Back in 2012, the Irish soccer team were bursting to begin their European championship campaign after an agonising five-week wait in Poznan.
Their preparations however, were brought to a crashing halt the day before their group opener against Croatia when word filtered through that the families and girlfriends of the team had been placed in accommodation above a lap-dancing club.
A front page report in the Sunday Times, relays the memories of Kevin Doyle who described the harrowing events which preceded their 3-1 defeat to Croatia and subsequent defeats to Spain and Italy.
Doyle, who now plies his trade in the MLS, suggests that the embarrassing occurrence may have contributed to their poor performances.
''They (families and girlfriends) were posited over a lap-dancing club. It is not what you want when you are cooped up and under stress and bursting to get the first game out of the way and then all of a sudden this pops up. It may be just an excuse but we were so cooped up together for such a long time.''
Fellow team-mates Stephen Hunt and Darren O'Dea issued complaints with O'Dea pointing out that the situation could be misconstrued to imply that the players were frequenting a brothel while preparing for the Euros.
Reassuringly for us, Doyle concluded that these ''teething problems'' will not be a problem when Ireland travel to France later in the summer due to the depth of experience in the squad.
IRELAND IRELAND IRELAND IRELAND #COYBIG #IRLGER pic.twitter.com/LwvzRPijre
— Newstalk Sport (@NewstalkSport) October 8, 2015
''A lot of the lads who went to the last Euros will be in this squad this time around. It is teething problems like that which won't happen again as the players and the people organising things now have that experience of going to a tournament.''
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