Media get mixed up with the real story

IT'S all starting to get faintly ridiculous really. Players not talking to certain journalists, certain journalists weighing into certain players (Roy Keane particularly), some newspapers weighing into other newspapers. Irish fans being snubbed, apparently, all over the place. At times in and around last weekend the sideshow seemed to be overtaking the match.

Roy Keane was interpreted as saying he didn't care what the Irish fans thought, accompanying which was a front page picture of him sticking his tongue out. The Irish fans were even implored to boo Keane, a few did but ultimately were out sung. When the Irish players abandoned last Sunday's post match live recording of the FAI banquet, Keane was singled out for snubbing the Irish fans at the Burlington Hotel by leaving during one of the advertisement breaks.

At one point, even Mick McCarthy became embroiled in the rather nasty air. Decent skins and fans with typewriters is all well and good, but McCarthy took it to a new level when commenting. "It's very easy for journalists to question the morals of people when some of the same journalists have got the morals of guttersnipes."

Whooaaaa Betsy! This is all starting to get way out of hand.

We, in the media, are not that important, or at least we shouldn't be anyway and there's a danger, even in writing this piece, that we could start to take ourselves a mite too seriously.

After all, if Keane doesn't want to talk to certain sections of the Irish media that's his prerogative. If Jason McAteer, Phil Babb and Tony Cascarino decline to air their post match thoughts to the Irish public via the assembled backs, this one included, that is also their prerogative.

In mitigation, the above three have never declined before, at least not to my knowledge, apart from the mass refusal to convey their thoughts after the second round defeat to Holland at USA `94 (save for those individually contracted to certain papers).

We in the media, have a job to do, a large aspect of which (in the daily newspapers at any rate) is to act as conduit or link between manager/players and the public/readers/viewers. When it comes to World Cup or European Championship finals, we are obliged to make financial contributions to the players' pool.

Generally, the Irish players particularly the newer younger breed, such as Kenny Cunningham, Curtis Fleming, Gary Breen, Keith O'Neill, Ian Harte and others like Niall Quinn and Alan Kelly co-operate in a courteous manner.

Why, a bunch of us had to be revived with smelling salts when the personable and articulate Cunningham concluded his first general interview in Prague earlier this year by saying. "Thank you." They also charitably give of their time to coaching sessions with kids around the country and other worthy causes.

Yet, it would be fair to say, that the Irish squad, could be a little bit more PR conscious. The clearest example of this was that embarrassing walk out last Sunday night at the FAI banquet as soon as RTE stopped recording.

In times past, Jack Charlton and the squad at least hung around for the meal. It is, after all, worth bearing in mind that it was an £80 a head charity banquet, and a prime consideration for at least some of those who forked out their £80 was a chance to meet the players for autographs or whatever. After all, it only happens once a year.

As for Keane's earlier departure, it is my information that he had his own very pressing personal reasons for doing so and they should remain so. Indeed, I feel I'm already charting dangerous waters here, for what I witness the players doing off the pitch, at banquets, in pubs, on planes or whatever, is partly due to a privileged position in any case and, besides which, is off limits. Maybe I'm letting my profession down but that's the way I view it.

In fairness too, early flights the next morning and the rank disappointment of the afternoon's draw with Iceland (remember that?) were probably contributory factors. In addition to which, several players voluntarily returned after they had all left together.

Yet FAI officials were angered by it all, though here again perhaps they could assist the Irish players in being more PR conscious.

Under the direction of their Publicity Relations Officer David Davies (a former BBC football reporter), it is noticeable how much more assured the English FA are in all of this.

Take the Paul Gascoigne affair. Let's overlook for the moment his highly questionable inclusion in the English team for last Saturday's World Cup qualifier in Georgia following the beating he administered to his wife Sheryl. In the first press conference after the English squad's arrival there Gascoigne was wheeled out alongside Davies and Glenn Hoddle to face the English press.

By comparison to us, they're Rottweilers to our pussycats, the point being though that Davies' well orchestrated press conference served to end the debate about Gascoigne's inclusion early in the week.

For the rest of their time in Georgia, the English players and management mixed with the local public, pressed the flesh, presented a friendly face and gave away footballs and other gifts at regular intervals. It was a masterful PR exercise.

Meantime, and whatever the rights and wrongs of some of the coverage, the Keane affair rumbled on all week and beyond in Ireland. Maybe because of this, McCarthy became noticeably more reserved.

The day McCarthy was banned from purchasing FA Cup final tickets for 10 years, after the English FA learned that two tickets he sold for the final ended up in the hands of touts, was an eye opener for the Irish manager. Four camera crews and about 50 media people turned up to hear his explanation the following morning. That afternoon only a handful were present to hear the announcement of his latest Irish squad. He realised then what a high profile job he had.

Ever since he seems to have become noticeably more wary and suspicious. There were almost more sessions behind closed doors last week than in the entire Charlton regime. There have been other contributory incidents as well, such as Jason McAteer's supposed two fingered salute to McCarthy by way of dedicating his goal against Macedonia to the absent Gary Kelly and bemoaning the latter's absence from the squad.

Then there was last week's Keane saga. The Irish manager understandably took great exception to the tongue sticking out snub to Irish fans slant.

"Basically, someone just interpreted it to suit their own purposes. And it's caused another stink for poor old Roy. I was annoyed with that. I feel pretty strongly about it, how one word can be interpreted so differently."

Yet McCarthy is contracted to contribute "exclusively" to that very same paper. This is worth bearing in mind when one recalls that Terry Venables severed his contract with the Today newspaper immediately on becoming English manager. So far as I know, Glenn Hoddle has no such arrangement either.

And though he suffered a much more hostile press, Venables and his beleaguered players achieved something of a very British publicity coup when the dust had settled on Euro `96, not all of it because of improved results. Throughout it all, with Davies' organisational skills the English camp in Bisham Abbey, complete with skillfully devised open media days, presented an assured PR face to the British public during those championships (as did the equally masterful Scots), which contributed in part to the success that it was.

In all of this the English and Scots were perhaps taking a leaf out of the Continental book. From an early age, Ajax players are coached in media relations. Covering the Ajax Fenerbache game last year and the Anfield play off in the space of a week, it showed.

Indeed, it is equally striking how successful and popular the likes of Juergen Klinsmann, Ruud Gullit and other Continental players become in the English game where so many of the home brew are needlessly suspicious and hostile.

What ever about the morals of guttersnipes, we are not the enemy within. We are not even the story. I shouldn't even be writing this.