Gary Mackay, Ray Houghton and Mick McCarthy are all national treasures – but not necessarily in their home nations. Here’s the curious tale of how a Scotsmen helped and Englishman become an Irish legend ..
. Have you heard the one about the Scotsmen who made an Englishman an honorary Irishman? Now that sounds like the start of a bad dad joke - doesn't it? Gary Mackay and Ray Houghton were the Scotsmen. Jack Charlton was the Englishman, and Barnsley-born Mick McCarthy was taken along for the football ride of a lifetime with the Republic of Ireland.
Confused? You won’t be. It will all make perfect sense by the end. Let’s start in the most inauspicious of beginnings, shall we? Sofia, Bulgaria on 11 November 1987.
The Vassil Levski Stadium to be precise. It was then Scottish manager Andy Roxburgh’s first match in charge of the national team. The hosts only needed a draw to advance to the European Championships in West Germany.
There was just one problem: nobody handed Mackay the script. The Hearts midfielder bagged a dream debut goal for his country after coming on as a substitute for Paul McStay just three minutes from time to shut up 60,000 fans and inadvertently sent Big Jack's Ireland on the fairytale journey to the Euros. Mackay's angled drive in the pissing rain put a dampener on Bulgaria's qualification campaign but it lit a football fire in Ireland.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Irish had been blessed with some wonderful individual players down the years.