Tony OReilly - Tony 10: The Astonishing Story of the Postman Who Gambled €10,000,000 ... And Lost It All

TONY 10

The astonishing story of the postman who gambled 10,000,000... and lost it all

Declan Lynch

&

Tony OReilly

Gill Books

Contents

PROLOGUE

I t was a beautiful thing.

According to Dennis Bergkamp, the Dutch footballer who did this beautiful thing, its like your life has led up to this moment you never play the perfect game, but the moment itself was, I think, perfect.

This perfect moment took place in the second last minute of Hollands World Cup quarter-final against Argentina in Marseille on 4 July 1998. Bergkamp was running hard towards the end-line, chasing a long pass from Frank de Boer into the Argentina penalty area. He gained complete control of the ball with his first touch, which was quite a thing in itself, but which on this day was the first of three sublime movements made into one. The second touch put the Argentina defender Ayala out of the picture, the third was a flick past the goalkeeper with the outside of Bergkamps right foot into the top left-hand corner of the net and it was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Some commentators say it is the physical elegance of Bergkamp that lends an extra dimension to his most famous goals, but it is also the quickness of his mind. It is the fact that in order to accomplish this, he had to have worked it all out instantly, instinctively: seeing the long pass from de Boer coming in his direction, deciding that the only successful outcome would have to involve this three-point manoeuvre, with the most extreme degree of difficulty. Then he executes it, just as he had imagined it, and he is running towards the corner flag, celebrating, until he is taken down by his orange-shirted team-mates, who raise their arms and roar with delirium as Bergkamp lies there under the perfect blue sky of Marseille, knowing that he has put his country into the semi-final of the World Cup.

The Dutch all over the world were feeling this ecstasy, not just because of the victory but because Bergkamp had done something so outrageously brilliant. That goal had immediately ascended to a high place in the illustrious history of the Dutch game. But this was not just a glorious day for the people of Holland. In Ireland, in the town of Carlow, in a pub called Scraggs Alley, there was a man working behind the bar who was feeling a similar ecstasy. He celebrated as he watched that beautiful moment, and he would continue to celebrate for the rest of the day and all through the evening. He celebrated like he had never known that such elation was possible. Like his whole life had led up to this moment.

On the morning of 4 July 1998, Tony OReilly was in Scraggs Alley, standing behind the bar, chatting to a customer, Brendan, about the game and the day ahead. He was looking forward to all of it. He was due to go to a wedding reception later that night with his girlfriend. He had been at work since 9.30 a.m., organising the stock and the ice and giving the place an extra polish. He was looking forward to the big fry-up that he and his colleagues would enjoy at lunchtime, as they did every Saturday, about six of them sitting down together in the main lounge to eat a big Irish breakfast.

Tony had been working in Scraggs for a few years, but since February 1998 he was also working as a part-time postman, doing about twenty hours a week, which he fit around his bar shifts. Among the few worries he had in life, perhaps the main one was that all this working might interfere with his soccer, which he was taking seriously he played centre-forward with a leading local team called Stretford United. For a Liverpool fan the name of the team was an obvious embarrassment. Indeed, one of Tonys team-mates, John, who was also a Liverpool fan, used to cover the club crest with black insulating tape to make himself feel better about it. The team had been successful in the local cup competitions, but when it came to the league they were regarded as Jimmy White-type figures forever coming second when they should have won it.

These were the issues that preoccupied the mind of this twenty-four-year-old on a sunny day in July, during the World Cup. He remembers it clearly as a sunny day, maybe even as sunny in the Irish southeast as it was in Marseille. Scraggs would be a bit busier than usual due to the match in the afternoon and the other one later in the evening, Croatia v Germany. The back bar would be open tonight, with Matt the DJ playing the music.

Maybe it was the promise of all the sport to come, or the wedding, or maybe it was just the good weather and the good vibes, but as Tony spoke to Brendan at the bar that morning, he decided to do something he had never done before. He decided to place a bet. They had talked about the football for a while, then Brendan got up to leave the pub and go down to the Paddy Power office. Tony was due to take his break, so he said, Sure, Ill go down with you.

Just to have an interest. That was the thought in his head as he decided to go and put a few quid on the game. Just to have an interest.

He had reached the age of twenty-four without ever placing a bet, or even entering the premises of a bookmaker. When he did so on this day, he was not greatly excited by what he found there. There were a few televisions, but not the big bank of screens you would find today in any betting office. It was all relatively primitive, with prices displayed on sheets of paper, and generally not much to persuade the visitor to spend any great amount of time there.

Tony saw that Patrick Kluivert was 6/1 to score the first goal of the game. For most Irish football people, Kluivert had been a significant presence since the night, in 1995, when he had led Hollands destruction of the Republic of Ireland in a European Championship play-off at Anfield. Kluivert had arrived that night as a young player of immense promise. Unfortunately for Ireland, his emergence ended the happiest period of our football lives, the years from 1986 to 1995, which became known as the Charlton era.

We knew how good Kluivert was. Too good for us, certainly.

Tony read the odds and with the clarity of thought of a man who had never done this before, and who has no intention of doing it again, he decided to have a punt. He put IR1 on Kluivert at 6/1 to score the first goal.

Brendan had also seen a bet that he liked. He was looking at Holland to beat Argentina 21. With the pure enthusiasm of men who dont really care all that much anyway, they decided to merge the two propositions. They each ended up having IR1 on Kluivert to score the first goal of the game and Holland to win 21, at the wondrous odds of 45/1.

Kluivert scoring the first goal would not be enough. Holland winning 21 would not be enough. They needed both of these things to happen, and though Tony was new to this, he knew that the odds accurately reflected their chances of success, which were virtually zero.

But it was only a pound. And it meant he would have an interest.

He even needed help in filling out the betting slip, a scene which seemed to confirm the underlying absurdity of the notion that you can be sitting there in Carlow thinking you can predict with such ludicrous precision the outcome of a great event, with an infinite number of imponderables, taking place that afternoon in the South of France.

And it was a great event, a game with moments of high quality. Acting on the advice of Eamon Dunphy on his The Last Word radio programme, some had invested in Argentina at the start of the tournament, at odds of 14/1, which was looking pretty damn good now that they were in the quarter-final, this team of Diego Simeone, Javier Zanetti, Ariel Ortega, Juan Sebastin Vern, Hernn Crespo and Gabriel Batistuta.