Ronnie Whelan

Ronnie Whelan

Ronnie and Ian Rush with the League trophy

Click here to listen to the show

Former Liverpool and Republic of Ireland star Ronnie Whelan - who won an astonishing six League titles, two FA Cups, three League Cups and a European Cup with Liverpool in the 1980s - is Colm Keane's guest on Ireland's Soccer Top 20, Friday 10 December, 7.02-7.30 PM, RTÉ Radio 1.

Born in Dublin in 1961, Ronnie played for Home Farm before being signed by Liverpool manager Bob Paisley at the age of 18.  Throughout the 1980s, he became one of the finest players in English soccer, known for his vision and distribution not to mention his goals - including his famous strike for the Republic of Ireland against the Soviet Union at Euro '88.

"We'd been practising it in training for a week," Ronnie jokes regarding his goal of Brazilian quality against the Soviets at the European Championship finals.  "That's a lie.  It more or less caught me on the top of my foot and the bottom of my shin, that sort of area.  It sort of looped into the top corner.  I remember running to the crowd that day and there was a look of surprise on people's faces that it had gone in.  That was the one thing that has stuck with me all the time."

Throughout the 1980s, Ronnie Whelan played a central role in one of the finest teams in football history - the all-conquering Liverpool side that dominated the game at home and in Europe.  "The main thing is that we always had good players," Ronnie says.  "In the time I was there they'd always bring in two a season, three at the most.  We had players like Phil Neal, Phil Thompson, Alan Hansen and we had Souness, Dalglish, Terry McDermott at the start.  They were great players and you couldn't but learn from them."

As a long-serving member of the Republic of Ireland squad, Ronnie travelled to the World Cup finals in Italy in 1990 but missed out on his regular place in the side through injury.  He was also less than enamoured by Jack Charlton's style of play with the international team.

"I didn't like it most of the time," Ronnie says.  "But if you didn't do it, you weren't in the team.  That was Jack's philosophy.  But it got success so you can't really knock it.  Sometimes I wonder would we have got more success and could we have been even better because we had some very good footballers at that time.  We'll never know."

The story of Ronnie Whelan - one of the most successful Irish footballers ever to play in English soccer - can be heard on Ireland's Soccer Top 20, Friday 10 December, 7.02-7.30 PM, RTÉ Radio 1.