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If you remember anything about the first soccer game played at Croke Park between the Republic of Ireland and Wales, this day thirteen years ago, allow me to be the first to say fair play if it was the game itself.

A history making 90 minutes, Croke Park was opening its doors to the ‘Queen’s football’ after telling it to politely stay as far away as possible for the preceding century.

It should be memorialised as this massive moment, the GAA swinging open the gaff doors after decades of shadow wars against their neighbours in the parks, the grand old institution giving up the ghost and letting the kids play freely in its own back garden.

And yet, as Steve Staunton busied himself with making a hames of the biggest sporting job in the country, as Stephen Ireland netted what many expected to be the first of many home goals for the Boys in Green, this international passed in one ear and out the other as most did during that dour transition period, barely hesitating on its own significance.

How things and times had changed. The garrison game in GAA HQ was once as likely as Ian Paisley taking a trip to the Free State capital and power sharing with those republican disputants down the road - which is exactly what Mr. ‘Never Never Never’ agreed to this same year, 2007. If you can dream it you can do it and all that.

The seeds for this event were sewn, like any good revolution, when a new leader rolled into town, captured the imagination of a burgeoning talent and support base, and began to break down the walls that had been up for time eternal. Big Jack Charlton had the whole country sucking diesel and the footballing gospel broadened beyond its urban, working-class power centres.

The following comes from the website of the Kerry District League, a competition cooked up amid the heat of the Gaelic football-mad Munster county.

“The arrival of Jack Charlton and the success of the Irish team,” the website reads, “led to unprecedented growth with the league expanding to four divisions of twelve teams and also a very successful Schoolboys League was set up.

“That ensured the future of the game was secured.”

Scenes like these seen countrywide induced a normalisation of Rule 27 breakers beyond the Pale once the fact set in that yes, soccer can be popular in a given county, and that county can still enjoy native sporting success. Did a soccer club ever stop Kerry from winning an All-Ireland? They’d been to four of the last five football finals before Ireland vs Wales, winning two.

Nothing changes, and fear subsides. The GAA can still be the fulcrum around which community life in rural Ireland exists, and can still stand up for Irish culture as it did during times of oppression, without caring about a few lads kicking ball on the next green over.

This wasn’t just a one-sided beef. Soccer in Croke Park would be a huge wrench for some Irish soccer fans who’d been stereotyped as low-brow gaff wreckers. Some would struggle to feel acceptance. Issues of class are intertwined in the relationship between the two games, one a traditional tower of strength, the other acclimatised to sweeping glass from public playing fields early on Sunday mornings.

As ever, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. For every Liam Brady - turfed out of Gaelic football for captaining Ireland as a schoolboy - there are tales of dual success, such as Niall Quinn, Kevin Moran, and Jason Sherlock. Both sports knew struggles of different kinds - one cultural, the other societal.

But 72,539 fans in Drumcondra that day - a record for a soccer international - didn’t seem to mind. Maybe we’re all reading a tad too much into it. And it was better than playing at Celtic Park or Anfield, that’s for sure.

The plans that would produce the Aviva Stadium were first produced in January 2004, and immediately FAI and IRFU eyes turned to Croke Park.

Thomond Park and the RDS could host smaller internationals, sure, and they both did during the 2007-09 period, but the best buzz was going to be in the GAA’s crown jewel.

April 17 2005 is a watershed day for the GAA. On that day, they passed the amendment that would open up Croke Park to the once-foreign menaces. 227 said yes, 97 said no, the two-thirds majority was met.

The old Lansdowne Road was demolished in May 2007. Planning troubles, the mooted “Bertie Bowl” plans, and sorting out alternative venues all delayed the process. Ireland’s 126th and final international in the old Lansdowne was a 5-0 win over San Marino on November 15 2006. Get in the motor, we’re on the road to Croker.

It was a bumpy ride. ‘The Gaffer’ was at the wheel, but the wheels were coming off, and the spanner to fix it was in the hands of a bigger set of spanners, tightening the small bolts in the hull as the ship slowly sank. It was busy work all round - usually green shirts busily chasing the ball they just couldn’t hold onto, a pox on the very concept of possession retention, compactness, solid defending, and just about anything else necessary to succeed in tournament football.

At least Stan the man was riding a two-game win streak into this game. Following the Lansdowne sign-off, the Boys in Green hopped on a plane to throw shapes around the microstate. Except it was so nearly the Sammarinesi who were dancing to the tune of a sweet sweet point, were it not for a 94th minute Stephen Ireland winner that spared Staunton’s - and the nation’s - blushes.

This coming after just one point from the first three - including that night in Cyprus - made Staunton and Ireland’s task embarrassingly more difficult.

Wales, for what it’s worth, were not in much better nick at this time, with one win from their opening three games in the bloated seven-team Euro 2008 qualification Group D - including a 5-1 loss at home against Slovakia. But hey, at least they beat Cyprus.

Though perhaps the primary reason for such a lack of hype was, simply, the rugby beat them to it. The IRFU’s boys in green had already lost to France before beating England in one of the most emotionally-charged Six Nations games in recent memory. Seriously, just go back and watch the national anthems. Whatever your own opinion may be on God Save The Queen ringing out over a GAA tanny system, the spine-tingling Amhran na bhFionn that followed was purest savagery in song form, a nation releasing the breath it had collectively held in in one barbarically beautiful display of national pride, before Shane Horgan repeated the act on the pitch. It was conflictingly, emotionally, confusingy, joyously brilliant. Follow that, boys.

They tried their best, bless them, but the 2007 vintage of both sides is not what you’d call their finest. Wales, grappling with John Toshack’s revamped 3-5-2, boasted such luminaries as Lewis Nyatanga, Carl Robinson, and Steve Evans. Yes there was also Ryan Giggs and Craig Bellamy, but they aren’t as funny.

The red dragons also started a 17-year-old in the demanding left wing-back role, who teased the Irish box with dangerous crosses on a couple occasions in the second half before being withdrawn with 15 minutes to go as Toshack went 4-4-2 (which, naturally, pushed noted Premier League Years participant and red bearded no-nonsense centre-half James Collins up top, of course).

That left-back was in the middle of an incredible first full season at Southampton, became Football League Young Player of the Year, went to Tottenham a couple of months later, and you know the rest from there. World record fees, alleged feuds with a Portuguese footballing demi-god, questionable top-knots, Wales, golf, Madrid etc.

Bellamy created the game’s first chance and became its first victim when he was flattened by a perennially cross-looking Shay Given when through on goal.

At the other end, Collins’ evident discomfort as a de facto libero was nearly punished when he gave the ball away cheaply, allowing Robbie Keane to roll in Damien Duff and force a save from Welsh stopper Danny Coyne.

And it turned out Collins could be caught out off the ball too, as while trying to complete the turning circle of an aircraft carrier Keane rolled in Ireland, the player, who deftly chipped past Coyne to give Ireland, the country, the lead.

And that, pretty much, was that. Gareth Bale, as mentioned, and Simon Davies had a couple of dangerous balls into the box. Chances came and went in the second half - Kevin Doyle hitting the crossbar with a dipping effort the most notable - but there was no real tension. No effin’ and blindin’. No real fire and flames like we’d seen against England.

Maybe the novelty had already worn off. Maybe it’s because the Irish have traditionally had little beef with the Welsh - they don’t share the fraternal bonds of the Irish and Scottish, but they would politely say hello when passing in the halls of Celtic High. Maybe it’s because Croke Park, despite being a triumph of a facility, never translated well as a soccer venue. Or maybe it was just relief, more so than pride, that three points were picked up against someone other than the team the Germans had pumped 13-0.

Staunton staggered on. After taking four points off Slovakia, then absolutely none against the Czech Republic, Ireland drew two consecutive Croke Park games. One was against Germany! That’s really good! The other was against Cyprus! That really isn’t!

Staunton was gone soon after, and Don Givens was handed the pointless task of a 2-2 draw in the reverse fixture with Wales in Cardiff before Giovanni Trappatoni came along and things got funky all over again.

Ireland, the player, was gone too, as some fake grandmother-related mishaps led to his international retirement/exile. The one green shoot from the campaign, his four goals helped Ireland to third in the group. He would never add to them.

The Aviva Stadium opened in the summer of 2010. Despite having another motion at that year’s Congress to keep the ground open to foreign games, Croke Park has not hosted a senior soccer or rugby international since.

The first ever international in Croke Park should be remembered as a big deal. It is remembered as a transitional team, under a transitional manager, playing out a dull affair in, ultimately a transitional stadium. A lot preceded it, but when it comes to the game itself, fair play if you remember it.