By Donal "Statto" Cullen 

Ireland have been to Bulgaria three times in their history and every time they have gone there it has been raining and I don’t mean that “soft day, thank God” type of rain but that miserable constant soaking rain that takes years to dry out from. And on top of that all three visits to Sofia have ended in miserable defeats.

But there was one memorable visit to the Bulgarian capital which saw its fair share of controversy. Now if you ask my brother it would have been the trip in 1987 when Jack Charlton held the reigns. When he got back from the match he wanted to see the tape of the 2-1 defeat and was particularly angry with Jimmy Magee in the RTE commentary box for when Frank Stapleton scored a soft goal thank God Jimmy went into one of his lyrical moments and said “the crowd is stunned in Sofia. It is a mute as a trumpet!” Now normally most people would have said “Yeah, Jimmy, now get on with it!” but not my brother. He was up on his feet yelling at the TV “what about the f**kin Irish fans you stupid Gobsh*te!”. He never forgave Jimmy for that comment and yet somewhere in our house back in Ireland is a picture of my brother with his arm around a smiling Jimmy Magee giving him the thumbs up…….which says a lot about Jimmy Magee and probably about the amount of alcohol my brother gets to drink on away trips.

However that is not the match in question. Nor is the 1-0 defeat to Bulgaria in 1979 although that is a story in itself as both Northern Ireland and England had gone there in the group we were in and won comfortably but we go there, lose Jimmy Holmes with a broken leg, have a good goal by Mickey Walsh ruled out and end up losing to a late goal.

No, the match in question was our first visit to Sofia back in 1977 when we were in with a shout of qualifying for the 1978 World Cup. We had beaten France in March and if we could match or even better France’s 2-2 draw in Sofia we would be in with a great chance as we would finish up with a game against Bulgaria at home. So there was everything to play for as there was for Bulgaria.

After 13 minutes a mistake by Steve Heighway let Panov in to open the scoring after some fierce Bulgarian pressure. Bulgaria continued to press for more and Ireland had few attacks but late into the second half Heighway did what he did best and got in a run and a cross for Givens to head home. But just as he was about to apply the killer touch he was pushed in the back and fell in the box. A blatant penalty if ever there was one but the Greek referee thought differently.

The Greek Referee was a man by the name of Niklos Zlatanos and if Johnny Giles had a little black book which was rumored to be around at Leeds at the time) then Mr. Zlatanos’s name along with a few others would have made an appearance in it over the years. For Mr. Zlatanos was a key figure in denying Ireland at least a point in Sofia.

The second half began with Givens heading home a Giles corner and far be it from me to deny Jimmy Magee the chance to wax lyrical about the goal, Ireland’s first away for almost a year. Then Heighway crossed over for Daly to knock the ball down to Giles who hammered it home. Cue Jimmy once again but he was stopped in mid sentence when the ref disallowed the goal for an offside decision that never was. Bulgaria took back the lead with a messy goal from Jeliazkov to make it 2-1 to the home side.

Up until that point the match had been rough but not brutal. That is until one of the Bulgarian defenders went in with a horrendous tackle on Frank Stapleton. The tackle was bad enough but the scenes that followed turned Jimmy Magee back into the boxing commentator he once was. All 22 players rushed to the spot and fists were flying, shirts were grabbed and all sorts of mayhem ensued. When order was restored Mr. Zlatanos marched round the players and flashed a red card at Jeliazkov and Borisov for Bulgaria and Mick Martin and Noel Campbell for Ireland. Now considering that it was Tzvetkov who had made the initial tackle and Noel Campbell was only just on the field it seemed as if the referee was picking out scapegoats and simply sent off the first four players he saw.

Ireland lost the match 2-1 and a fine second half performance was overshadowed by the fighting. For Noel Campbell it was the end of his Ireland career as his suspension meant he could no longer take part in the campaign which ended with a scoreless draw in Dublin with Bulgaria four months later.

For the record the Irish team was Mick Kearns, Paddy Mulligan, David O’Leary, Mick Martin, Jimmy Holmes, Gerry Daly, Johnny Giles, Liam Brady, Steve Heighway, Don Givens and Frank Stapleton.
Noel Campbell replaced Gerry Daly after 79 minutes and was sent off a minute later.