But when we arrived in the French capital and checked into our hotel, Ian came down from his room somewhat deflated: "No tickets, boys, but we can find a nice bar, watch it on TV and have a good night out here in this beautiful city." Three of our party were very happy with that. Ian is by nature one of life's great optimists and though nothing had been arranged to get us into this sell-out crowd, he was sure the Irish would sort it all out. Nevertheless, we set off bright and early on the Wednesday. He had no trouble filling the car, five of us in all, but a bit more difficulty in tracking down Mr Hand. One thing led to another and suddenly Ian was offering to drive to Paris if enough of us fancied the trip.
Ian St John remarked that he knew well the then Ireland manager, Eoin Hand, who had played under the Saint at Portsmouth. It was a Tuesday morning in October 1980 and at London Weekend Television, the regular production meeting for the following weekend's football programmes had come to an end with the conclusion that not too much could be decided until the midweek round of World Cup qualifying internationals, one of which was France against the Republic of Ireland in the Parc des Princes the next day. In the same stadium, I had already had a close-up view of his talents almost four years earlier, in very unusual circumstances. He also hit the opener in the 2-0 win in the final against Spain at the Parc des Princes.
He scored in every one of their five games in winning the tournament, including back to back hat-tricks against Belgium and Yugoslavia. As a commentator, I followed his amazing contribution to France becoming European champions in 1984. Image: Michel Platini celebrates his goal during the UEFA European Championships final in 1984įrance had a wonderful team in the 1980s, led by the superb Michel Platini.
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