REMEMBER Jonathan Douglas, who was at the cutting edge of Steve Staunton’s four-year plan, but whose international career ended as abruptly as the former Ireland manager’s himself? While Staunton has found it difficult to stay in football at any level, Douglas’s journey since leaving the Ireland scene along with him has not been quite so difficult, but we haven’t really heard from him since, until now. Cast off and then written off in turn, not just by Giovanni Trapattoni, but by his employers at Leeds and those who have followed his career, he is enjoying a late resurgence as captain of Brentford, the unlikely promotion-chasers from west London for a place in the Premier League.
Brentford were at Ipswich yesterday where Douglas scored in a 1-1 draw and would have been reacquainted with a selection of his Irish teammates who are no strangers themselves to rejection by club and country — the likes of brothers Noel and Stephen Hunt and Daryl Murphy — but who exude that fighting spirit which Niall Quinn, for one, says comes from having a provincial background where Gaelic games are to the fore.
Mick McCarthy sees something in his Irish players that amounts to more than a shared Waterford heritage and you sense that he would be tempted to bring Douglas on board as well should he get the chance. The 33-year-old goes back to Monaghan as many times as he can, particularly when his county football team are in action and he is not needed on international weekends.
“I am not so sure I really went away,” Douglas says about how his career has progressed since he last played for Ireland in 2007. “I have been playing to quite a good standard and been unlucky a few times in the playoffs getting to this level. The boys playing for Ireland in midfield have been playing in the Premier League, so I can’t expect to get in ahead of them. I am not too worried about it.”
If he is just as happy to be out of it, you hope it has nothing to do with the fact that he was given a hard time over the course of the nine games he played for his country, all but one during Staunton’s time.
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Douglas’s promotion to the Ireland team ahead of the likes of Andy Reid was heavily criticised by most of those who also quickly turned against Staunton. He and Douglas took particular flak for the 2-2 draw against Slovakia in Bratislava in a European Championship qualifying game, with the midfielder widely blamed for failing to track back for the Marek Cech goal which gave the home side an injury-time equaliser.
That effectively ended their chances of qualifying for the 2008 European Championships and was a nadir for Irish football, with Stephen Ireland removing himself from the squad a few days later.
Further disappointment followed for Douglas when he agreed a new contract with the Leeds United manager Simon Grayson at the time, only to be told 24 hours later that he was being released by the club and he then secured a move to Swindon Town. Douglas says he didn’t notice the criticism of him when it came to Ireland, except when it came from the pen of a certain pundit.
“Somebody once sent me an article by Eamon Dunphy but he is not somebody I would listen to anyway or take advice from. If he is not in the paper about something there is something wrong.”
Of that particular time he is outspoken about what happened to Staunton, who was sacked before he was given the chance to complete a full campaign. “I think he got a raw deal. I am not too sure whether he got the full support of the FAI. He didn’t see out his contract because they wanted to go a different path, but he is a good man and a good football man.”
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For Douglas, there are no regrets, particularly as he got the chance to play at Croke Park, while Lansdowne Road was being rebuilt. “Being a big Gaelic supporter growing up in Clones, I would love to have played for Monaghan in Croke Park. I took a different path, so to get the chance to play in Croke Park in front of a full house was great and I loved it.”
Close friends with the likes of Dick Clerkin and Darren Hughes on the Monaghan squad, he follows the county’s fortunes avidly and is also constantly questioning the London Irish and Ireland prop Tom Court about the international rugby team, as their young daughters share the same school in west London. “It is great seeing the rugby union boys doing well and hopefully the soccer boys can tag along with it,” Douglas says.
Realistically, however, what are the chances? Douglas wasn’t at all impressed by how Trapattoni went about the job and says that the Irish team have continued to underachieve, even if they did qualify for the 2012 European Championships. However, he believes that Martin O’Neill brings the right credentials to the job.
“We have got the priorities right now with Martin O’Neill,” he said. “He knows English football. I read somewhere that Trapattoni didn’t go and watch any of the Irish lads play, which is a bit strange if you are an international manager. You don’t know who is in form and who is not.”
He watches like the rest of us, except he once had his day in the sun.