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On Days Like These: The Incredible Autobiography of a Football Legend

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For the first time, Martin O’Neill reflects on one of the most varied and successful football careers in the British Isles. With a journey spanning over fifty years, Martin dives into the exhilarating highs of trophies, promotion and World Cup fights – and the painful lows of fan confrontations, boardroom drama, relegation scraps and getting fired. BC: There are some beautifully written passages in the book. Which part of the book did you enjoy writing about most? Martin O’Neill speaks honestly about the decision to retire as a player, and making the transition to manager. He recalls finding early success with Wycombe Wanderers, and the move to the Premier League with Leicester City. He talks about his years with Celtic, where the team won seven trophies and reached the UEFA Cup Final in 2003, and at Aston Villa, where he achieved three consecutive top six Premier League finishes. He also speaks about managing the Republic of Ireland, and working alongside his mercurial assistant, Roy Keane. Written with O’Neill’s trademark honesty and humour, MO’N: My 19 games with Nottingham Forest doesn't even get a mention in the book that came after the Republic of Ireland job. I probably didn’t anticipate the Ireland part of the book to be as short, not at all. And I’ll take note of that. But I absolutely loved it. It was a privilege managing the team, it was great and, of course, we had the success in France in 2016…

Go behind-the-scenes on his international career for Northern Ireland, playing alongside and getting to know the Belfast Boy himself, George Best. BC: There was an adversarial nature to your media relations and I'm sure the media weren't blameless. How could you have handled things better? Martin O’Neill is widely regarded as one of the most respected figures in football with a career spanning more than 50 years. A key part of Brian Clough’s legendary Nottingham Forest team in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, he represented Northern Ireland more than 60 times and led them to the 1982 World Cup. My remit was not to cure the ills of the League of Ireland or anything like that. My job was pure and simple – qualify for the Euros. Then, after that, if you’re going to be around, then of course you can oversee the whole shebang. I had umpteen meetings with the boys taking the underage teams and I took a big interest, but that gets lost in translation.MO’N: I think money has really changed football in many aspects. In my footballing days, players had no power whatsoever – and that was wrong. Now players have all the power – and that’s wrong. So there has to be a happy medium somewhere along the way. I do not begrudge the great players getting any amount of money that they get – Messi and Ronaldo – because they get people to go to the stadium to watch them. If you’re talking about younger players earning money and then feeling a sense of entitlement, I think that kind of thing disturbs people because it’s not really earned. Following the publication of his autobiography ‘On Days Like These, former Republic of Ireland and Celtic manager Martin O’Neill talks to Brendan Crossan about a tumultuous and hugely successful life in football… MO’N: Seamus Coleman might have been the only player playing in the Premier League at the time. There were a lot of Championship players playing in the side and therefore the most important job was to actually motivate players to play as strongly as possible for as long as possible over the 90 minutes to actually overcome obstacles – obstacles of playing better teams. Just qualifying for the Euros in 2016 is something that I cherish. Martin recognises that his days at Leicester City, where he won the League Cup, happened around a half a mile away from the club’c current home at Filbert Street. Martin might choose to post his next video from The City Ground in Nottingham, or even Villa Park where he did much better than their recent boss to say the least. He might even make the short hop across the Irish Sea to Dublin where he managed the Republic or up to Belfast where he played for the six counties. Billy Bingham made O’Neill the first Catholic captain of Northern Ireland, which represented a seriously bold move in the early 1980s. “Billy said: ‘We get the results, everything will take care of itself,”” O’Neill recalls. “As it did.

As Jan Kooy of Human Rights Watch asked, not unreasonably, when referring to the number of construction workers who died while building Qatar’s World Cup stadia, “they have Google at Jumbo, right?” Seems not. More Word of MouthO’Neill is effusive in his praise of Keane, who has not managed since departing Ipswich in 2011. Bert Johnson, O’Neill’s youth coach at Forest, imparted advice which he believes applies to Keane. “You get a reputation in life for being an early riser and you can lie in bed all day,” he says.

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