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Cheasty · January 20, 2026, 1:39pm

The photograph is taken in almost the exact location these events happened.

I attended Ireland v Malta at Lansdowne Road on May 28th, 1989 and my oul’ fella bought me a programme. When you’re in single figures age wise, you’re a sponge.

Malta presented a formidable obstacle if Ireland were to qualify for their first World Cup finals and I was eager to get the lowdown on our opponents so I paid the utmost attention to Paul Buttner’s pen pictures of the Maltese team in the programme as I sat on the Havelock Square terrace in the 40 minutes before kick-off.

Carmel Busittil was Malta’s danger man up front. He had done us a big favour the previous November by scoring twice against Hungary in a 2-2 draw.

David Cluett was the goalkeeper in Lansdowne Road but had been replaced by Regi Cini by the time of the final qualifier in November. Regi didn’t like John Aldridge’s stop start penalty style, he pointed his finger at Aldridge like that Harry Enfield character in the Dime Bar ad who said “that bloke’s a nutter”.

Liveline with Kieran Cuddihy

I was on the receiving end of a version of this myself at Ireland v Malta on May 28th, 1989 up in the back corner of the Havelock Square end beside the railway. As I sat on the steps 35-40 minutes before the start of the game, lovingly perusing the match programme, my CR Smith Celtic jersey was remarked upon by some older supporters with heavy Dublin accents.

“Ya support Celtic do ya? Ah we wouldn’t be too keen on Celtic, now. We’re Rangers men.”

“No yis don’t” says I. “Oh yeah, big Rangers man so I am” says one of the men.

I cited the previous week’s SFA Cup final when Celtic had beaten Rangers 1-0 to rub their noses in it and demostrate to them that Celtic were BETTER than Rangers, but they defiantly pointed to Rangers’ emphatic league championship victory, the goalscoring exploits of Ally McCoist and Graeme Souness’s expert player-management to rub my nose in it.

I wasn’t overly familiar with the concept of craic with adults at that age and thought they were serious.

Perhaps they were serious.