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May 07, 2018

An unmarked grave to hero status: the Irishman who saved Barcelona | Paul Doyle

Fergus Dowd, an IT systems analyst for Dublin, won the backing of Luís Figo, Roy Keane and a film director to help rescue from obscurity Patrick O’Connell and his exploits at BarcelonaLike absolutely no other middle-aged IT systems analysts from Dublin, Fergus Dowd went to a Blyth Spartans match and wound up spearheading an international campaign to resurrect the memory of a former Manchester United captain who saved Barcelona from extinction. Sometimes, apparently, it takes an extraordinary Irishman to tell the story of an extraordinary Irishman.Patrick O’Connell, a footballer with what might be classed as scoundrel tendencies as well as qualities that enabled him to become a heroic manager, had lain in an unmarked London grave for 57 years until...

May 01, 2018

World Cup stunning moments: Roy Keane walks out on Ireland | Barry Glendenning

The captain’s 2002 exit was the subject of more hand-wringing and tomfoolery than almost any incident before or since in modern Irish life. Perfectionist or traitor? The jury’s still out“He came. He saw. He went home.” So ran the tag-line of the Irish box office smash hit comedy I, Keano, an epic musical melodrama about a Roman legion preparing for war. It was inspired by a real-life melodrama of even more epic proportions: arguably the most fractious falling-out in the history of Irish sport, a gripping and often amusing controversy prompted by Roy Keane’s contentious departure from the Republic of Ireland World Cup squad in 2002.The captain’s headline-grabbing exit from the squad briefly transformed the tiny western Pacific island of...

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