasingly impressive outfit. For the truth about Charlton was a million miles away from his much-parodied image: in fact, this was a man who, like his mentor Alf Ramsey, believed in the team above all else - and unlike Bobby Robson, or Sven-Goran Eriksson, took the attitude that if a player, no matter how talented, didn't fit into that team, there would be no place for him. Liam Brady was merely the most celebrated victim of such a policy; but others, such as Ronnie Whelan and David O'Leary, would suffer too as the Charlton era gathered momentum.

Ireland, in fairness, were utterly outplayed that day in Stuttgart - but with England's key players either exhausted or injured, were able to take advantage and stage an astonishing smash-and-grab raid. Ray Houghton's winner ushered in the age of Jack: one which would see a nation with a shocking record in international football suddenly grow up and begin to impose itself. A breathtaking performance against the Soviet Union - in which the Irish were desperately unfortunate not to win - was followed by a gritty rearguard action against the brilliant Dutch side of the era, which came within seven minutes of success: before a freak Wim Kieft goal sent Holland on the road to triumph, and Ireland back home to a tumultuous reception.

And at Italia 90 two years later, things would get even better. Ireland were still derided for their caveman attrition, and crass long balls: indeed, in many ways, they represented the very worst aspects of British football of the time. But paradoxically, even their staunchest critics had to respect what was being achieved - because the puzzle Charlton set their many opponents proved almost impossible to solve. England and Holland were both frustrated in Italy; the Irish going on to the second round, and a meeting with Romania in Genoa: a day which changed history.

Someone should attempt a sociological study on Ireland before, and Ireland after, David O'Leary's decisive penalty hit the back of the net that memorable Monday afternoon. Before it, the fans had happily embraced the boorish football of their team: because it got results, and they had grown heartily sick of being everyone else's whipping boys for so long. Charlton, indeed, had really only been able to get away with imposing such a disagreeable style of football upon the world because expectations among Irish fans had been so low. But after Ireland won the shoot-out, the world had already begun to tilt on its axis: Charlton had shown that, as long as you believed in yourself, literally anything was possible. In short, not just Irish football, but the very Irish nation, perceived itself as winners at last.

Much of this was healthy, and an entirely natural corollary to the progress being made. But in many ways, it also constituted an end of innocence. Suddenly, all future Irish sides would be judged by the (often highly fortuitous) success of the Charlton era, and the 1990 team in particular; and with success now forthcoming, fans gradually began to demand more attractive football, and a more genuinely 'Irish' team too. Expectation had replaced simple hope; and the excuses of the past would no longer be tolerated. So much so that when Mick McCarthy - the Irishman from Barnsley - replaced Charlton in 1996, the Irish footballing nation he took charge of must have borne little resemblance to the one he captained to World Cup glory merely six years earlier: and none at all to the absurd stereotypes still cherished by far too many on this side of the Irish Sea. Sure, the Irish fans were marvellous, and sure, they loved the craic - but above all, they wanted to win.

But the problem was that gradually, expectations began to outstrip the resources McCarthy was working with. Persevering with a young group of players who had emerged together, the Yorkshireman oversaw gradual, incremental improvement, which culminated in the astounding achievement of not just qualifying for the 2002 World Cup Finals, but knocking out Holland - a genuine European power - in the process. In most other 'smaller' footballing nations, the manager would have been hailed for such an achievement - yet McCarthy received remarkably few plaudits: at least not from Irish football scribes, anyway. For the aim was no longer merely to be at the party: it was to accomplish great things while there too.

What happened next is known, surely, to all those reading this. In England, the vast majority of football enthusiasts stood full square behind McCarthy as Roy Keane, his captain, and far and away his best player, took umbrage at what he perceived to be his country's amateurish, unprofessional approach, subjected the manager to a torrent of invective, and flew home. But in Ireland, the reaction was rather different - for what happened in Saipan seemed to divide the country in two. Some fans - many of them older, who had seen the dark days of the pre-Charlton years - felt McCarthy had been monstrously betrayed; but many others sympathised with Keane, reasoning that there was no point in Ireland even being at the tournament if they weren't genuine in their ambitions to win the whole damn thing.

In many ways, the chain of events set in motion by O'Leary's spot kick twelve years earlier had now fully crystalised. A large bulk of Irish supporters were sick of their underdog mentality; exasperated by the team's apparent satisfaction in merely matching the best, rather than trying to beat them; tired of not having one of their own in charge. And even when the marvellous morale which McCarthy had engendered - an esprit de corps which Keane had seemed all too likely to destroy in the days before his departure - resulted in his depleted side defying the odds, outplaying both Germany and Cameroon, and taking Spain all the way to penalties too, it did little to assuage the feelings of these fans, in particular.

Ever since, the divide illustrated by Saipan has not just remained, but practically poisoned Irish football from root to tip. The national side's decline has been startling: from being within a shoot-out of returning to the World Cup quarter-finals, the Republic now boast the miserable record of not having enjoyed a single competitive win against a nation ranked inside the world's top 50 since September 2001: a run which has seen them surrender ineptly in Switzerland, throw away leads both home and away against Israel, and on Saturday, unforgivably subside to a disgraceful, spineless, 5-2 capitulation in, of all places, Cyprus. Things have now come full circle: Ireland's display and result in Nicosia being indisputably their worst since they began taking their first baby steps towards respectability in the early 1970s.

To be sure, Ireland's football fans have every right to expect to win convincingly in places like Cyprus; and moreover, for their team to play with the kind of passion and spirit which was for so long its trademark. They also have a right to demand that their team is placed under the guidance of an experienced, proven manager: something which the enthusiastic, but hopelessly over-promoted Steve Staunton palpably is not. But there may be a lesson somewhere in all of this. For even amid the rapidly deteriorating fortunes of the Boys in Green over the last four years, expectations have remained high, perhaps even dangerously so; with the demands of the increasingly belligerent Irish press doing much to suffocate morale, and ultimately performances, under Staunton's predecessor, Brian Kerr. Healthy expectancy is a good and necessary thing; but unhealthy, unrealistic expectancy can be the total opposite.

For the simple fact is that Charlton's extraordinary achievements - attributable to luck, bloody-mindedness, and a combination of circumstances which will not be repeated in the future - may well be impossible to even equal, let alone surpass. Charlton was blessed with the finest crop of Irish players in the nation's history; a fanbase starving for success, and prepared to let him employ literally any style in order to achieve it; and a peculiarly negative era in international football which - in days before the tackle from behind and the goalkeeper handling a backpass were outlawed - both encouraged and even rewarded defensive, safety-first play. None of this applies now: not least the fact that Staunton plainly has an obvious scarcity of resources to work with.

Whether, though, it has a knock-on effect on expectation levels remains to be seen. Because for Irish football to bottom out and begin to move forward once more, the wounds of Saipan need at last to be healed, and everybody to pull together: whether behind Staunton, or more likely someone else. Reality bit on Saturday night, and it was most certainly not a pretty sight; and if Ireland are to commence the long, painful ascent back towards the summit, the fans - or at least, the more demanding ones - surely need to accept that reality, and curb their wilder ambitions: for now, at the very least.