Reliving the glory years when eight Irishmen lined out for Arsenal and Manchester United in the FA Cup final

Sammy Nelson pulled into the car park at the Emirates and slid into a space between a Ferrari and a Lamborghini.

He then teased his 74-year-old frame out of the driver’s seat and looked around. Fans were screaming the names of today’s heroes, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice. In every direction, he saw another reminder of his past.

Once upon a time it was his name they chanted. His and Liam Brady’s, Frank Stapleton’s, David O’Leary’s, John Devine’s, Pat Jennings’ and Pat Rice’s. Seven Irish names. One team.

READ MORE: David Moyes set to be unveiled as Everton manager after agreeing return

READ MORE: Roy Keane makes feelings clear on Graham Potter after West Ham appointment

And one day in 1979, when that Irish team walked down the Wembley tunnel, Nelson allowed his eyes to dart across to the opposite line, where another pair of Belfast men were walking: Manchester United’s Sammy McIlroy and Jimmy Nicholl.

That Saturday afternoon 46 years ago remains etched in the football history of this island, when eight Irishmen, from north and south of the border, played in a Cup final, the highest number of Irish players ever to do so. Tomorrow in the Emirates, when United and Arsenal go at it again in the FA Cup third round, there will be one: Jonny Evans.

But the reunion Nelson wants to talk about is of a different kind. A year ago the magnificent seven got together again, greyer around the temple, slower in their stride, but as quick with their wit.

“Sammy Nelson,” Dubliner Devine says, “was the funniest person I knew. He was amazing in a dressing room. When people were down, he’d pick them up. When times were good, he was fun. When times were hard, he was there for you.”

Liam Brady called him his ‘minder’. “Sammy looked after me on the pitch,” Brady says. “If an opposition hard man was giving me a tough time, Sammy’d go up to them. He was a protector.”

And he was also a fine player, good enough to stay at Arsenal for 15 years, and to play in four major Cup finals, including the most famous one of all, the 1979 decider, when Arsenal blew a 2-0 lead in the last five minutes before subsequently scoring the winning goal with their next attack.

“I came across some old footage of that final recently,” Nelson says. “The camera angle is from behind the goal. You can see Sammy (McIlroy) scoring to make it 2-2 and then I can be seen picking up a divot and placing it back into the turf, as if I was on a golf course.

“What I’m saying is we were calm. Even though they had scored twice in a few minutes, we still believed we would win. And that belief stemmed from what we had: a magnificent team. North, south, we were all good guys.

“I joke with them now and then. On the twelfth of July I might send them a text. ‘Get your bowler hats on boys and march’. They’d reply and tell me where to get off. We can have that kind of banter because there’s no bitterness to it and all of us know that.

“We were, and remain, really good friends. Protestant, Catholic, we are all the same. They’re nice guys. And they were great players.”

To get an idea of how great we need to go back in time.

In 1979 Arsenal won the FA Cup beating Manchester United. A year later six Irishmen became seven, as Devine was promoted to the first team. That 79/80 season saw them play 70 games, beating Liverpool - the following year’s European Cup winners; Nottingham Forest the reigning European champions; Juventus, who had six players who’d subsequently win the 1982 World Cup; Ipswich and Gothenburg, the 1981 and 1982 Uefa Cup winners.

“We were seven Irishmen taking on the world,” remembers Devine.

Nelson, the joker off the pitch and the hard man on it, was an integral part of that crew.

“People underestimate how good Frank Stapleton was," Nelson says. “Everyone knew about Liam. While George Best was the best player I ever played with, Liam was also exceptional. Pat Jennings was world class. David O’Leary was intelligent, quick, and knowledgeable about the game.

“But if he made a mistake, we’d tell him. We’d give him a volley, either myself, Willie Young or Pat Rice. ‘Who do you think you are?’ we’d say. We weren’t shy.”

And they weren’t afraid.

In 1978, they reached their first FA Cup final in seven years but surprisingly lost it, Nelson playing with a broken rib, four others with minor injuries. The next year was the United final, won with a last minute goal from Alan Sunderland following an inspired intervention by Brady.

Then came 1980, when they played six games, including four semi-finals in 12 days, emerging victorious against Juventus and Liverpool.

Eventually their tank ran out of gas. West Ham defeated them on a Saturday, Valencia on a Wednesday, two Cup finals they would have won had the fixture list been a little kinder.

Seven Irishmen on the one team, in a European final in 1980, eight Irishmen on opposing teams in a FA Cup final a year earlier. You’ll never ever see that again.

As Nelson reminisced about this from his Brighton home this week, tears unexpectedly came.

He had told his story, about leaving school midway through his A Levels in Christmas 1965, a 16-year-old transported from the safety of home to England’s capital city. He saw players come and go and yet he had the skill, the character and the courage to stay.

He endured lean years and then saw the team peak, Brady emerging as a star, Rice and Stapleton as leaders, O'Leary, Devine and Jennings as their saviours.

Between them all a bond formed. “Sammy would put his own safety at risk to protect you,” says Devine. “He’s an incredible person.”

And as they journeyed through Europe and to Wembley, they thought it was their destiny to win a Cup double.

Yet it never happened. They fell painfully short. “You’re lucky, I suppose to have done so much,” he says.

And then he stops. The joking and the one liners are no more. His voice has a tremor. The pride in what he achieved is being felt.

“I never thought about it, I guess,” he says. “But going across to England, we only tried to do our best for our families back home. People hold you up on a pedestal, hoping you’ll do well. A lot of kids fell by the wayside and never got to play first-team football for 16 years.

“We tried our best ... .”

His voice breaks.

“It didn’t work out. We didn't win those Cups. But we tried. And through it all we had each other’s backs.”

They still do. All these years later, they still do.

Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts.