There was nothing grand about Ireland the last time they faced the Grand Duchy, an early lesson for Jack Charlton in the art of achieving qualification. How you may be able to vanquish a lion, but it’s a minnow that can attack and leave you close to death.
n the road to the finals of Euro ’88, the hard work was done with the win away to Scotland, the draw away to Belgium and a win at home to a tough Bulgarian side, that Charlton outfit capable of dealing with big names.
But it was in games at home and away to then-minnows Luxembourg where the road to Euro ’88 almost ground to a halt, one game an “embarrassment” in the words of the then Ireland captain, with an Irish display called “abysmal with sledgehammer tactics” by the Evening Herald: a lesson Stephen Kenny and his staff will be aware of as they prepare for a game at home to Luxembourg, a match the Republic are expected to win but where points will have to be earned, not just handed over.
Below-par in an away game which Ireland struggled to win, and then so poor in the home match that the side were booed off at half-time, it sparked something of a war of words between Charlton and the Irish support. Success would come in Germany a year later but over 180 minutes against Luxembourg in 1987, Ireland struggled to the extent that that European Championship dream was almost killed off by one of the worst teams in Europe.
Luxembourg come to Dublin 4 today as one of Europe’s traditionally weak sides who are on the way up. Ranked 98th in the world and 40th of the 55 European nations, they peaked in 2017 with a rise to 83rd in the world, but they have been steady for a few years, their club sides gaining ground in European competition.
But when Ireland were drawn against Luxembourg for the Euro ’88 qualifiers, they were one of the worst national teams on the continent. Before they hosted Ireland in May 1987, Luxembourg had not won a competitive game in 15 years, and in the previous 36 games, they’d had one draw and 35 defeats.
On a Thursday in May ’87, at home, they faced an Irish side still on a high from a win over Brazil five days earlier, points in the bag before a ball was kicked. The attendance of 4,290 in Luxembourg that day had a pretty healthy Irish support, 500-strong.
“In our eyes it was going to be a hard match but in the eyes of the press it was a foregone conclusion and only a matter of how many goals we’d win by,” team captain Frank Stapleton recalled in his autobiography. “This had been determined by the fact that Belgium had beaten Luxembourg 6-0 and that we would run up a similar score.
“Being professional footballers we knew that we could take nothing for granted and would have to work for anything we got and so it turned out.”
Stapleton recalls winning the game 2-0 “with a toe-poke goal from Tony Galvin and screaming shot from 25 yards by Ronnie Whelan, their first international goals”. But it was grim fare.
‘A victory but no satisfaction’ was the headline in the Irish Independent. “I doubt any of the players will look back on this visit to the Grand Duchy with any great degree of satisfaction,” the report continued, groaning that Ireland only “sneaked in front before half-time”.
There was more pain on the day as John Aldridge, who had already played 12 games for Ireland without scoring, found the net in Luxembourg but saw it disallowed, and he’d have to wait 18 months for his first international goal. It was believed at the time that Aldridge would get a one-game ban for his protests over that decision, but even that saw enmity seep back home.
The Irish Independent said a suspension for the goal-less Aldridge for the next game would spare Charlton the embarrassment of having to drop the Liverpool striker as “the manager’s patience must be exhausted” and on the flight back, a senior member of the squad confronted the travelling Irish media over the negative tone of their reports. This was not a happy camp.
Everyone needed a break, so the players then had a summer off and regrouped for international duty, at home to Luxembourg, four months later. Charlton had a strong side to pick from, an all-Manchester United central defence (Moran and McGrath), an impressive midfield (Houghton, Whelan, Brady, Galvin) with Stapleton (now at Ajax) and John Byrne (QPR) up front.
But the mood music wasn’t good, a crowd of just 18,000, perhaps because of an awkward kick-off time, 5.30pm on a Wednesday, setting a grim tone for the day, as the morning papers made it clear that “cash will be taken at the stiles”.
And what happened next was almost a disaster, kicking off with Luxembourg taking the lead, continuing with those boos from and finishing with an Ireland win: just about. “It was a bit of an embarrassment, one of our off days,” Stapleton recalled. “The build-up by the press was low-key, as they had already written the team off as having no hope of qualifying. So the lack of interest from the public contrived to make it one of our hardest games instead of one of our easiest. After 25 minutes we were making no headway, passes were going astray.”
But in blaming the press, the captain was missing the point. In his own programme notes, Charlton had said “simply it is a match we must win and our lads must take the chance to try and improve our goal difference at the same time”.
If Luxembourg, already derided in the Irish press with “amateur” labels, needed any extra motivation, they had it in spades. Whether the away side knew it or not, Charlton had already displayed a lack of focus by attending an earner on the eve of the game, guest speaker at a lunch for the Publicity Club in Dublin.
One account of that gig said the manager was “banking on walloping Luxembourg at Lansdowne Road” while the Irish Independent said the game was “a goal feast or bust” as “the height of Luxembourg’s ambition is to avoid a thrashing”. An unnamed source in the away camp said their hope was to get away with a three-goal defeat.
And on 28 minutes it all blew up in Ireland’s face when Luxembourg went in front through debutant Armand Krings, scoring his only international goal.
“Against all the odds they looked like winning the game,” says Stapleton, who helped to improve things by scoring an equaliser, from an Ashley Grimes cross, just before half-time. There was more misery to come as Luxembourg scored again when it was level at 1-1, but the Welsh referee disallowed the goal. A scrappy Paul McGrath finish put Ireland ahead, but a pallid side stayed in their shell. Niall Quinn replaced Tony Galvin and Charlton instructed Stapleton told to play a midfield holding role, Jack by now just keen to hold on.
For the crowd, this was painful: a team with three players from Manchester United and Liverpool playing it tight to hold off a team which had only two full-time players in the side.
The anger spilled out after the game. Charlton lashed out at the fans who had booed his side. “I was upset with the crowd, they watched a game in which our lads ran their a***s off, they were disappointed because you lot wrote them off,” he thundered at the media.
“You fellows kept talking about six-goal victories and that’s what had the crowd reacting when we didn’t get the goals. Maybe Luxembourg should have sat back and let us score six,” he shouted before storming out of his press conference. His counterpart smiled and said Ireland had been predictable and, far from being content with defeat by a one-goal margin, was disappointed not to get a point.
Acrimony followed. The day after the game, the squad were called “£5m misfits” on the front page of the Evening Herald as the papers got stuck into Charlton. According to Eamon Dunphy in the Sunday Independent the next weekend, John Giles’ only comment after the game was: “I’m glad I don’t have to write about this”.
A month later, Ireland did win a big game, beating Bulgaria at home, and four weeks later again, Gary Mackay did what was needed in Sofia for Ireland to qualify, those woes against Luxembourg dismissed to the history books until another L, Liechtenstein, would usher Charlton towards a traumatic exit.
