The Sunday Tribune - Italia 90

The Sunday Tribune - 25 Years Later

Packie Saves! Uploaded by M+MD.

This cover has a lot of memories for me - anybody alive in Ireland in June 1990 will recognise. I remember that on the day of the quarter-final play-off against Romania we had arranged a meeting with a Abacus Venture Capital who were considering an investment in the Tribune at the time. We were considering a rights issues to fund the soon to be launched Dublin Tribune. We arranged a presentation to Abacus at 2pm on the day of the match - we didn't realise at the time that it would clash with the match - but as the funding was important we waited for them to cancel - they didn't. The presentation went well and we were finished about 5 minutes after kick-off. The presentation as in the old Goodbody's Stockbrockers offices in Dame Street and we rushed to the nearest TV set - Blooms Hotel. We watched the first half and decide to make a run for Baggot Street at half time. I will always remember walking up through Dublin at half-time - there was hardly a car or a bus on the road - the place was deserted in the middle of the afternoon, it was more like 9am Sunday than 3.45 pm Monday. We met the rest of the Tribune folks in Toners where we watched the rest of the match. It went to a penalty shoot-out and Packie Bonner famously saved the 4th penalty with Niall Quinn slotting the fifth we were through to the quarter-final -it was the stuff of fairy tales.