The former Leicester and Celtic manager remembers his first international call-up

This piece from Martin O’Neill’s autobiography was repurposed for Issue 47

One of the most respected figures in football, Martin O’Neill, was just 19 years old and studying to be a lawyer in Belfast when he was spotted by Nottingham Forest and flown to England. A key part of Brian Clough’s legendary team in the 70s and early 80s, he represented Northern Ireland more than 60 times and led them to the 1982 World Cup. In these extracts from his new autobiography, On Days Like These, O’Neill recalls the first time he joined his national side alongside the brilliant George Best ……

The train from Nottingham pulls into a grimy Hull station on a damp early Monday afternoon, mid-February 1972. I alight from the carriage carrying two bags, one containing my football boots, and the other with some clothes neatly folded for use in the next couple of days. The Royal Hotel, within walking distance, is my port of call. It’s a quaint old Victorian building, in need of a little repair but possessing a grandeur redolent of more affluent times. I have never been to Hull before today, but I know a lot about this city. My eldest sister, Agatha, had been a student at Endsleigh Training College. She always maintained that those years at Endsleigh were among the happiest of her life. Recurring visits to Boothferry Park with her colleagues to cheer on the Tigers, albeit with intermittent success, became a Saturday afternoon ritual. Boothferry Park is of course home to Hull City Football Club and, unbelievably, will host an international game this coming Wednesday afternoon.

The Troubles back home have escalated in the last few months to such a degree that Northern Ireland are unable to play home games at Windsor Park, and consequently, will play in this northern English city in a European Nations qualification game. I assume that Terry Neill, who is the player manager both of Hull City and of the Northern Ireland national team, has probably had some say in the picking of this particular venue, and the board of directors at his club have obviously agreed.

Our meeting place is at the Royal Hotel, to tick off one’s name and have a bite of lunch, after which a coach will take us to the Grand Hotel in Scarborough which is to be our base for the next few days. I am naturally excited.

I have already scored two goals in the big league, one of them against George Best at Old Trafford only two months ago, and am now part of an international squad that includes the legendary figure. I’m hoping he will be at the hotel for lunch so that I can be introduced to him personally. But the most talked about, if not the most gifted, player in Europe doesn’t seem to have a salad lunch somewhere in Hull on his mind. I’m not entirely surprised to find out that he hasn’t turned up. But the rest of the squad are here, and as I am to learn in my time as an international player with Northern Ireland, the camaraderie, regardless of religious divide, is incredibly strong. The welcome I receive from the senior players is both warm and heartfelt.

We wait for a little while after lunch to see if the mercurial Best arrives, but the manager wants to do a little workout at Scarborough beach before dark and so the bus leaves the Royal Hotel to make the journey to our headquarters.

As I look through the window I think of my sister and her time in this city over a decade ago. All those visits to Boothferry Park with her friends had made Agatha a Hull City fan for life. In many ways Hull looks like Nottingham. Endless rows of terraced housing have me wondering whether this is the area where one of my favourite actors, Tom Courtenay, was born? I speculate, then pinpoint a particular house and convince myself that that’s where he was raised. From playing Colin Smith in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner to his spellbinding role as Strelnikov (Pasha Antipov) in Doctor Zhivago, he is one the all-time greats. He also got to act alongside the beautiful Julie Christie. It doesn’t get any better that that.

At around ten o’clock, just when all hope looks to have gone, George comes through the hotel front door with a friend at his side. I’m told he is the manager of the boutique in Manchester that Best owns, but who cares, George is here. He looks a little tipsy as he is hugged by his teammates in the foyer. Within minutes he is chaperoned to his bedroom so that photographers and journalists cannot make early contact with him. Like the children of Hamlin in Robert Browning’s poem, we follow George up to his room, which he always shares with Pat Jennings.

It soon comes to light that George and his mate have enjoyed a pub crawl this afternoon from Manchester to Scarborough, so it’s anyone’s guess who did the last bit of driving. At least he’s here in one piece and soon the bedroom is replete with George’s tales of his recent past. I don’t think he even notices me in the corner. He is surrounded by a coterie of players who know him well and deserve to sit close to him. I have to keep pinching myself. Four months ago I was in a Queen’s University Common Room talking about the next day’s big soccer game for First Year Law against Third Year Law. Tonight I am listening to George Best talking, not only about Ron Harris’s attempt to cut him in two when Chelsea played United, but what was in his mind as he picked the ball up before coming across the penalty area for that magnificent goal against table-topping Sheffield United. I soon realise that he wasn’t actually thinking about anything, it was just sheer genius.

By morning news of George’s arrival has reached every corner of Scarborough, and so by the time we are called for training the hotel foyer is jam-packed with people desperate to catch a glimpse of the black-haired superstar. The hotel management team, realising that George may need a little escorting, have acquired two rather portly gentlemen to act as his custodians. And so he is flanked by these men, like Muhammed Ali being led into the ring at Madison Square Garden in March 1971.

If the cordon is meant to prevent fans from touching George then it’s not working. An extremely attractive young girl breaks ranks and plants a kiss on George’s cheek. He just smiles as if this is an everyday occurrence for him. The hotel, we are told, was a favourite summer haunt of Winston Churchill’s. Somehow, I can’t imagine a Vivien Leigh lookalike accosting the wartime prime minister in this fashion but, then again, Winston doesn’t look remotely like George Best.

It’s very difficult not to be envious of the man. I am only a few feet behind him, but I don’t think this is the moment to tap him on the shoulder to introduce myself. Regardless of the matching tracksuit I am wearing, he may still think I’m an autograph hunter if he turns around too quickly. Finally, just before our warm up, I approach him with my introduction. I am hoping that he will remember that it was me who scored a goal against United at Old Trafford two months ago. He doesn’t, or at least he fails to say so. I’m a new face he barely recognises, but he does wish me the best in my future career, and that’s actually good enough for me.