My first live sighting of Paul McGrath was in 1985 when he played his first game for Ireland, against Italy. Italy were World Champions at the time, they'd beaten Brazil and West Germany to win the Cup, they wore the nicest jerseys in the world, they were elegant, mad and sexy, and the FAI decided not to issue tickets for the game.
The Dalymount turnstiles, built by the same lads who gave us Newgrange, couldn't cope with the numbers and it still surprises me that no one was killed that night. The exit gates were opened to avoid a crush. My feet lost contact with the ground, my arms were locked to my sides as I was carried through the gate. Two emotions fought for supremacy, terror and delight: I was going to die but I hadn't paid in. All I remember about the game is enjoying the sight of the Italians having to get past the outstretched legs of dozens of kids sitting along the sideline. I noted that Paul McGrath was playing but I didn't notice him.
Seven years later "Paul McGrath" was the answer to the following questions: Who is your favourite player? Who is the best player ever to play for Ireland? Who is God? If you were a fertile woman who would you choose to father your children?
What happened?
I watched Jack's Heroes, the "official" video of Italia 90, made in association with Mars, the "official" sponsors. It's all snippets of George Hamilton and uilleann pipes, the official instrument of all Irish soccer videos. (Come back the accordeon; all is forgiven.) The goals are there, the penalties, the save, David O'Leary drowning in the sea of his team-mates. They all look so young. Mick McCarthy looks like one of those teenagers who disturb because they're so neat, and it would be another couple of years before Ray Houghton started to look like Jack Duckworth. Chris Morris looks like someone whose cousin played drums for Spandau Ballet and David O'Leary looks exactly as he does today, the solid gentleman you want sitting beside you when your plane starts dipping. There's barely a mention or sighting of Paul McGrath, although he was our best player. There's the perfect cross to Niall Quinn in the game against Italy which then went straight from Quinn's head to the hands of the Italian keeper, Zenga. (Remember him?) There are several reminders that he loved to shoot from outside the box. My favourite moment is when he shakes both hands with Ruud Gullit after the Dutch game, two giants meeting, and a comforting reminder that Gullit, the most stylish man in football, once owned the most ridiculous moustache in Europe.
I had a quick look at another video, an appalling creation called Going To America With Jack Charlton, featuring "Jack's exclusive player profile" and music by The Memories. (Come back the uilleann pipes.) Charlton praises him, acknowledges his importance, but is anxious because "his circles are getting bigger"; he's slowing down, isn't as agile as he was - it's a moment of poetry in 70 minutes of shite. Paul McGrath is given the same attention as Alan Kernaghan and Eddie McGoldrick. (Remember them?) The makers should be tried for sedition, convicted, and hanged.
The timing has something to do with it, I think. He was born in the 1950s, just. Paul McGrath was our own player, for those of us born then. He wandered the Dandelion Market on Saturday afternoons. He wore flares and abandoned them. He danced to The Hustle at his first disco. He got out of Dublin when it was the place to escape from, not to. We were hoping that he'd make it to 40, and a bit further. He won't and it hurts. Those of us who dream, who stupidly think that by watching we are somehow involved, almost playing, finally have to stop. Our contemporaries aren't playing anymore. We have to become spectators, watching young men half our age, and a third and a quarter. We'll admire them and sing for them but we'll never be close to them. Our circles are getting bigger.
There's his story and the four words needed to tell it: black, orphanage, knees, drink. He grew up black in a country that is famously tolerant, as long as you're white and Irish and not too Protestant. The word "orphanage" can still strike terror into people my age - none of us will ever be able to think of Artane as the place with the shopping centre - and, as Flann O'Brien told us, a bad knee is worse than no knee at all. Alex Ferguson pronounced Paul McGrath professionally dead but he changed address and went on to play the best football of his career. "How long will they last?" we asked after every international game, after yet another magnificent performance by Paul McGrath, the man who didn't train, the man who was in constant pain. But he kept his knees to himself. We wondered did they bleed on Fridays, like Padre Pio's stigmata. For Ireland and Aston Villa.
And the drink. None of our business, but there were stories. He went on the batter and ended up in Israel. Where do you go when you need a drink? The fridge, the pub, the off licence. Paul McGrath went to the Holy Land, geographical source of three great religions. Even on his worst days the man had style. (Why there, though? Did it have something to do with his knees?) And the other story: he was too drunk to get off the bus. Those of us who were once or twice too drunk to get on the bus felt for him, knew the humiliation. We were at an age when bravado and Lysterine didn't work anymore. We liked our pint but we'd seen families demolished, friends, neighbours dead or wrecked, knew the difference between a night out and addiction and tried to build a high wall between them. We were delighted when we heard that he was off the jar, and was staying off it.
Kids love strikers and wingers, but defenders are there for the adults. The goal is our house and kids and, when Paul McGrath was playing, no brat with a ball was ever going to get near it. A young genius, on £10,000 and deals with Nike and L'Oreal, would be dashing towards the goal, all set to tap the ball through the keeper's legs, run to the fans and point at the club crest on his jersey: "I'm staying another week!" But he'd come up against Paul McGrath and, suddenly, he was a dwarf taking a run at the Berlin Wall. There was no greater sight in football: Paul McGrath escorting a striker and his ball to the corner flag, hunched, just a little, arms out to add another yard to his width, the goal safe behind him, as fast as he needed to be and the message clearly written on his face: "I am utterly immovable; try basketball."
He saved games for us, and won them. There were times when he seemed to be the entire team. He did so much - his goal against Hungry, his games against Italy, in 1990 and 1994, his jumping back-flick to take the ball from Kenny Sansom in the last, mad minutes of the England game in 1988. God, he was wonderful. My own favourite is the game against England at Wembley, in 1991. There was a spell that lasted forever, after we went one-nil down, when we laid siege to the England penalty area. "McGrath once more . . . in comes McGrath . . . again, it's McGrath." It was a nerve-wracking privilege to watch; being Irish had never felt better. It was Paul McGrath's ball over the slobbering remains of the England defence that Niall Quinn put so beautifully past Seaman and, Quinn running away from the goal with his right arm doing a windmill, no Irish goal was ever celebrated with such panache.
It's over now. I'll still watch football; I'll go when I have the time and the ticket. I love it and I probably always will. But I've given up on most other sports. I don't trust them. I don't feel qualified; I don't have a degree in chemistry and I prefer my whiskey neat. But I grew up watching Paul McGrath and that will keep cynicism away for the rest of my life. We are blessed, those of us who shared his age and nationality. We saw the best footballer ever to play for Ireland, the best and most courageous. The most honest.
Thank you, Paul. I hope that your knees enjoy their retirement. I hope that your children grow up gloriously - with shin-guards and Irish passports. I hope that the rest of your life is so full, so satisfying, so happy that you don't notice your circles getting bigger.