Ireland's Martin O'Neill is a manager under some fire at the moment. After his brief dalliance with the Stoke City job, O'Neill, despite opting to remain with Ireland, finds himself increasingly out of favour with many Irish fans.
After a humbling 5-1 defeat to Denmark in the 2018 World Cup play off, O'Neill has yet to make a convincing arguement that he, or indeed his team, are over it and ready to move on.
One person who remains an O'Neill fan is jockey Ruby Walsh:
I know him, and I've met him several times and I find him a fascinating person.
Sitting on a preview panel for the Dublin Racing Festival, Walsh, accompanied by Eamon Dunphy amongst others, recounted one of the memories he has of being in the Derryman's presence:
I played golf with him once [when] I was on holidays. We played golf one morning and there were three of us in the round of golf - it was myself, Martin O'Neill and Andriy Shevchenko.
So, you have a twelve time National Hunt Champion jockey and Cheltenham legend Ruby Walsh, two-time European Cup winning Martin O'Neill, and the 2004 Ballon D'Or winner Andriy Shevchenko ... do go on Ruby:
Shevchenko was playing off 2, so he kindly decided he'd take on myself and Martin O'Neill, and graciously give us the shots we were entitled to, so, I was off 18, and Martin was off a ladies handicap of about 24.
So, we went to the driving range and I'm walking down behind Shevchenko and I'm thinking, I'll stand behind him so at least he can't see me getting anything wrong on the driving range.
So Shevchenko stands up, turns around [but] he was left-handed, so he was looking straight at me.
When Walsh proceeded to make an admitted fool of himself in the driving-range, the Ukrainian decided he may as well try and make a bit of money off the lads - $100 for the round was the wager.
Looking set to part with their money, Walsh recalls an inspirational chat the Ireland manager had as they made their way to the first tee:
By the time I got to the first tee, Martin O'Neill had convinced me I was Tiger Woods. I stood up on the first tee, birdied the first, and Shevchenko reckoned he was getting robbed by the Irish.
On the 16th, he paid the two of the $100 each.
So, there you have it, don't play golf with Ruby Walsh and Martin O'Neill.
