Former Republic of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni and assistant manager Marco Tardelli, during a questions and answers forum before being presented with a bronze plaque in his honour from The City of Montecatini, Italy. David Maher / SPORTSFILE

A game of table tennis with Glenn Whelan relieves the boredom for Stephen Hunt in the build-up to the European Championships, but by that stage there was a feeling of frustration and boredom within Giovanni Trapattoni's squad which was to translate into poor performances on the pitch. David Maher / SPORTSFILE

IT IS a winter's night in Dublin, I'm sitting in the upstairs room of a nightclub. A few hours earlier Ireland had qualified for their first major tournament in ten years but right now the only thing on my mind is that the floor is going to collapse.

My friend Shane Long is singing 'Little Lion Man'. Jamie Duff, Damien's brother, has accompanied him on guitar but by the end, a squad full of internationals were providing the chorus. There were friends in that room, men I owed a lot to and others who had known me nearly every step of the way.

This night feels like a reward for something, for being let go at Palace and scraping by at Brentford. Those thoughts had gone through my head earlier in the night but now I am singing at the top of the voice, yet I'm holding a little bit back in case one lusty verse would be the tipping point for the floor to cave in.

Everyone is lost in the euphoria. There were men I trusted with everything and men I considered rivals. At that moment we were all united, joined together by one common bond, belting out the words as if nothing else mattered, believing this was just the beginning. In that nightclub, I felt it was more than the culmination of something, I felt it was a sign that our unity and our team spirit would help us overcome whatever we encountered in the European Championships.

I didn't know that would be as good as it got. That I would never feel this happy about qualification again and that the summer to come would be a story of frustration, humiliation and bafflement. The European Championships would leave me with the sense that what should have been the culmination of our careers had come too late for our manager and for some players who saw it as a lap of honour.

What was it Steve Archibald said about team spirit being an illusion glimpsed in the aftermath of victory?

But it was not your fault but mine

And it was your heart on the line

I really fucked it up this time

Didn't I, my dear?

* * * * *

THE BUILD-UP

BY THE time we reached Krystle nightclub, the evening was beginning to feel special. We were upstairs in the VIP lounge and the bar downstairs was packed with Irish fans. I remember bringing Kevin Kilbane out to the balcony and the fans below went wild. Kevin had been treated callously by Trap but within the squad we knew how important he was and I would always remember him for the kindness he showed me when I first joined up.

The moment of qualification at the Aviva had, like the group itself, been a bit of an anti-climax. Looking back the thing that gave me hope was never going to be enough. When we drew in Moscow, there was a feeling of pride that blocked everything out. It didn't matter that we hadn't played or that we had hung on. I thought this is a group of players which will never be steamrolled.

I was one of those who wanted big teams so when the draw was made, I was pretty excited. This is what we wanted from a European Championships - Spain and Italy. They were the blue bloods of European football and I felt we would lift our game. Selfishly, I also thought I would have a better chance of playing against the good teams. I had done well against Italy in the past and thought Trap would use me against them. By the time that game came around, everything had gone wrong and I felt lower than I had at any point in my career, including when Palace released me and my whole career was in jeopardy.

My problems began in January. One of them had a human face and was called James McClean.

On the night we qualified the idea that McClean would take my place seemed outlandish. He had signed for Sunderland from Derry City but he hadn't played a game yet. In December, he came on and turned a match against Blackburn around. On New Year's Day, he made his full debut when Sunderland beat the eventual champions Manchester City.

The public face of every sports team is one of happy, grinning unity but only a naive fool believes that is the reality. Maybe it's because I've had to fight through the leagues to get to where I am but I've always enjoyed a rivalry within a team. Which brings me to Bobby Convey.

Bobby Convey was a left winger. The year Reading won promotion to the Premier League, Bobby Convey started 45 matches. I started three. In the summer when we were preparing for the Premier League, when the club was gripped with excitement, Bobby Convey gave me some friendly advice. Maybe I'd like to try my luck someplace else.

I thought about what he said for maybe two or three seconds and when the moment had passed I was sure that I would be playing on the left for Reading in the Premier League. Bobby Convey couldn't help it. He didn't know that he now embodied every knock, every rejection, every week when I worried about my pay cheque and people told me to see sense and maybe think about something else. Now I was on the edge of the Premier League and Bobby Convey thought I should try my luck somewhere else? This was my luck, this was my roll of the dice. That season in the Premier League, Bobby Convey made eight starts. I made 28.

James McClean became a different kind of rival but I knew he was what the media wanted. He was young and new and different. He had a great story and he was fearless.

One Sunday morning, I went on Setanta with Paul Kimmage. Things were going well, I thought, and then with one sentence, he finished me. "My son wants James McClean to be in the Ireland squad." I stumbled and tried to think of a riposte. "Well, my daughter wants me to be in it," I said, but this wasn't much of an answer. Hell, it might not have been true. She was two years old at the time.

McClean was good too but I wasn't threatened. I knew I would be in the squad, if I was fit, but in January that became a big 'if' and a bigger problem than James McClean. I developed a problem with my groin or with my hip or with my head, I could never be sure. The problem was real but the anxiety was that I would miss the Euros.

Around this time, newspapers would start naming squads. Some people left me out of their possible panels but there was no chance of that because I knew Trap liked me and he liked that I knew what he wanted.

I was part of the squad for the friendly in February when McClean made his debut. My bigger problem was that I had only played a couple of minutes for Wolves that month and I played only a couple of minutes the weekend following the game and I didn't play again until the end of April.

The pressure adds up. Football is ruthless. Every day at training in Wolves, the lads would tell me how well McClean was doing. It was that thing called banter and you can never let it get to you, but it was getting to me, it was always in my head.

Wolves were in a relegation battle but I could never contribute and part of me was always worrying that if I did contribute it would jeopardise my chances of going to the Euros and that was warping my thinking.

When it was established that it was my hip, I was back playing for Wolves in May, after an operation, but by then Mick McCarthy had been harshly treated and the club was already relegated. I got to play 90 minutes but I worried that I was just going through the motions.

I know Trap spent some time the weekend before the squad was named calling the players who weren't going to make it but I never expected a call and I never got one. McClean was in too but the player I felt sorry for was Seamus Coleman. McClean can withstand the ups and downs, he has balls of steel, but Coleman was a player I thought should have been brought along.

Trapattoni named his squad on May 7, three weeks before the final deadline. The way things turned out he might have been better sticking with an extended group at that stage but we were doing things Trap's way and over the next month we began to realise that the familiarity we had with Trap's ways bred something which, if it wasn't contempt, could be mistaken for boredom.

As I was struggling for fitness, I was one of the players who Trap wanted in for training the week the squad was named. The rest of the players would come in a week later but it was the start of an intense month with very little to do. I have stressed the importance of rest before but without a game and without the ability to fall back on your own routine, rest can turn into tedium and a sense of wishing the days away. That sense would become stronger as time went on.

* * * * *

MONTECATINI

WHEN I am old and grey and weary I would like to retire to Montecatini. Then I might see what Giovanni Trapattoni saw in the place because from the moment we arrived there to begin our build-up to the European Championships, it was clear that time was going to drag.

It might have dragged anyway. One problem with the European Championships was something we could do nothing about. By the time the summer came around, Trap had been manager for four years. We knew everything about him and he knew everything about us, or he had an idea of what we could do and couldn't do and he wouldn't budge from it.

We knew what the training sessions would be and we knew what they wouldn't be. Trap never budged, things never changed. It was like it was a badge of honour with him, part of his value system that players would adapt and never complain. To be bored was almost a sin but somebody once said that half the problems in the world were caused by boredom.

There is another problem and this might be the fault of professional footballers. Give a footballer an excuse and he'll take it.

If you have ever gone on a package holiday with a tour group, you might get some sense of what it's like with footballers. There will always be somebody on the holiday who isn't happy with the hotel or the restaurant or the beach. Now a squad of players is like that except they can't go and get drunk every night to forget their problems (well, most of them can't). Instead every problem becomes compounded at close quarters. There was nothing big but that was because there was nothing at all. Every day became the same.

When something did happen, it didn't help the mood. On the Monday night, we had all gone to a reception in Montecatini that was put on in Trap's honour. It was a lovely evening and the reminder of his standing in the country was probably the high point of that week. What came next was a reminder of how he'd got there.

The decision to leave Kevin Foley out hurt everyone. Of course footballers' sense of humour kicked in - his bags were packed for him and left outside his door - but this was different. Kevin was popular. When something happens in football, most players' reaction is usually 'Fuck it, it wasn't me. Tough luck. Let's get going.' But this was ruthless and it wasn't the right way to deal with a player like that.

It left a mark on everyone. There wasn't much else to think about. I was uptight as it was. I was worried about my fitness and I had waited my whole life for this so I could never relax. I didn't do anything except think about the tournament, train and think about the tournament.

We'd had a night out in Dublin before we left for Montecatini where the lads had a few drinks. Somebody suggested to me that I should have a drink to relax. Looking back a drink would have done me no harm. I had waited so long for this and I felt I was in the zone and I didn't want anything to jeopardise it. I didn't want to have any regrets. Maybe a few drinks would have relaxed me a little.

From the FAI's point of view, it was important there was nothing contentious so Montecatini was the ideal place.

I had one last chance to make an impression on Trap when we went to Budapest for a friendly on the Monday night before we flew to Poland.

There was a massive thunderstorm on the night and the game was delayed and in doubt at one stage. I would have taken my chances if the lightning was bouncing off the stands, I was desperate to get a chance even if I had doubts about my fitness.

I came on with 15 minutes to go and I cleared one ball off the line but I knew I wasn't right. At one stage I went round the goalkeeper and I lost my balance. I knew it was down to a lack of fitness. Should I have said something? Possibly, but I knew I wouldn't. Trap knew anyway, I could see by the way he was looking at me in training.

* * * * *

SOPOT

How do you think you would feel on the eve of your first major tournament? Excited? Probably. Nervous? For sure. A combination of both? Most likely. Or would you find yourself saying 'Thank fuck it's here', grateful that the monotony might be coming to an end, that at last there might be something to do? That's how I felt when we arrived in Poland, it was mainly relief.

Sopot was lovely, the hotel was good and the training ground was fabulous. Here we had the buzz I was looking for. Italy had been 4/10 but this was a lot better.

Some of our wives had booked into a hotel but there was a problem as there was a lap-dancing club downstairs. So they moved out and checked into the hotel next door to ours, the Grand Hotel, where Hitler had his headquarters when Germany invaded Poland.

By this stage, I think we were all pretty fed up with the training. Trap was old school. He would ask us if we'd like a five-a-side and we'd always say yes but it's better if a coach is anticipating everything and keeping things moving.

Trap would take us through his tactics. We all knew his tactics. We had known them for about three years and they weren't going to change.

When it was a normal international break, your enthusiasm would get you through but this was a month of the same old stuff. There was a bad tension in the squad, the tension that comes from frustration and the feeling that everything was going stale.

Modern sessions move swiftly, you go from one routine into another with no hanging around. With Trap, it moved slowly, like time itself.

My only experience of tours is hearing stories and watching the films of the Lions on tour. They always had events planned to keep the squad engaged and distracted. We did nothing, as if Trap was testing us to see if we had what it takes to put up with a high level of boredom.

Our training sessions were repetitive. The training wasn't too much for us, it wasn't taxing, it was just too long and monotonous.

Steve Coppell used to say "racehorses don't race every day" but I think Trap thought they should race every day or else he thought we weren't thoroughbreds.

When we finally got a day off, just after we arrived in Sopot, we had to ask him for it, which sounds like a little thing, but it's not. If your boss tells you you've been working hard and you should have a holiday, would it feel different than if you went to your boss and told him you needed a break?

The day off helped the players recharge, especially those who knew they wouldn't be playing. Trap was relaxed and said the players just had to report for noon the next day so some people had a couple of drinks in the casino across the road, but it was understood what was expected.

IRELAND v CROATIA

Poznan, June 10

We all knew what the team for the Croatia game would be. Trap had named it a week before, ahead of the friendly in Budapest.

I think Trap had come under pressure to change his ways. He did things in that tournament that I would never have expected but he did them without conviction. I would never have expected Simon Cox to play on the wing but I think Trap felt he had to make an attacking move.

We conceded an early goal and that unsettled us so we were always chasing that game. We knew our tournament depended on it, but I got the first signs that maybe this tournament had come too late for some of our players.

I remember one player spent what seemed like five minutes picking his family out and waving to them during the warm-up. I wondered about that. Was this a lap of honour or were we here for business? Pick out your family and give them a wave but don't start blowing them kisses for a few minutes like it's a curtain call at a Broadway show. I thought it was unprofessional.

The mood after the game was low. There was never much talking with Trap so we were left to think about things for ourselves and what we thought was that we were in big trouble now.

IRELAND v SPAIN

Gdansk, June 14

Sopot was beginning to transform itself after we returned from the Croatia game but we were flat as a pancake. It had been a sleepy seaside town in the week before the first game but now it became the base for the Irish fans who were heading to the Spain game in Gdansk.

I was still obsessively resting so when my wife would suggest joining her for a walk I would always say I couldn't. Sheasy was the same but David Forde was making us look bad.

Everywhere the wives went, they'd meet Fordey. "He's a real gentleman," my wife would say. "He's always holding doors open for us."

Fordey, or Clark Kent as we started calling him, was out being gallant while we stayed in the hotel, resting. "David Forde's over here having coffee, why can't you have a coffee?" my wife asked.

"He's third-choice 'keeper," I told her. "He's allowed go out. Me and Sheasy have to rest."

I would love to experience a tournament as a fan, as even though the supporters were right outside the door, we kept away from them.

Before the Spain game, my wife went to see Snow Patrol who were playing a special concert. Joanne sent me a video of a moment in the concert when the band got the whole crowd to sing 'Stand up for the Boys in Green'. I watched it and thought 'Wow!'

Within the squad, the atmosphere before the Spain game never picked up, everything was a chore, training was a drag. After one game, we knew we were out. We were knocked for six by the Croatia result. Nobody would say that we didn't think we could get something from Spain but I'm not sure how much we believed it. Certainly we needed to do everything possible to get a result.

On the morning of the game, one player was playing on the golf simulator in the hotel with his son. I don't know if it was the frustration but it drove me crazy. "What the fuck is he doing?" I thought he should be resting and made my feelings clear.

Trap dropped Doyler and played Simon Cox again but he came off at half-time. By then it was too late.

I had never done enough but I was desperate for a chance. Trap sent on McClean and Paul Green ahead of me. I knew I was on the back foot when McClean came on. We were out and the tournament I had dreamt of was slipping away from me.

In the dressing-room, it kicked off a bit. "The training has been shit," was a common complaint. We were finished in the competition after four days, the anger came tumbling out and a lot of it went in Trap's direction.

IRELAND v ITALY

Poznan, June 18

This was the lowest point of my professional career. The tournament had come too late for a lot of our players. Some like Richard Dunne had fitness issues and others were a year or two too old.

Trap named the same team as he had for the opening game and that was the first sign that things were going to end as they had begun: with a whimper.

Everybody wanted to go home and everybody who hadn't played felt they deserved to play.

Before he named the team, Trap came to me and said "How are you?" I told him I was good.

He said, "You play tomorrow, you start or you come on."

The night before the Italy game, Marco Tardelli told me I'd be playing. "You deserve to play."

I called the family and told them I'd be playing. I wasn't surprised. I'd played well against Italy whenever we'd played them. After the game in Liege in 2011, Buffon came into the dressing-room and asked for my shirt.

I was disappointed when I wasn't in the team but I still thought I'd be playing.

I always knew when Trap was going to send me on during his time with Ireland. The lads would look at me like I was crazy when I started putting on my tie-ups and getting ready before he'd given any signal.

"What are you doing?" they'd say.

"I'll be on in a minute," I'd tell them. I was inside Trap's head. So I knew in that last game, even before he'd used all his subs, that it was over. I never got my tie-ups on, I never started the mental exercises I'd use to get ready.

On the bench players were getting angry. Darron Gibson was one of them and I remember thinking he had a right to be angry but so did I.

When the last sub was made, I felt my world had ended. It was the lowest point of my career. All I wanted was five minutes, all I wanted was a bit of loyalty.

I could deal with James McClean getting on ahead of me in the tournament. He was playing well and deserved it. I hated him for it but when Simon Cox was sent on to play on the wing, it broke my heart.

In the dressing-room afterwards, I fell to pieces. Marco came over to me. "Get the fuck away from me," I said and then Duffer walked over and said to me, "If anyone deserved to play, it was you." I will always be grateful to him for that.

I had two drinks that night in the hotel but I couldn't even do that. The next day we had a barbecue and Trapattoni came to me and said, "We need you for the next campaign." I haven't played for Ireland since.

I respect Trapattoni for everything he did. He broke my heart but I respect him for his ruthlessness, which is a strange thing to say.

I had never felt worse in football. When I was released by Palace, I thought it was bad but this was worse because this was the event that would make all of that worthwhile. This was something my daughter would look back on proudly when she was older. Instead it was just a more glamorous place to feel like shit.

What's hard to take is how people talk about the Euros. People say "we were rubbish at the Euros", and that team deserve better. It came too late for us. We'll never be known as heroes, we'll never be remembered for the things we did but for the things we failed to do.

Physically I made sacrifices which I'm only getting over now. I had an operation immediately afterwards and the recovery from that had a knock-on effect. Now that I am back playing at my best and on the brink of a return to the Premier League with Ipswich, the pain has lessened but it was a long way back.

Nobody asked me to take those risks. I could have put my club career first, maybe I should have. My game is about running the extra ten per cent but during the Euros, while I could run like everyone else could run, I couldn't run like I could run. I wanted to play for my country in a tournament and the sacrifices to get there aren't a story of a few months, they are the story of my life.

Wherever I go, I tell people I'm unbreakable. I made it the hard way. I joke to my wife, if you ever want to get rid of me, you'll have to kill me. But the European Championships were different.

The European Championships came close to breaking me.

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