Stuttgart. The Neckarstadion. 12 June 1988. If you're looking for a breathless account of the Glorious Twelfth, an ode to 11 warriors in green from somebody who was there when Rayo put the ball in the English net . . . well, frankly you've come to the wrong place. I can picture it still alright: Kenny Sansom's miskick, John Aldridge's knockdown and Ray Houghton's header taking half an eternity to loop across the face of the goal, over Peter Shilton and into the net.

But that was six minutes in. Eighty-four minutes plus injury time remained, an hour and a half during which England murdered Ireland everywhere but on the scoreboard.

That, younger reader, is the truth of Stuttgart '88, obscured under the layers of mythology, bar-stool patriotism and selective amnesia. I know. I was that footsoldier in Jack's Army and I was sitting right behind Shilton.

But for Gary Lineker being so off-colour and missing all those one-on-ones. But for Packie Bonner glowing in glorious technicolour and saving them. The Titanic's XI may have already hit the iceberg but they played as though they didn't realise it;

the second half was a waking nightmare of white knuckles, bitten nails and glanced-at watches as England poured forward in waves towards our end, the sole diversion being provided by Niall Quinn doing a creditable impression of a particularly ungainly giraffe and getting himself repeatedly caught offside.

Play the game 10 times and England would have won it seven times. The one time Ireland would have won was the one time it was actually played. And so, the pop psychologists inform us, a new, confident Ireland was forged in the afterglow of Stuttgart's white heat, the Celtic Tiger was born and society here has never been the same again. Yawn. See what I mean about layers of mythology?

No, the most enduring memories of that week in Germany . . . West Germany, actually . . . 18 years ago have, with one exception, nothing to do with events on the field. Getting off the train on the Saturday afternoon and hearing some unknown female singer yodelling 'bout a revolution at the Nelson Mandela concert in Wembley. Reading the message in the match programme next day from the mayor of Stuttgart, one Manfred Rommel, who might not have possessed his late father's military talents but certainly lacked nothing in diplomatic skills, asserting that England and Ireland had been "playing good football . . .

no, great football" for many years. (Right, Manfred. ) Ending up outside a wine bar called La Boheme in Karlsruhe that night, in the gutter . . . literally; I redecorated it in a fetching shade of khaki . . .

but remembering the stars.

The aforementioned other enduring memory occurred in Hannover's Niedersachsenstadion the following Wednesday, when Ireland did to Russia what England had done to Ireland three days earlier.

And not only did they batter them, they battered them by outplaying them, by wrapping them up in patterns as purposeful as they were pretty. It should have ended 3-0;

inexplicably it ended 1-1. Personally I blame Aldridge, who squandered two hatfuls of chances. One can only presume Jack Charlton was so appalled by this display of style and verve that he made damn sure Ireland never played that way again.

Forget Stuttgart. We'll always have Hannover.