Former Ireland striker Niall Quinn revealed the most “horrific” night of his life was the notorious World Cup qualifier against Northern Ireland.
The Republic had to get at least a point to qualify for USA ’94 but the match at Windsor Park was played against a poisonous background of bloodshed and sectarian hatred.
Speaking on Division: The Irish Soccer Split, an RTE documentary on the rivalry between the football associations of North and South, Quinn said: “Going to the game was when it got really serious.
“The bit I’ll never forget was this sort of grassy mound and these kids were all standing up with sticks and they would all go like this [holding sticks like rifles] right at our windows and pull.
“Then they would all go down on their knees and these other kids came up from behind and did the same thing.
“And this man, with a mask on his face and a big UVF flag, was ordering them and I just looked and went, ‘Jesus Christ, this is just, this has gone somewhere where my brain can’t imagine’.”
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The 3,000 Republic of Ireland fans who made the trip found the atmosphere even more heated inside the stadium. A month before, the IRA had killed eight people in a bomb attack on a fish shop on the Shankill Road and a week later the UVF killed eight after opening fire in the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel, Co Derry.
Quinn recalled: “The bit that really got to me while I was playing was when they started singing ‘trick or treat’ because that’s what the poor people in the pub were told before the shooters shot them.
“For the crowd to start singing that was as low a moment as I’ve ever had on a football pitch. That was just horrific.”
When the North went a goal up, the crowd got into even more of a frenzy.
Quinn recalled: “Billy Bingham [the North’s manager] poured a load of petrol on the flames looking for the edge, I suppose, and he was happy.
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During the game, Bingham encouraged the crowd to sing as if he was conducting a choir.
Former Irish manager Brian Kerr said: “It was ‘Do what you have to do to get a result from the match,’ but it wasn’t nice.”
The game ended 1-1 after Alan McLoughlin scored.
For ex-Man City and Sunderland striker Quinn, 52, there was one redeeming episode on the night involving Northern Ireland’s captain, the late Alan McDonald who died on a golf course aged 48 in 2012.
He said: “Another big memory of that night was Alan, who has since passed away very young, tragically.
“He came into our dressing room and wished us well in America and to represent the island of Ireland.
“Still to this day it puts goose bumps and hairs on the back of my neck.”
The documentary tells the story of how our once-united all-island football team split in 1921 during the War of Independence and how the rivalry reflected wider political and social turmoil.
- Division: The Irish Soccer Split is on RTE One on Wednesday at 9.35pm.
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