David Sneyd

“The Shame Game.”

“The Drunken Irish.”

“Soccer stars fall foul of the law.”

“Soccer stars get red cards over drinking spree.”

“Repentant stars face long road to forgiveness.”

“Amsterdam axe falls on shamed Irish duo.”

“The Harcourt Street Hell Raisers.”

One headline for every day of the week, and this was just a selection of the outraged reaction as news emerged of Phil Babb and Mark Kennedy’s arrest for drunken, criminal damage in Dublin city centre five days before the Republic of Ireland started their 2002 World Cup qualifying campaign.

With an opening game away to the Netherlands on 2 September, 2000, Mick McCarthy’s squad gathered at the old Posthouse Forte Hotel by Dublin Airport. The Dutch, beaten semi-finalists at Euro 2000 just a few weeks beforehand, would provide a stirring test of an Ireland side supposedly reaching its prime under a manager that was facing the axe unless he delivered progress to Japan and South Korea.

But old habits and routines die hard.

No sooner had the squad assembled than some ventured into the night.

“I’ve no qualms about the players having a drink on a Monday night before a Saturday game but there’s a world of difference between a couple of pints and what happened last night,” McCarthy said, flanked by both players at a press conference after they had paid £950 bail and been released from the Dublin District Court following a night spent in the cells.

McCarthy and team physio Mick Byrne had earlier arrived at Bridewell station, where Kennedy and Babb had been moved to at 7am. Their international careers were already on a lifeline, and now the plug would be pulled as they were told to leave by a manager who had been let down by a duo he always stood by.

Kennedy had become British football’s most expensive teenager in 1995 when Liverpool finalised a deal worth over £2 million with Millwall. It was at that London club that his relationship with McCarthy blossomed, to such an extent that the young Dubliner was even entrusted with babysitting duties at McCarthy’s home.

The year before Kennedy arrived at Anfield, Babb joined the club from Coventry City in a £3.5 million transfer that made him the most expensive defender in Britain. The summer previously he emerged on the international scene in a blaze of intrigue and excitement as one of the Three Amigos – along with Gary Kelly and Jason McAteer – to earn their stripes at the 1994 World Cup.

Six years later their days with Ireland effectively came to an end – they both played just once more for their country.

“Kennedy (24) and Babb (29) were arrested and and charged with being drunk in a public place, a break of the peace and causing criminal damage after an incident on Harcourt Street at 3.45am,” the Irish Independent reported.

“After a drunken spree, Kennedy and Babb jumped along the roofs and bonnets of a number of cars, including a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, owned by Garda Elaine Farrell, on duty at Harcourt Square station.”

“Farrell chased after Kennedy and Babb, who tried to escape in a taxi. The pair were arrested and charged.”

Kennedy and Babb faced the media the following day, issued grovelling apologies and begged for forgiveness. It was not only a test of McCarthy’s resolve but also of his maturity as a manager after four years in the job.

He acted swiftly in dispensing with Kennedy and Babb, for which he was applauded, and then sought to set a different tone heading for Amsterdam.

“In four years as Irish boss, he has frequently been accused of volatility under pressure,” sports writer Vincent Hogan wrote of McCarthy in the aftermath.

“Some journalists depict him as a kind of hapless bully. They criticise him, often stridently, in print, yet remain cowed and silent at his press conferences.

“If McCarthy played to caricature on Tuesday, he would have been irritable, argumentative, aggressive. He was none of those.”

Instead, his ire would soon turn towards Dutch defender Michael Reiziger. It may have been a quarter of a century ago – before social media and players posting messages from the Notes app on their phones – but there was still sufficient sophistication when it came to the internet for players to take over a news cycle through their personal websites.

In this instance, the AC Milan full back highlighted Roy Keane as a weakness. ” If we were smart, we could get Keane a red card because he has a dodgy temperament. We will have to provoke him in some way. Players are also known to whisper comments about other players’ mothers or the size of parts of his body. I don’t like this side of the game very much but if it helps us to win, it’s worthwhile.”

McCarthy labelled Reiziger’s comments as “low life stuff”, and once the controversies of the week subsided Ireland went to Amsterdam and were leading 2-0 entering the final 20 minutes before the hosts fought back for a draw.

The times are very different now, of course. On Monday afternoon, for instance, several of the current squad ventured from the team hotel as far as a coffee shop in a nearby village for a catch up.

Later in the evening there was a meal followed by video analysis of this Saturday’s opponents, Hungary, with manager Heimir Hallgrímsson laying the foundations for the gameplan.

So while the last successful World Cup qualifying campaign may have started in disgrace, it ended in glorious celebration, and 25 years on the hope is that somehow Ireland can replicate that.