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Highs and lows of a real Red favourite
Stuart Brennan
Paul McGrath
PAUL McGrath should have gone down in history as one of the Manchester United greats. Instead he ended up walking the streets of Moss Side, desperate and alone, looking for a bed for the night.
Every forty-something Red will remember McGrath's displays for United in the Eighties, that rare combination of effortless pace and grace with a physical toughness that spoke of his hard upbringing in a Dublin orphanage.
And yet that troubled childhood haunted his career, filling him with doubt and low self- esteem, and eventually turning him into a human wreck. He became an alcoholic and tranquilliser addict and was cleared out of Old Trafford by Alex Ferguson's clampdown on the infamous United drinking club.
Now McGrath has put his story, ineffably sad and wasteful, down in print with "Back from the Brink" (Century, £18.99), beautifully ghost-written by Irish journalist Vincent Hogan.
Continuing the trend of brutal honesty which was popularised by Paul Gascoigne's autobiography, McGrath's book is difficult to read for anyone with an ounce of human kindness, especially those who marvelled at his ability from the Old Trafford terraces.
The blurb on the book trumpets McGrath as "Ireland's greatest-ever footballer," a bold claim when you consider that Liam Brady, Pat Jennings and Roy Keane are all products of the Emerald Isle - and George Best, if you stretch the point.
But McGrath was a sight to behold on a football field, a player who flowed over the turf with economy of movement, tackled like a Samurai and passed the ball with efficient simplicity.
The book chronicles his league debut against Spurs at Old Trafford, when one of his Republic of Ireland heroes Chris Hughton closed in on him deep in United territory.
McGrath flipped the ball over Hughton's head and calmly passed to a teammate. United fans loved that, and loved McGrath. He was the subject of the original "Ooh Aah" chant, long before Monsieur Cantona.
It was typical McGrath. He had enough ability to play in midfield, which he did on several occasions for United.
Poignant
And such was his ability that, even after he left United, a booze-hound with two dodgy knees, he still had enough talent, presence and natural athletic ability to prolong his career by another nine years with Aston Villa - where he is rightly regarded as one of their greats, before sinking into miserable, drink-sodden oblivion at Derby and Sheffield United.
McGrath's problems haunt him to this day. His shockingly upsetting illness is a work in progress and that makes this book even more poignant.
Like Gascoigne's book, it is not a story of a triumph against the odds, of a man who has come through a dark tunnel and has emerged into the light.
McGrath tackles himself and his inadequacies in the way he used to tackle centre- forwards.
It lifts the lid on the United drinking club, principally McGrath, Bryan Robson and Norman Whiteside, and tells how Ferguson set about breaking it up by selling two of the three and scouring the pubs and clubs for errant players.
Towards the end of his career, McGrath was jeered by United fans, when his excessive drinking was common knowledge and he had responded to the manager's criticisms with a threat to quit the club and join Tottenham.
It was a sad end to what could have been a legendary United career, but those who booed may regret it once they read the background to McGrath's problems.
The illegitimate son of a Dublin woman and her Nigerian lover, he was given into care and spent many of his early years in an orphanage.
The insecurities and feeling of worthlessness spawned in such unhappy circumstances stayed with him even throughout his stellar football career.
