In fact, like most of us, I doubt if the thought ever entered his head. But he had a belief that the Irish could play in the World Cup and not disgrace themselves and when Jack genuinely believed something, he would usually find a way to get it done. Even now, one can but marvel at how the Irish found Jack, and Jack found the Irish. He hadn’t even wanted the job, at least not much. He could take it or leave it, which gave him a certain lightness of being which he would not have had in the England job, one which he genuinely wanted. But he would have been a very bad manager of England because they have this crazy belief that they can win the World Cup and they expect the manager to deliver on what they regard as a perfectly reasonable expectation. Jack, no more than Ron Greenwood, or Don Revie, or Bobby Robson, or Graham Taylor, or Glen Hoddle, or Kevin Keegan, or Terry Venables, or Steve McLaren, or Sven, could not have fulfilled that expectation.
