Soccer

Wembley a happy hunting ground for Irish teams – just not football ones . . .

Wembley’s tagline is ‘Inspiring Memories’. For Irish fans ‘Generating Nightmares’ might be a more accurate.

Wembley Stadium sold out for Ireland's pool stage match against Romania in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Wembley Stadium sold out for Ireland's pool stage match against Romania in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
James McDermott
Sat Nov 16 2024 - 06:00

There was a time when people would do anything to watch the football at Wembley.

Having starred in the Royal Variety Performance, Tommy Cooper was introduced to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.

“Can I ask you a personal question, do you like football?” asked the comedian. “Not particularly, no” she replied. “Well in that case can I have your FA Cup Final tickets?” Cooper inquired.

Sadly there is no such overwhelming desire from fans to see Ireland play England at Wembley on Sunday, with the FAI returning unsold tickets, but such apathy is understandable.

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Wembley’s tagline is ‘Inspiring Memories’. For Irish fans ‘Generating Nightmares’ might be a more accurate. Ireland have only beaten England twice. Both wins came away from home, but neither were at Wembley.

In 1949 Ireland became the first team to defeat England at home, but that 2-0 win wasat Goodison Park. And Stuttgart was the venue when Ray Houghton famously put the ball in the English net at Euro ‘88 to secure a 1-0 victory for Ireland in their major championship debut.

On Ireland’s first visit to Wembley in May 1957, Tommy Taylor netted the first World Cup qualifying goal at the stadium on his way to a hat-trick that would inspire the home side to a 5-1 victory.

Less than a year later the Manchester United star died in the Munich air disaster aged 26. Ireland’s most recent visit to Wembley was during Covid-19 with the visitors so outclassed during a 3-0 defeat that it was probably best the game was held behind closed doors.

Wembley Stadium lit up ahead of a freidnly between England and the Republic of Ireland in November 2020. Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho
Wembley Stadium lit up ahead of a freidnly between England and the Republic of Ireland in November 2020. Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho

The only thing worse for Ireland than playing at Wembley is not playing there. One of the FAI’s more bizarre decisions involved accepting an offer to keep all the gate receipts in exchange for moving their 1966 World Cup final play-off against Spain from London to Paris.

Ireland lost 1-0 at the Parc des Princes. Such was the overwhelming support for their opponents goalkeeper Pat Dunne ruefully recalled: “The only Irish flag I saw in the stadium was the one on the flagpole.”

The venue has also been an unhappy one for Irish players in the club game. Manchester United’s Kevin Moran became the first man ever to be sent-off in an FA Cup final for a wild lunge at Peter Reid in 1984 that rendered the Everton midfielder momentarily airborne.

John Aldridge scored 17 of his 18 penalties for Liverpool, but the only one people remember was saved by Dave Beasant in the 1988 Cup final, enabling underdogs Wimbledon to cling on for a 1-0 win.

So how do Ireland secure a first victory at Wembley on Sunday? There is one fool proof plan, but unfortunately it involves sneaking four additional players on to the pitch and replacing the round ball with an oval one.

The FAI have long accepted that the IRFU will enjoy a much more impressive record at Lansdowne Road, but more surprisingly the Irish rugby team also have a far superior record in northwest London.

In fact they possess a perfect record, starting in 1999 when Ireland beat Wales 29-23 in the Five Nations while Cardiff’s Millennium (now Principality) Stadium was under construction.

In the 2015 Rugby World Cup, Ireland defeated Romania 44-10 in a World Cup tie that attracted a tournament-record crowd of 89,267 despite it only being a pool match.

Characteristically, the GAA would outwit both the FAI and the IRFU by devising a plan that guaranteed an Irish winner at Wembley. Between 1958 and 1974, the association sent county teams over to London to play in a number of exhibition matches.

These ‘Wembley at Whit’ fixtures proved so successful that they became an annual event, attracting crowds of over 40,000 spectators. Sadly little film footage of these matches survives but the British Pathé report on the 1961 football exhibition between Kerry and Down has the perplexed commenter explaining that the sport has “all the aggression of soccer, rugger, and prize fighting – but what the rules are, you’d have to ask an Irishman”.

Perhaps the Irishman best qualified to provide such an explanation was Tony Grealish, who played both GAA and soccer at Wembley.

Grealish featured alongside his brother Brian for London against New York in a Whit weekend tournament and in 1983 returned to captain Brighton in their drawn FA Cup final against Manchester United, later losing the replay 4-0.

But if you want an Irish winner at Wembley capable of literally running rings around their opponents, then as George Orwell suggested in Animal Farm its “four legs good, two legs bad”.

It is rarely a good sign when a business is described as going to the dogs, but that precise strategy saved Wembley Stadium from liquidation. For decades after Wembley opened in 1923, it was considered a financial disaster relying on income generated from greyhound racing for its survival.

Greyhound racing was considered so important that when England hosted the 1966 World Cup group game between Uruguay and France it was moved to White City Stadium so as not to disrupt the regular Friday greyhound races.

In 1931 the Irish-born Mick the Miller completed the greyhound-racing double by winning the Wembley Spring Stakes and the St Leger at Wembley. In retirement Mick became an unexpected canine movie star and is today commemorated by a life-size statue erected in his hometown of Killeigh, Co Offaly.