Stop Stalling Already!

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Irish Voice Sport

Stop Stalling Already!

December 6, 2007

by Cathal Dervan

THIS is all getting very monotonous and irritating. It is six weeks since Stephen Staunton was sacked as Ireland manager, and it appears we are no closer to a successor now than we were back then in November.

Of course there is speculation, most of it centered on the credentials of one Terry Venables as the next man to take charge of our national team in our bid to make the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

Some of it is sensible, some of it outrageous, some of it really stupid as we wait and wait and wait for the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to make an announcement. To be frank, it’s just not funny anymore as the story gets more bizarre by the minute.

On Tuesday afternoon some idiot living in Belgium even posted a message on an Irish football website appealing for Republic “fans” to stage an anti-Venables protest in Dublin next week.

His appeal came with a bizarre clause – he won’t be able to attend himself but he promises to be there in spirit! I kid you not.

The chase for a new Ireland manager has become so crazy that even the lunatics are logging in at their asylums to weigh in their thoughts and their ridiculous suggestions. Sadly, they are not alone.

All week those who don’t want to buy a TV license (Terry Venables License) have been harping on about his business transactions of a decade ago, where the dance floor at his old nightclub in London came from and his historic transactions with the company’s office in England.

The “Anyone But Venables” brigade keeps raking up allegations and even facts from the past, a past that has nothing to do with the current state of Irish football no matter what the ABV crowd might think.

It’s lamentable. Those who failed in their bid to inflict the new Derby boss Paul Jewell on the Irish public are now doing their level best to drag Venables out of the frame.

They are also, possibly in their quest for post-Jewell revenge, attempting to link El Tel with any discrepancies they may feel exist in the office of FAI Chief Executive John Delaney out in Abbotstown.

Their attempts to muddy the waters are now little short of laughable, pathetic even when you consider that the chief protagonist, the usual suspect by the way, actually told Pat Kenny the other day that Venners could well get us to the next World Cup.

And that after boring us all to death with stories from someone else’s book on Venables, only some of which were accurately retold by a man with a record of his own to worry about if we care to delve into his shady past.

Let’s face facts here. History doesn’t matter here, unless you want to look at our recent history of World Cup and European Championship failure.

We haven’t been to any finals bar one since we last played the Italians in a big tournament, on that never to be forgotten day at the Giants Stadium in 1994.

Only World Cup 2002 — and I have no wish to go back there — has brightened the backdrop of failure and sporting bankruptcy that has been Irish football ever since Razor stuck the ball in the back of Buffon’s net.

Those are the statistics we should be worrying about right now. We are not asking the FAI to hand over the checkbook to Terry Venables, the laughable Gerard Houllier or even, God forbid, Roy Hodgson in the next few weeks.

We are not asking them to open the vaults to the next manager and ask him to help himself to anything that takes his fancy. We’ve been through that period of Irish football already, don’t forget.

God knows the FAI have been no angels themselves in the past, but I do trust them to realize the important thing here – football and only football.

In the course of the next four weeks we have got to find a manager who can take this current Irish team forward and lay the foundations for qualification, not just for 2010 but for many tournaments thereafter.

We have got to find a leader who can offer inspiration, organization and formation to this Ireland team, someone to get the best out of the current squad and offer the youngsters coming through a platform of success to build on.

Dance floors, balance sheets and profit and loss accounts don’t come into it until after we qualify for the World Cup when the dance floors of the nation will be full, the FAI’s balance sheet will be healthier than it has been for quite some time and the arrival of Terry the Prophet will be seen as England’s loss.

So just get on with it lads, go get Tel and to hell with the begrudgers, the same begrudgers who have been sniping at every Irish manager for the past 20 years now.

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