LORRAINE O’SULLIVAN HAD one job and as the seconds ticked away she made sure to be in prime position.
The Inpho photographer was practically Mick McCarthy’s No 2 in the technical area at the old Lansdowne Road.
“I’d never be allowed back into the Aviva [Stadium] now if I got that close again,” she laughs. “There are different rules now.”
But 1 September 2001 was a different time, and O’Sullivan was part of a four-person team for the sports photography agency covering the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifier with the Netherlands.
A famous 1-0 victory was in sight yet, regardless of the outcome, her job wasn’t going to change.
“I was there to cover Mick McCarthy at full time, everything that he did, all of his interactions and just follow him until he’s off the pitch. It wasn’t a case of ‘oh, something might happen between him and Roy Keane’. That wasn’t it at all.”
Jason McAteer was the goal scorer and Keane was man-of-the-match but for O’Sullivan McCarthy was the only story that mattered.
It is why, by the 91st minute, she is just a few feet from the Ireland manager during the most intense and nerve-wrecking final moments. One of the snaps she captures before the bedlam of full-time is of McCarthy standing with pursed lips, hunched shoulders and arms dangling by his sides.
Keane is just over his shoulder on the pitch and is in the exact same state.
Andy O’Brien is preparing to come on as a substitute. Damien Duff’s head appears over one of the old Eircom hoardings in front of the bench, open mouthed and shattered. Mick Byrne holds a water bottle as if it’s of the Holy variety and has a sullen kind of expression that will soon be replaced by the most intense kind of joy.
Just before the whistle is blown, McCarthy’s actual No 2, Ian Evans, steps in front of O’Sullivan’s lens.
Then.
Bedlam.
McCarthy and Evans embrace.
Snap, snap, snap.
Lansdowne Road erupts.
Former teammates Tony Cascarino and Andy Townsend embrace in the press box.
The Ireland manager shakes hands with Dutch counterpart Louis van Gaal.
Snap, snap, snap.
McCarthy and Niall Quinn, who has been left out of the starting XI with Damien Duff preferred in a striker’s role, grip each other in a bear hug.
Snap, snap, snap.
This is all great stuff, O’Sullivan thinks, as her mind begins to wander to her evening plans.
“At this point I’m thinking about how quickly I can get out of Lansdowne Road,” she laughs. “I was going to see U2 in Slane later on so now I was in a rush to get away. I thought I might have what I needed.”
Then she sees McCarthy double back towards the dugout.
Roy was there too.
Instinct kicks in.
This would be one of the moments, and photographs, to define her career.
Not that it felt like that at the time, as she captured the cold, meek handshake between manager and captain that wasn’t used in any of the Sunday newspapers the following day or in the Dailies at the start of the week as the significance of the victory was celebrated.
Indeed, it was Keane’s tackle on Marc Overmars, captured by colleague Billy Stickland from his end of the pitch, that was the dominant image.
“Pure luck,” she insists of the shot, before perhaps explaining why it was so much more than good fortune.
“From my point of view, I got into a position where McCarthy was to my right and Keane was on my left. They’re right handed so this would be the angle they would be at, but then all it would have taken was for someone to get in the way or one of them to turn a different way and it’s a different shot.
“If you look, there is another photographer in between them on the other side. He got an awful slagging from some afterwards, ‘oh, you’re in that famous picture but why weren’t you the one f***ing taking it!?’ But it was luck.”
McCarthy and Keane didn’t say a word of congratulations to each other, O’Sullivan remembers, and she didn’t think too much of it afterwards either.
No one did.
“Saipan provided the context and that’s when it began to be used everywhere,” she adds.
All O’Sullivan could think about as she went back to following McCarthy on the pitch was her exit route.
“We had a courier waiting at the end of Lansdowne Lane to take the film back to the office so it could be sorted. We met up and I threw my stuff to one of the lads and said ‘I’m out of here, do what you have to do, I’m going to U2′. I was away in the other direction to make it to Slane.”
O’Sullivan got there in plenty of time to see Bono drape the Irish tricolour around his shoulders and declare: “Close your eyes and imagine… It’s Jason McAteer.”
“Close your eyes and imagine... it’s Jason McAteer....” #U2 #Slane @MCATEER4 pic.twitter.com/n5luvKAaTV
— Irish Football Pics (@irish_pics) June 26, 2019
That goal was the moment of history celebrated in real time before the significance of O’Sullivan’s man-marking job on McCarthy would come to the fore.
“I’ve long since said I really need to get it framed and hung up in the house. It would be nice to have it signed by Mick and Roy, but I’d be slightly afraid to shove it under Roy’s face and ask him to do it.
“I might need a few drinks on me for that.”
