Like most people, Brian Kerr is partial to a few tunes in his time away from football.
The former Ireland manager was on the Off The Ball panel at the NT Lounge at Electric Picnic alongside OTB co-presenter Kevin Kilbane and Lightning Seeds musician and Liverpool fan Ian Broudie, who co-wrote England's Euro 96 tune 'Three Lions'.
And Kerr shared many a story including one about taking the Ireland squad to see a musical.
"One time I had a brilliant idea about bringing them to see Mamma Mia," he laughed.
"So I knew there were a few grumpy heads when I said 'we're going to see Mamma Mia tomorrow night'. And Big Derek, the security man, went to a lot of bother to get us these prime seats before we went to play France in the 0-0 that we won.
"So we get the bus and I'm kind of going, 'they're not into this and I'm not that into it myself' although I like the ABBA music. But we went to the gig and at half-time they had a room for us to go in. And the artists from the performance came into this room to ask the players for their autographs and photographs and I thought this was completely the wrong way round. They were doing the gig, performing. But the best of it all was I had said 'what we'll do is leave once the encore starts at the end... Money, Money or Waterloo I think it was...' And we stood up to go and the lads weren't anxious to go. By the end of it, they'd got into it. So they had reinvented themselves as ABBA fans and I had thought they weren't having it at all."
Ian Brodie has joined the party at #NTLounge pic.twitter.com/l1ivgukqjQ
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) September 3, 2016
Meanwhile, Kilbane recalled the time Kerr got Aslan to play a private concert for the Ireland squad.
Kerr took on that tale, remembering: "Famously, Christy Dignam came out and his first line was 'Jaysus, this is like playing in your granny's parlour.'"
Kerr did also chat about football with Ireland's opening World Cup qualifier against Serbia coming up on Monday.
But one old story he did share was the time he went to the 1966 World Cup final as a 13-year-old boy.
"I was [at the final] and I don't have any problem saying I was cheering for England that day. I'd a brother working in London in a pub, managing a pub in Shepherd's Bush and he managed to get me tickets for all of England's matches at the World Cup in 1966. Now, admittedly I was going in a pram at the time [because] I was such a small boy but nonetheless I managed to clamber up close to the Royal Box for the final. He actually had a ticket for me for the final. I mean, how does an Irish bloke in London get a ticket for the World Cup final when I presume all the population in England wanted to go and see them. It's not like they've been in loads of them," he said.
"The day before the match, he said 'Look, I've a bit of bad news for you...I had to give your ticket away to a boy that needed it more than you did'. I started crying and he said 'I have better news. I got a better ticket for you from someone else'. And it was 3 pound 10 shillings for up beside the Royal Box for the final. So I cheered England all the way."
