It's been a long time coming and Alan Kelly expects tomorrow night's friendly international at Wembley to be an occasion to celebrate. However, the recent incidents of trouble involving Newcastle and Millwall fans are a reminder to him that the game is not yet free of its old demons. Nevertheless, it has come a long way since the dark days when rioting England fans forced the abandonment of the 1995 Lansdowne Road game.
Kelly was in goal that night while members of his family were in the West Stand, close to where all the trouble was. Watching it unfold, he says, was like “nothing else I’ve ever seen in a football stadium”. But even before the game kicked off, he recalls, there was a sense of trouble brewing in the air.
“There was definitely a negative atmosphere in the warm-up,” he said yesterday as the Republic of Ireland squad trained in St Albans. “Even the English players were being booed by their own fans in the warm-up and they found that quite shocking I think. There was a tinderbox atmosphere where something might kick off.
“David Kelly scored after 22 minutes and then David Platt scored but it was disallowed and that seemed to be the start of it. I could see it unfold, the amount of debris, I still can’t put it into words . . . there were iron bars, whole sections of seats.
"The old floodlights at Lansdowne Road had a sort of misty quality to them and it was just incredible to see the things raining down on the people below. To be on the pitch, watching it and worrying for the people below wasn't great really."
Family members
Most of the players had family members close to the trouble and when, after a while, it became clear that the game would not restart, ensuring that they were okay became the priority.
“The West Upper Stand was where a lot of the families were sat, right next to the England fans, and if they decided to go to their left, the stampede that could have followed would have been catastrophic. It was a night of mayhem all around.
“You think about your family being there and whether they are okay. Are the fans okay? I remember seeing a whole section of the stand getting thrown over the top. You just think ‘how is someone going to survive that if it hits them on the head?’”
Behind the scenes, he says, Jack Charlton was taking it badly; feeling let down by his countrymen on what should have been a night of pride.
"Jack was angry," he recalls. "There was disappointment and disbelief; not only that his team didn't have the chance to finish the game but also because this was the country he represented.
'Sense of embarrassment'
"His memory was of what he did in 1966 and to see that violence and put it in an Ireland context meant there was a sense of embarrassment. He got hold of one supporter at one stage. It was like Brian Clough – that sort of moment.
“I remember walking around and you could see in some of the interviews he did that he was just dazed. It was a mixture of being dazed, rage, disbelief. I’d never seen him like that. We kept to ourselves a bit and tried to find our families.”
He feels the wait of 18 years for a rematch was too long. “But it would have been great to meet England at the Aviva Stadium and hopefully that will come quickly, as that would put everything to bed in terms of that fixture being played at the new Lansdowne Road. When that happens, for me, that will be the end of it.
“In the meantime, this (the Wembley game) is a fantastic occasion that I’m really looking forward to it. It’s important to the players too.
“They play against these guys week in week out and so to get the opportunity to pit their wits against them in a magnificent stadium, in front of a magnificent crowd . . . it’s going to be a hell of an occasion,” added Kelly.
