BiographyMany compelling voices and stories presenting the austere and often brutally numbing existence of children bound to Irish foster homes and orphanages over the last half-century have been heard in recent years.
But even these are not adequate preparation for the shockingly lonely and pitiful boyhood reminisces of Paul McGrath, the troubled and brilliant Irish soccer player who remains beloved of football crowds in Manchester, Birmingham and Lansdowne Road.
As a football player, McGrath was blessed with what Alex Ferguson calls "an athleticism that was musical" and he used that gift to garner one of the most glittering reputations in world football, to the point where fans and fellow professionals revered him. Sport was the only arena in which he conquered. Even when McGrath was at his mighty peak as a football star in the mid-1990s, his terrible addiction to alcohol was practically an open secret and the car-wrecks and vodka hoards and broken families (two) are described in detail here.
But it is the events outlined in the opening third of this biography, which is as much the story of McGrath's mother, Betty, as his own, that informed and coloured everything that happened to him as an adult. His parents met at a dance in the Four Provinces club on Dublin's Harcourt Street. McGrath's father, Festis, was a Nigerian medical student studying in Dublin. For Betty, the trauma of an unplanned pregnancy in Dublin in the late 1950s meant the usual panicked flight to England, the brutally abrupt surrendering of her son and a lifetime of guilt and partial atonement. Her attempts to know Paul were compromised by the fact that she would later give birth to a daughter, Okune, from a subsequent relationship and fought to keep this child, despite the fear of retribution from what was a traditional, patriarchal - and drink-dominated - home.
For Paul, it meant a largely loveless childhood with the attendant problems of bed-wetting, chronic insecurity and a deep unhappiness that culminated in two bouts of catatonic resignation in his teens. McGrath's vivid recollection of smells, of food, of casual kindness and cruelty, and the sense of not belonging that has always haunted him make for harrowing reading. And against the bleak and tough ritual of the orphanages came his occasional visits "home", where he got to meet his legendarily fearsome grandfather, Patrick P McGrath: "I even quite liked him in a way. He had such a grip on the atmosphere in the house it was quite comical. Just the rustle of his newspaper would have people jumping to attention."
That McGrath made it into the dream world of big-time soccer is something of a miracle. In the masonic world of elite English football, his weaknesses were glossed over and indulged. He was a friend and a precious commodity and was protected. The descriptions of the absurd lengths to which his colleagues on the Irish team went to stand between him and a (dozen) drinks might be humorous were it not for the constant tone of desperation. McGrath was an adult under house arrest, shinning down drainpipes and ringing strangers to ask them to smuggle poitin up to his room, and never allowed out on the town. At one point Jack Charlton, always the fond, gruff uncle, says: "I brought him up a box of chocolates once, I felt so sorry for him." In a way, it is perhaps the most savagely lonely line in this book.
For the book, McGrath collaborated with Vincent Hogan of the Irish Independent, who previously worked with hurling star Nicky English to produce a memorable biography. The unyielding honesty they obviously agreed upon has meant this biography is another valuable record of the pain suffered by those whose circumstances did not adhere to the strict ideals of de Valera's Ireland. And it is easy to hear the mannerly, velvety voice that, along with the beautiful face, has made McGrath such a charming public presence. He is not always a likeable man here, nor does he pretend to be, owning up to selfishness and cowardice. At one point, a GP named Patrick Nugent, one of the many guardians in McGrath's later life, compares him to Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. That he has retained the love and loyalty of so many despite all the falls and betrayals is the story's one saving grace. And, at 47, he offers no happy conclusion, just an avowal to try better - a task that is never easy for those who have heard the adoration of the football masses.
This is a desperately sad document of human frailty and abundant brilliance and features strongly on the lists for the forthcoming sports books of the year awards, both in Dublin and London. Of course, accolades were never what Paul McGrath sought, only acceptance and a sense of ease in his own skin.
Keith Duggan is a sports journalist with The Irish Times
Back from the Brink By Paul McGrath Century, 372pp. £18.99
