by Jimmy Magee
On a personal level, I was grateful to be going to Italy for the World Cup, because I hoped the trip might help to divert my mind from the pain I was feeling after losing my wife and my mother. At that point I was very low, and I couldn’t see myself ever managing to recover from those huge losses. There isn’t a single day that goes by without them entering my thoughts, but I have learnt to live with my fate. As the adage goes, time is a great healer. But I would probably have fallen into a million little pieces if there hadn’t been a World Cup to motivate me to keep going.
I was there when Ireland qualified for the World Cup in Malta. The night was wonderful, because we were on the verge of achieving the unthinkable. I did the interview with Jack Charlton immediately afterwards on the field. Yes, he was ecstatic, but the euphoric Irish fans took him aback. He didn’t know what was going on; he couldn’t understand these mad Irish fans. (Those are my words, not Jack’s, I hasten to add!) He could never understand why there were so many people on the streets of Dublin when the team came home after getting knocked out in the quarter-finals by Italy. His view was ‘But we didn’t win the thing!’ And he was right: we didn’t even win a match in the World Cup. We did beat Romania on penalties—in fact that match was a draw, but it has to be decided that one of the drawing teams can move on. Nobody ever says, ‘It was the greatest game ever, with the best team ever.’
Again I have to say I was disappointed with the decision made by RTE before I went out to Italy that I wouldn’t be doing the commentary on any of Ireland’s group matches, against England, the Netherlands or Egypt. Theoretically I could get an Ireland game if they got to the quarter-final, to be played in Rome, and probably against Italy. It was an attractive prospect.
So, it was all planned out ahead what matches would be done, by whom and where and when—and all I could do was keep my fingers crossed that Ireland had a good run and got to Rome; otherwise I would have the dubious honour of being one of the world’s longest-serving sports broadcasters who never did the commentary on his national team at an international tournament such as the Euro or World Cup.
I’ve often wondered why RTE decided not to use me, and the only reason I can think of is that a new man came in, George Hamilton—who I have great admiration for—and that he had stipulated in his contract that he would do the Irish matches. Maybe RTE thought it would be trendy to have a younger person doing the commentary for the Irish games, or maybe they just felt he was better than me—which is not up to me to say, but I personally don’t think so.
The same thing occurred in 1994. I don’t do a lot of Irish matches now, though I did a friendly against Slovakia recently. George obviously has a contract, and that’s what we have to go along with. Although I’m friendly with George, I’ve never spoken to him about it or asked him. I’ve been told that’s the way these things work. It’s the same in the BBC, with John Motson appearing to have a monopoly on English matches.
But it was frustrating, and before I headed over to Italy I did approach the management in RTE to vent my views about it, but sure what’s the point? Once it’s a fait accompli there’s no point in worrying about it any more. They didn’t really give me a reason.
I never rocked the boat in RTE; I never really pushed myself into anything with them. Maybe I should have pushed myself; many people, including members of my family, have said to me, ‘You’re too soft! You’re too soft!’ And maybe I am. But what harm has it done me? Well, say I had done another hundred Irish games, would I be any better off today?
Before heading over to Italy I decided that I wasn’t going to let it sour me or unduly worry me, as it had done with Euro ’88. ‘Just get on with what you’re doing and be grateful that you’re going,’ I told myself as I boarded the plane.
But the football gods were smiling on me, and Ireland did get to the quarter-final in Rome against Italy. Finally my first Irish game was happening and, as it happens, it’s still to this day the biggest game we ever played in.
I walked into the magnificent Stadio Olimpico with Liam Brady as the 73,000 fans crowded in. I could tell that Liam, who was loved by the Italians after his days with Juventus, Sampdoria and Internazionale, was disappointed that he wasn’t going to be playing that night. He should have been playing, as he was only thirty-four and had officially retired only the previous month, after finishing his career at West Ham United. Instead he was there that night as an analyst.
We were walking up the ramp to the stadium, and these guys manning the gate suddenly saw Liam Brady and began shouting his name and running over to him in turns to shake his hands. I told him that it showed what they thought of him there still, because he hadn’t played in Italy in a while and he hadn’t ever played for a team in Rome.
He just said, ‘It’s nice.’ I thought it was better than nice.
Unfortunately the game turned out to be far from nice for Ireland. It was a sad day really, because there was such a good feeling about the Irish team over there. I thought they might have done it that day. And they were only defeated by one goal in the thirty-eighth minute by Schillaci, who seemed to score at will in that tournament.
To begin with, he didn’t even make the starting team: he came on as a sub in the first match and scored and went on to score in every other game he played in. In the 1988 European championships Marco van Basten, a great Dutch player, didn’t get in the starting team either and came on as a sub and then retained his place and became the top scorer of the championships.
Schillaci did a lot for me without me having met him, because every time I was being turned away from a restaurant because it was too full I would say to the maître d’, ‘Ah, Schillaci! Mwah, mwah’!’ And they would suddenly get the table for me. ‘Schillaci’ was the magic word.
Back home Ian Corr, an RTE producer, asked me to do an intimate interview piece with Jack Charlton, because we knew each other very well. He wanted me to talk to Charlton in the way a couple of friends would talk to each other about the World Cup and things that the rest of us mere mortals may not know. Jack agreed to do it, and we met in the Shelbourne Hotel for tea and cakes.
I began by saying, ‘So, Jack, tell me this. Tell me something that you know that the rest of us don’t know about the World Cup.’
‘I’m glad you asked me that. We’re playing Italy, and I’ve said to the fellas, “I want you to play it over the top.” And Kevin Sheedy says, “We don’t do that at Everton; we play to feet.” I told him, “I don’t care what you do at Everton. This is not Everton, and don’t give us that insubordination: play it over the top.” Sheedy says, “But—” I said, “No buts at all, play it over the top. Get it?” Sheedy then says, “Do you mean if I have the ball I don’t pass it to one of my own team?” “Correct.”
‘So what happens in the game—Sheedy has the ball. Aldridge is there and calls for it. Sheedy passes it to Aldridge and it bounces away from him. The Italians get it, run it down, cross, and it comes to your man Donadoni, and he has a shot. I ask Packie for one save. He can only parry it away, and that fellow Schillaci got the only goal. It was hard luck for Packie, bad control by Aldridge, but it wasn’t their fault: it was Sheedy, who didn’t do as he was told. Had he done what he was told they wouldn’t have got the ball, and they wouldn’t have got that goal.’
‘Jesus, Jack, that simplifies it!’ I replied.
I’ve always enjoyed interviewing sport personalities like Jack Charlton and getting their insider’s view on major events.
——
About this time, in the late 1980s or early 90s, I was working on a television project called ‘Champions’, which had me go around the world to interview fifteen sports stars for a kind of ‘where are they now?’ programme in which they reflected on their achievements. Yes, I know, it’s very nice work if you can get it. It was a fantastically produced show, commissioned by an independent television company run by Mike Murphy and Larry Masterson, who is a former producer of the ‘Late Late Show’. It came about when the two of them were com
ing back from Australia and were discussing ideas on the flight. Their cameraman, Séamus Deasy, said, ‘I’ve a great idea, but before I tell you what it is I want to emphasise that it belongs to Jimmy Magee, because he put it to me a long time ago. So I’ll tell you all about it, but then I don’t want anybody stealing it, because it’s Jimmy’s.’
He explained that the idea was to go to the places and talk to these people. Where are they now? What are they doing now? Are they still fit and healthy?
The boys thought it was a great idea, and they got on to me about it and said they would produce it and I’d present it.
We did it in bits. One of the first trips was to Australia, which turned out to be gruelling, because we had to get there and back quickly, as we were on such a tight budget. We jetted out on the Monday, arrived in Perth on Tuesday, went straight to work doing an interview all that day, then got the plane that night to Melbourne, and two days later back up to Sydney and then home on Friday on a night flight. We were wrecked; however, I’m that mad that I would gladly do it again.
We first went to Perth and interviewed Margaret Court, who was the queen of the tennis courts. She had made history by being the first woman during the Open era and the second woman in history, after Maureen Connolly, to win all four Grand Slam tournament singles titles in the same calendar year.
After that we went across to Melbourne to meet Herb Elliott, who was easily one of the greatest 1,500-metre runners in the world. In his time he was the best, and even now he would be well up there. He ran before the advent of those fancy tracks: he ran on grass and he ran on gravel, but he was stupendous. He was never beaten over a mile or 1,500 metres in any race, by anybody, anywhere. There were no world championships during his time but there were the Olympics, and he won the 1,500 metres at the 1960 Rome Olympics in a runaway. He came to Ireland in August 1958 and ran at Santry when Billy Morton brought him over en route from the then Empire Games in Cardiff. It was reckoned that Elliott was going to break the world mile record, which had first been broken in 1954, and set a new record time. In a wonderful race, which I was there to witness, Elliott won; the first five men were all inside four minutes. It was the greatest mile race up until then, and Elliott ran 3’54.5”. The first man ever under 3’55” was Herb Elliott. His famous trainer was a man called Percy Cerutty, who trained him like a dog, like a slave.
We wanted Elliott to bring us to Portsea, out to the sand dunes where he trained with Cerutty. It would pull the legs off you running in sand dunes. Out he went with us—thirty years after his prime—and he got into his running singlet and shorts and running shoes so we could get pictures of him running on the sand. We told him that he didn’t have to run, but he insisted so that it would be authentic. As I watched him running quickly across the sand I thought, ‘There’s not an extra pound on him after all these years since his retirement. He’s mighty.’ I’ll never forget him, and how generous he was with both his time and his body.
When we had tidied up all our stuff he wanted to bring us out for a meal to his house, but reluctantly we had to turn down his kind offer because we had to go to Sydney to do another interview. In retrospect I think we should have taken him up on it after what happened next.
The crew got the bright idea of making a road trip. ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely to drive from Melbourne to Sydney?’
‘Ah, would you come on and we’ll get the plane. The plane is fast. It’ll take us six or seven hours to drive.’
But they insisted, and I reluctantly gave in. Séamus was driving, and after we drove across the city of Melbourne I asked him if he wanted me to drive for a while. He said yes, so we switched over.
I drove for about thirty miles and then turned around to discover that the other three were sound asleep. These are the boys that wanted to see the bush and wanted to see Australia. Only one person was awake, the one who didn’t want to drive: me!
I drove for another two hundred miles and then I said to them, ‘That’s enough of that. I’m pulling in for the night.’
We stayed in a place called Yaz. It was so remote that the fellow had to open the hotel when he saw us coming. To make matters worse it was the coldest and dampest place I’ve ever had the misfortune to stay overnight in—and, believe you me, I’ve been in some cold places. It was so bad in this hotel that—I’m not joking—we had to heat ourselves with the television! Picture this: the television would be turned on and put under the covers of the bed, and then we’d take the heat from the set—fully clothed. So that was our night in Yaz. Yes, Australia is a lovely place, always warm—like hell!
——
After this trip I went over to the Netherlands to meet Francina Blankers-Koen, known as ‘Flying Fanny’, who was the first woman to win four gold medals at the same Olympic Games. She went to the Olympics in 1936, little more than a child, to compete for the Netherlands on their relay team. She was to become the greatest athlete of all time, as we all thought. Sadly, the next Olympics were scheduled for 1940 but weren’t held, because of the Second World War. The next ones after that, due in 1944, weren’t held either. In 1948 Fanny was thirty and the mother of two children, but she still qualified for the Olympics in London and won gold medals in the 100 metres, 200 metres, 80 metres hurdles and 4 × 100 metre relay. That was a fantastic performance. This was my second opportunity to meet this incredible character. About fourteen years before the ‘Champions’ programme I had gone over to the Netherlands to do an interview with her for the Sunday World. I had made contact with her through her daughter, who worked for the Dutch television channel NOS.
When I visited her in her apartment in Amsterdam I asked her, ‘Have you still got the medals? ‘Yes, I have,’ she replied, and she began pulling out drawers and bits of things and eventually produced the four medals. It was wonderful to hold them.
For ‘Champions’ we went out to her summer home on the picturesque canal banks. By now she was in her eighties, but she still wanted to swim for us to show us how fit she was. She was one of the most fascinating women I have ever met, a truly wonderful woman. I thought this woman would live for ever, but sadly she died in 2004. I will never forget Flying Fanny.
Our next big trip for the series was to the United States, where I met Peter Snell of New Zealand, who was a three-times Olympic winner; Mark Spitz, the swimmer; Floyd Patterson, the boxer; and Arthur Ashe, the tennis player, who tragically died from AIDS.
We headed for New Paltz, New York, to meet Floyd Patterson, who has the distinction of being the first fighter to regain the heavyweight championship of the world. There were no airs or graces about the man, who died in 2006. He opened the front door to us, and the first thing he said to me was, ‘Did you ever hear of the Iron Man from Rhode?’
I smiled and said, Yes. Every Gaelic footballer reading this book will know of Paddy McCormack, who played for Rhode, Co. Offaly, and was known as the Iron Man from Rhode for good reason. One of the Heavey girls from that area married Floyd Patterson, and she must have told her husband about this somewhere along the way. It fascinated me to hear him being mentioned all those miles away from Rhode. We had a bit of a laugh about it.
We then went on to meet one of my absolute heroes, Arthur Ashe, at his home in New York state. We arrived in this little town where he lived. We found the right street but couldn’t find the number of the house. There were two women out in their garden, so we asked them if they could help us find Arthur Ashe.
‘Arthur Ashe? Miriam, do you know Arthur Ashe?’
‘What does he do?’ the other woman asked.
I told them he was a professional tennis player, a Wimbledon and American champion.
‘Sorry, never heard of him,’ they said dismissively.
I ask you, how could they not have heard of the first black man to win Wimbledon?
We were sure we were in the right place, but we thanked the women and went on. We walked up the next avenue and asked someone if we were in the right place to find Arthur Ashe. I was shocked to learn
that he was living next door to the two women we had previously asked and who had professed no knowledge of him. Now, either they were totally ignorant of the fact, or ignorant of tennis, or just so plain ignorant and racist that they didn’t want to recognise a black man.
I asked Arthur if he would pick up a tennis racket and hit a few balls for the camera. It was something we had got other people to do: Jackie Stewart drove a car (albeit a private car) and we got Eddy Merckx on his bike.
‘I’ll do anything else, but I can’t play tennis,’ he said, politely but firmly.
So we left it. I was puzzled, because he was so gentlemanly about everything else and showed us all his pictures and what they meant. He didn’t cut anything short, but under no circumstances would he go out and play tennis.
I didn’t learn until much later that he couldn’t play tennis any more because of his illness with HIV, which he had contracted from a blood transfusion after a second heart operation in 1983. He simply hadn’t the energy. He did look tired, but you wouldn’t know by looking at him that he was so ill. He did say to me that he was very tired and ‘had to take life easy.’ It was only then that it began to dawn on me how bad he was.
Arthur Ashe was still only forty-nine when he died in 1993, which was not too long after our memorable meeting. When he died I cried. I was in Madison Square Garden in New York at a boxing match the night he died. In boxing, when someone has died they ring the bell ten times, which is known as the prayer for the departed. They did it that night, and an announcer came on and said, ‘We’ll take a little break now from this fist feast, because one of our greatest ever has passed away to his eternal rest. Ladies and gentlemen of Madison Square Garden, to the late Arthur Ashe.’
I was stunned. When I looked around at the boxing crowd getting to their feet in his honour, tears trickled down my face as I thought back to the time I had spent in his company.
——
The staging of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona was one of the best ever. I happily remember walking down towards the old Bull Ring. You come to an incline that goes up towards the hill of Montjuïc and the Plaça d’Espanya and the water fountains. At night the fountains were all coloured, and the song ‘Barcelona’, written by Freddie Mercury and sung by the Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé, would be floating out of the speakers and onto the packed streets. It was just hair-standing-on-end stuff.
