JACK MAGIC...

FROM organising pints for Roy Keane to chasing Paul McGrath across a golf course, former Boston publican Frank Gillespie lived alongside Ireland's greatest team - and ahead of a new World Cup push, he believes the spirit of Jack Charlton's Ireland is back.

- AMY DONOHOE

There are men who watched Jack Charlton's Ireland, men who cheered them, men who reported on themand then there is Frank Gillespie, the Boston publican who somehow became part of the family.

He wasn't on the pitch. He wasn't on the coaching staff.

But he was there in hotel corridors, in airport lounges, in late-night singsongs and pre-match nerves, a trusted fixer and friend to the greatest generation of Irish footballers.

From his bar in Boston to dressing rooms across Europe and America, Gillespie's life became woven into Irish football folklore - a story he tells in his memoir Confessions from the Blackthorn: Publican Frank Gillespie's Journey from Tyrrellspass to Boston.

Now, with Ireland chasing a place at the next World Cup, the Irish man believes the magic of the Charlton years could come along once again.

With that, his memories start, as so many Irish football stories do, with a pint.

"The first day I met Jack would have been here in Boston. The team came over for the US Cup in 1991.

"Jack brought the team over just to partake in the competition but it was basically party time," he said.

Gillespie was at the airport handing out his business cards when the Irish squad landed. Soon enough, one of Charlton's stars showed up at his bar.

"I was at the airport when they came, I had all my cards and I gave out all my cards to all the players. One night Kevin Moran arrived at about eleven o'clock into the bar.