i never loved him because he is
Reading the intro about the Italian game sent shivers down my spine. Ill never forget McGraths performance that day, the guys knees were in sh!te and he still held off some of the greatest players of that time almost single handed. I know Roy Keane was our player of the tournament at USA 94 but my abiding memory of that (largely anticlimactic) tournament is of McGrath, an alcoholic with knees that would have seen many players call it a day, giving his absolute all for his country. Our current crop could learn a thing or two from him.
Must get the book, although I reckon it would be a tough read.
People are forgetting the color of his skin, which i would like to remind you is BLACK!
The Italia 90 team came home to Ireland at the start of July. The same day Nelson and Winnie Mandela came to visit Ireland - he had been released a couple of months previously I think.
There was about 50,000 people at the airport to see the soccer team home but some of us were there from early on. When the Mandelas disembarked the plane in front of all the fans everyone started chanting “Ooh aah Paul McGrath” - mildly racist in retrospect possibly but it was meant in good spirit.
Some smashing observations there Brian
He played with a frozen shoulder against Italy as well
He disgraced the Irish jersey by being black, ____!
Removed a poster’s real name. Ox stay off this thread if you want to be racist I don’t want to edit all your comments
What are you trying to accomplish Ox?
I know that you are not a racist
Smite you fucker
Show some respect
Respect for McGrath. Go ask me hoop. Fookin waster he is
Right ye fookin coont; its a smiting war now!
I’ve deleted Ball Ox’s “poem” on McGrath. If you can’t keep it free from racism don’t bother posting Ox.
Censorship is not on.
An absolute legend. Will definitely buy the book, only problem is its shadow written by that Vincent Hogan guy I think and dont like the stuff he writes in the Indo.
too true flano; who died and put him in charge
how do you define racist, rock?
Ball - I have a massive amount of respect for your poetry and also tolerate your controversial views, however this abuse of Paul McGrath is not on, the man is a national treasure.
Listen I couldn’t give a shit who you’re insulting Ball Ox as long as you do it in an acceptable manner. I don’t agree with any of your opinions on McGrath but I left the first few comments go, other than deleting racist terminology. I’m not standing over a website that has racist language because a_ it’s wrong, b_ against the terms of the web hosting service and c_ probably illegal. It also breaches internet usage policies in most companies and as the majority of people on here are in work a lot of the time then I won’t leave offensive posts there.
He is an absolute disgrace, alco bastard
McGrath was a great talent but sadly tarnished by his illness. Recently he has been living in Wexico and is known to be making a serious effort to become healthier and beat the alcoholism that has haunted him.
He was in town one night a few months back and it was embarrassing to see him, and some of the stuff he was doing. Ordinarily he could’ve copped a smack but because of the national legend that he is punters just wanted to hug the big fooker and help get him sorted. Sad but maybe the opeing of his heart in this book will help get him sorted.
As for the greatest Irish player ever, not in my book. Roy Keane is number one, on the ground of his longevity, consistency and leadership.
Neither is rascism like that.
It’s not funny and it’s not clever. Pointless really and ruining a good discussion.
McGrath is tackling his demons
By Rick Broadbent
The dark days are now fewer for troubled former international
THE HOUSE WAS EMPTY AND Graham Taylor had just rung to deliver the latest edition of the Riot Act. Feelings of shame and self-loathing merged. The inner voice told him he was a worthless bum. I vividly remember the Stanley knife and the blood pouring on to the floor, Paul McGrath recalled. Come to think of it, I remember the au pairs scream, too.
Re-reading his biography left McGrath shaking his head. I thought, What sort of human being are you? It was the best of tomes, it was the worst of tomes, a tale of two players the sober star playing in midfield and defence, and the suicidal drunk on the brink.
On Saturday, McGrath went back to Aston Villa and was fted as a much-loved son. Everyone knew of his problems, but few outside of an inner circle have appreciated the depth of the depressions or the trauma of the mental breakdown that left him grinding bacon and egg into his hair and with his knees stuck together from months lying in a zombified state.
The nadir was slashing his wrists while his baby son, Christopher, lay in the same room. There were other suicide attempts, too, some more determined than others. He drank a bottle of Domestos and thought, This ones going to do it, and he drove his car into a church wall after downing a bottle of brandy. The latter coincided with what he says was the best period of his career at Villa, but he does not remember the hospital or ambulance, just the policemen turning up at his home and asking for a breath test.
McGrath is too honest to suggest he wants others to be inspired by his resilience, but he does believe his history may provide some empathy for co-sufferers. It is voyeuristic and gruesome, but sheds some light on one of sports last great taboos: mental illness.
The most selfish thing I did was cutting my wrists, he said. I just didnt want to be involved any more. A lot of it was drink. If Id been sober I wouldnt have had the nerve, the wherewithal or the stupidity, but I started off using drink and then drink started using me. And I dont know where the line got crossed.
It is interesting that McGrath says he drank initially because of chronic shyness. That, in itself, was rooted somewhere in a past that involved being given away by his mother, abandoned by his father and beaten in an orphanage, but he believes shyness was a flaw bonding him to another Irish icon and alcoholic, George Best. Because of the transplant people say George should have behaved, but Im sure he didnt want to curl up and die , McGrath said.
You dont do it because you want to destroy yourself, you do it because youre in the grip of something else. Drinkings like a parallel world. George was shy and lovely but he just could not get to grips with his demons.
The miracle is that Best and McGrath could play to such a high standard. Best will always be a bittersweet legend, while McGrath was a force of unnatural will. He accepts that Sir Alex Ferguson should have got rid of him earlier, but his renaissance at Villa defied medical science. Occasionally he would play while drunk, like the time he got the man-of-the-match award against Everton. I went for balls I wouldnt normally dream of going for, he said. I felt impregnable and that was dangerous.
The survivor mentality was to the fore in the 3-1 victory against Manchester United in the 1994 League Cup final. McGrath had woke the night before with a searing pain in his shoulder. I could not lie down because of the agony, he said. It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to my body, like someone had stuck a red-hot poker in me. I was in bits and should never have played, but I was pumped full of injections.
A League Cup, an FA Cup and 83 Ireland caps are career statistics that paper over the binges and the bleakness. Little was bleaker than the breakdown he suffered as a teenager. He is not sure whether it was brought on by his childhood, a kick in the head or having a drink spiked with LSD, but in Back From The Brink (Century, 18.99), he wrote of his time in a psychiatric unit: My voice had left me. I was lying in one position for so long my knees actually stuck together. They had to be prised apart. My legs are still scarred to this day.
Friends recalled that his glazed eyes and sore-marked face rendered him a character from One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Yet McGrath came through it to move to United, where Ron Atkinsons flexible methods suited him. He was a comedian, McGrath said. Hed want to play in the five-a-sides and looked like Brian Glover in Kes. Then Fergie came in and he had a different set of rules.
It was, perhaps, the onset of a stricter, more scientific era that was defined by the likes of Arsne Wenger. I couldnt have got away with it now, McGrath said. It was a lovely era because of the bonds, but we overdid it and paid the price. I was blessed that I had people who cared enough about me to not want me to be falling down and making an a*** of myself. But the things you do in the middle of a binge are beyond belief.
Things like drinking amid the winos and syringes in a Dublin alley and waking in a caravan on a beach with no recollection of how he got there. McGrath has tried to get help before, including via Tony Adamss Sporting Chance charity, but now he thinks that he is on the right road. You have to ask for help, he said. You have to do it for yourself, not your kids, your wife or your mother. I think its my turn to be well because Ive been through the wringer a few times.
He hopes football fans remember him as a half-decent player who had a bit of a problem. He worries about the things his children have seen and knows this is a long haul. Theres a half-decent person in there somewhere, he said. Its just a matter of getting him out.