John Giles joined Will O'Callaghan on Off The Ball on Thursday to discuss his time on the RTE panel with Bill O'Herlihy, Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady.
"I'll tell you who wrote it."
Eamon Dunphy has uttered many memorable lines in his life, but few top that one. It's 16 years since that infamous segment on the RTE panel after Roy Keane's departure from Manchester United. Dunphy, Liam Brady and Bill O'Herlihy went back and forth as John Giles mostly sat and observed.
On Thursday, Giles joined Will O'Callaghan to discuss his time with the panel.
"It wasn't a football matter," Giles said.
"They were going at each other, they were going on about some paper man that did something. I wasn't on the panel to talk about that...we used to have a chat before the shows of what we were going to discuss. We always did that, we'd meet maybe two hours before the programme.
"Sometimes it would be about a football match, sometimes it would be about something that wasn't a football match. I think we always knew among ourselves, and Bill had to know what we were likely to talk about."
Although Giles prefers to stay out of remembering the details of the specific segment in question, you can relive every moment in glorious detail here with an Off The Ball panel.
While Giles didn't divulge too many details about the battles between Dunphy and Brady he sat between, he was happy to add to the legacy of Bill O'Herlihy.
"Bill was a real pro. He'd been at the game a long time, certainly before I came on the panel. And indeed before Eamon came on the panel. Bill knew his stuff.
"He knew how to get the best out of Liam, the best out of Eamon and the best out of myself. He had the knowledge to get what people wanted to hear. And he was exceptionally good at that."
The game was often a sideshow to the panel back in those days. Champions League games started at 7:45, but the entertainment started with Giles and company at 7:00. Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville go back-and-forth for Sky, entertaining and enlightening audiences, but there is no comparison to that panel.
RTE unleashed the famous quartet and lived with whatever consequences could come.
"That would only happen every now and again. It wouldn't be memorable to me because I wasn't that interested in it. I was more interested in the game and what we were going to talk about in football.
"We all brought different pieces to the panel. Eamon was extremely good and had a terrific command of the English language to discuss anything. Liam brought his bit to it. I brought my bit and Bill, in a big way, brought his value to the panel."
John Giles joins Off The Ball every Thursday at 7:30 so download the OTB Sports app to listen live or download the podcast.
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