WATCH YOUR HOUSE, JACK!

NO-ONE ever said that Big Jack Charlton was rooted in the rational. (Not even Eamon Dunphy? – Ed) This is as it should be.

He did not get to where he is today by an over-emphasis on dry analysis. In his own strange way he is a visionary – a man who in his own mind knows for a fact how the game of football is supposed to be played.

He has held certain things to be self-evident, and will not even hear of alternatives while he is in charge. You do it his way or you don’t do it at all.

There is something of the zealot about Big Jack, a sense of total conviction in The System which has served him so well.

One Margaret Thatcher had this kind of conviction in spades. There was the one true path of monetarism and privatisation, and generally giving it up the ass to anyone who was not “one of us”. She had re-invented the world according to her lights, and by her own standards, she had a great run, for a long time.

There were people who abominated her – but not enough of them. She had a bought-and-paid-for media who were with her all the way, and thus she continued on her crazy agenda, quite unable to perceive that there was any other plausible point of view.

She was a text-book bully, and she got away with it for a very long time.

The problem with systems based on zealotry is that when they unravel, they tend to unravel very quickly, with the protagonists thrashing around in disbelief crying “treachery”, and “foul”, and baying at the moon.

I am not comparing Big Jack’s personality to that of Thatch. He is, on the whole, a much more rounded human being, and basically a nicer person – but then, that would not take a great deal of effort on anyone’s part.

Still, there are similarities in the area of blind self-belief, a tendency to bully those who are not true believers (or at least camp followers) and the incredulity with which he regards the dissenting voice.

As for the compliant media, the publication of Paul Rowan’s The Team That Jack Built has exposed to telling effect the extent to which the sportswriters of Ireland have cosseted Jack, and taken it as their solemn duty to protect him from himself, in the national interest, as it were.

The notorious Sun editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, used to say of Thatch that “she’s wrong, but she’s strong.” The cheerleaders of the Tory press felt that, even when she fucked up big-time, there was a higher purpose to be served by keeping her in 10 Downing Street.

They had all done well out of Thatcherism, in the way that the soccer writers of Ireland have been on a roll for the best part of a decade, high on the improbability of it all.

They seem to see themselves as a sort of diplomatic corps, whose primary function is to put the best possible spin on the proceedings. They know that if they make too much trouble, they will be frozen out, and be deprived of the inside track.

One doesn’t expect them to reproduce every “fuck” and “bollocks” which emanates from the Charlton orifice, but it is surely beholden upon them to convey some of the nasty edge, which is clearly apparent in Rowan’s interviews with the great man.

Rowan has no bridges to burn in this matter; he is not one of the boys on the bus, and therefore he has a sense of distance from the proceedings which allows him to publish and be damned.

Eamon Dunphy has been writing as much for years about the fans with typewriters, but in the overall scheme, his role is almost like that of Arthur Scargill in relation to Thatcher, an analogy he will doubtless relish.

He has set out his own stall as regards the way that the Republic should go, and never the twain shall meet.

There was no personal needle between Charlton and Rowan, however. There’s plenty of it now, with Jack playing the old “off the record” card and calling the writer a prat, and Rowan, for his part, being tolerant of Jack’s memory lapse.

Jack under attack is not a pretty sight, as we have witnessed during his shenanigans at the World Cup. He bellows and blusters, and generally throws a wobbler. He starts to sulk, as though the whole world has conspired against him, and he only trying to do his best.

We basically know the stuff about Brady and Stapleton and O’Leary, and Jack’s need to lower them in our estimation. It is his purpose in this endeavour which is not at issue.

Was it a genuine feeling that they were past it, or was it, as Dunphy tends to believe, a sense that his authority was diminished by the proximity of such national icons? I would tend to go along with Dunphy, but then, there is a streak of irrationality in Jack which suggests a confusion of motives, a wilful belief that what is good for football is also good for Jack.

His animus against Liam Tuohy is simply perverse, a classic case of paranoia. In Thatcherite terms, Tuohy seems to be the ultimate “wet” who had to be purged for the great project to proceed.

A lot of rich people got richer under Thatcher, and none of the Berkeley Court mob have got any poorer under Charlton. But there was a coarsening in the style of the administration that is similar: a lot of innocent people got shafted and hysteria was rampant.

In the house that Jack built, there are many mansions – but few are willing to look at the picture in the attic.