Two years on from the most controversial and painful defeat in Irish football history, Sean St. Ledger still reckons there was something fishy about the defeat to France in 2009.
What with blindly optimistic talk of replays and being a 33rd team at the World Cup, it took Irish football followers plenty of time to move on from the Hand of Henry defeat to our cheating Gallic neighbours, but thankfully it has long since been consigned to the history books as we look forward to the possibility of qualifying for our first international tournament in ten years.
Well, not everyone has forgotten about it. Not Sean St. Ledger, who remains hurt by the manner of defeat and thinks that if what goes around does indeed come around, then Ireland will be on the plane to Poland and Ukraine next summer.
“Afterwards, everyone was talking about conspiracy theories, could it be corrupt?” he said in an interview with The Guardian.
“And with the stuff that has happened at Fifa recently, you just never know. That question will never be answered.”
“I’m a big believer in fate,” the former star of Big Ron Manager added.
“It was a huge injustice in Paris but who knows? We might get one ourselves this time. I won’t be complaining. I’ll be a complete hypocrite.”
One thing St. Ledger isn’t complaining about is manager Giovanni Trapattoni and in that regard he differs from half of the Irish footballing public.
The Italian has stuck by St. Ledger through thick and thin and continues to have faith in him despite his lack of regular first team football at club level and it’s not something that the Leicester man will forget in a hurry.
“I have to thank Giovanni a million times for what he’s done for my career,” St Ledger said.
“There have obviously been bad times and playing for Ireland has kept me going at times.
“For me, coming from Peterborough United, and to now be working alongside people like Giovanni and Marco Tardelli, and to be playing alongside the players in the Ireland squad … it’s surreal, really.”
St. Ledger’s slow Ber-ming-em drawl is a clear indication of the fact that he is something of a Plastic Paddy in the Irish set-up, but unlike some other players in the squad (cough, Simon Cox, cough), he says he considers himself “100 per cent Irish” and that there was never any doubt who he was going to play for.
“I’m more Irish than Tony Cascarino,” he laughed.
“People always question you but it’s been a huge honour to play for my country.”
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
