I have to admit that the singing with Sharon Corr yarn is a little on the tenuous side. There was a bit of a sing-song after a party in somebody's house in 'de town' and Sharon, unsurprisingly, was head and shoulders above everybody else. I do recall her complimenting my version of the Smiths' 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'. But my wife has pointed out that she was probably just being polite.

For that reason, I prefer the Stevie Staunton story. Stephen was the key player in the all-conquering St Dominic's team that blighted my underage football years. They were deemed unbeatable, until a memorable day in August 1981 when the 'Cosmos' team (yep, after the New York Cosmos) I played for upset the odds to send Staunton and 'Dominics' tumbling out of the semi-final of the under-12 Dundalk Cup . . . high stakes indeed.

It was the first time I had played against Staunton where we did not concede a minimum of five goals and I even managed to bag the winner. I wish I could say that I looked up, saw the keeper off his line and chipped him from 25 yards, but the reality is that it came from a hoof that went about 25 yards into the air before coming down on top of the goalkeeper, who fumbled it into the net. Not that the wholly flukey nature of the goal stopped all manner of delirium breaking out on the final whistle. As we danced a merry jig in the centre-circle afterwards, one of my team-mates reported back that Staunton was in tears at the defeat. It was probably merely wishful thinking on our part, but I wasn't about to disbelieve it. The legend (in my own lunchtime) was born.

I might never have fulfilled my boyhood dreams of playing for Ireland, but I had once made Stephen Staunton cry.

I tell the story, not for self-indulgent reasons, but because watching the flak that Staunton has taken over the last few weeks, I have thought more and more about him in his younger days. I didn't know him personally, but I spent a long time chasing after him on both soccer and GAA pitches. What was always most impressive about him was his inner strength and quiet self-belief.

He always stood out because of the way he carried himself. I remember being sent out to mark him in a game and he greeted me matter-of-factly with the words, "Ah, another marker." Suffice to say that, in relation to that game, his self-confidence was entirely justified.

From the age of 10, everybody of my generation in Dundalk knew who Stephen Staunton was. It was taken as given from that age that he would be a professional footballer and he had to deal with the high level of expectation.

He did so admirably. When you have as big a reputation as Staunton did, there will always be a queue of people to have a go, even from the sidelines, but he was always well able for it and was never intimidated or gave way. By the age of 16, he was playing senior gaelic football for Clan na Gael, a big club that hadn't won the county championship for decades. Typically, it was Staunton who scored the game's decisive goal in the final to end the famine. When he joined Liverpool the following year, word came back that he found the club's gruelling pre-season training programme horrendously tough. But, true to form, he stuck it out and within a couple of years he was a fixture in a team that was then arguably Europe's finest. His Ireland debut soon followed. I remember on the day of Ireland's crucial World Cup qualifier against Spain in 1989 seeing the Irish team's bus flash past on its way to Lansdowne.

Staunton was sitting staring out the window, looking white as a ghost. But any fears didn't translate onto the pitch . . . he had a stormer as Ireland won 1-0.

Twelve years later, in an even more crucial game against the Netherlands, many feared the worst when Ireland lost its two first-choice central defenders. Staunton, by then a veteran, stepped in . . . the Dutch were held scoreless.

Stephen Staunton has been a competitor and a winner all his life.

Obviously that does not mean that he will automatically make it as a manager.

But nobody should doubt for a second that he has the determination, the will power, the bloody-mindedness and the sheer cojones to succeed. He has had to live with doubters and critics from the time he first kicked a ball, and has continually proved them wrong. Don't be surprised if he does so again.

scoleman@tribune. ie