Every week we take a look in the RTÉ Guide archives to check out the cover stories from years gone by. On this week thirty years ago, the Guide paid tribute to the much-loved Jack Charlton, who had resigned as manager of the Irish soccer team several months earlier. The cover, which tied in with a special edition of the television show Kenny Live dedicated to Jack, promised a look at "life since he left us" - us being the people of Ireland, who had become huge fans of the man who took the Republic of Ireland team to its first World Cup in 1990.
"I am glad that I am still friends with the Irish people and that I have given them all those memories," Charlton told journalist Charlie Stuart. "The feeling is mutual as the fans have given me wonderful memories as well."
Stuart pointed out that "Success never went to Charlton's head. He remembers the open-top bus parades down O'Connell Street after Euro '88 and Italia '90. ' I often wonder what it would have been like if we had actually won something! Perhaps my most pleasing feeling is that so many young people are now playing soccer in every part of the country. Be it Gaelic football, hurling, rugby or soccer, it is important that the youth of the nation areinvolved in sport and not hanging aroundstreet corners.'"
The interview reminded readers that Charlton and his teams brought a "remarkable unifying force" to the country and that was typified by one perhaps unlikely fan - a nun from Rochfortbridge called Sister Pius. "I don't think she ever missed a game at Lansdowne Road. Sister Pius used to come up to all the roatches in Dublin and I would have a ticket ready to give to her - a lovely lady," recalled Charlton. "She would write to me before and after every game. Sister Pius must have said an awful lot of prayers for me over the years. She was so happy for me when we met Pope John Paul at the Vatican during Italia '90. She liked the idea of me being addressed by him as 'The Boss!'"
"Sister Pius will be just one of the guests when the 'Big Man' has his glitzy farewell on Kenny Live," wrote Stuart. "She will be only one of a string of personalities coming to pay tribute to Ireland's most popular Englishman. There will never be another Jack Charlton. What an act to follow."
