Jack Charlton on Harry Ramsden's Challenge

Niall Quinn:

"We all shuffled into Harry Ramsden’s. Jack is a shareholder. Packie or Paul or somebody cut a ribbon and officially opened the place. So the night before the game, after a week of drink, I settled down to fish and chips. Garry Kelly took the Harry Ramsden’s Challenge and ate a fish about a yard long and a mountain of chips and anything else they challenged him with. He thought there’s be a certificate but he got a free desert instead, which he duly ate. Jack herded us out pronto. Twenty minutes later, it’s dusk at Lansdowne Road and we’re all waddling about the pitch, groaning, full of fish and chips and trying to do a training session the night before this must-win game. We’re burping and farting and creased over with laughter. Our main thought was it’s been a happy era and it’s ending soon…Sometimes you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. It was all over for Jack."

Roy Keane:

"Here’s a good one from Ireland’s qualifying campaign for Euro 96 – towards the end of Big Jack’s time as national team manager. Because of injury I played only three or four games from the qualifiers. But Dennis Irwin and Paul McGrath were witnesses to this story.
Ireland were at home to Austria in a vital qualifying game. The day before the match, the team went to Lansdowne Road for a training session. On the way they stopped at a branch of Harry Ramsden’s on the Naas Road. The photographers were on hand to capture the Irish team tackle their first big challenge of the week: Harry’s Challenge, a giant-sized haddock with chips and beans or peas, with a sweet to follow.
Eat up, lads, urged Jack. Some of the lads tucked into Harry’s Challenge. Then off to Lansdowne Road for the final training session. Yes, Austria won 3-1. Some of the lads reported that their legs ‘went’ twenty minutes from the end. F**ked. But they’d passed Harry’s Challenge."