In a sporting world obsessed with anniversaries, it was one that somehow slipped under the radar here.
Maybe that’s because many are still embarrassed or, at best, bewildered by the events of September 6, 1997 in Reykjavik.
That was 25 years ago last Tuesday, and it will always be remembered as one of the oddest days in the history of the Ireland football team.
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Not because of what happened on the pitch, though that was eventful — with Ireland winning 4-2 thanks to a couple of goals from Roy Keane.
But it was a tough encounter and both Mark Kennedy — who used to babysit manager Mick McCarthy’s kids when they were both at Millwall — and Iceland’s Larus Sigurdsson were sent off.
When the red card was flashed at Kennedy, who had just been sent on as a sub, McCarthy’s booming Yorkshire voice carried up into the stands.
“Sparky! Why do I f**king bother?!?,’’ he bellowed.
It was the strangest of days all around. The preparations for that game...well, they were a bit different.
The Irish players gathered in their hotel lobby that morning to watch the funeral of Princess Diana on television.
The bus journey to the stadium in Reykjavik was a quiet one.
Normally, rebel songs would be played over the PA.
The Wolfe Tones were given the day off.
Before the game, at the FAI’s request, there was a minute’s silence in honour of the English princess. All of the Irish players wore black armbands too.
On the eve of the game, the FAI made it clear that, if the match was in Dublin, they’d have asked for it to be postponed.
McCarthy explained to reporters what his squad were thinking and saying.
“The players were all in total agreement,” he said.
“Most of them earn their living in the UK. Some of us were born in England. But this isn’t just something to do with England.
“The whole world has been touched by the tragic accident and the Irish are just as upset as anyone else.
“What we are doing isn’t much, but the team felt it was a fitting gesture of respect on a very moving day for humanity to mark a tragedy that has affected everyone with any human instincts.”
Four of the Iceland team were playing for clubs in England, but felt no need to wear black armbands.
Even though there was shock all over the world at Diana’s sudden death, many were taken aback at the FAI’s embrace of gesture politics.
It’s another reminder of Irish soccer’s muddled and confusing relationship with Official England and the tangled web that binds the two countries.
Those armbands were captain Andy Townsend’s idea and he found plenty of support for the initiative from McCarthy.
The question must be asked: would a player or manager who had been born and raised in Ireland have made the same call?
Three years later, there was another snapshot which was equally illuminating.
Ipswich Town played Barnsley in the First Division play-off final at Wembley and the club’s captain Matt Holland belted out ‘God Save the Queen’ before the game.
Holland had made his debut for Ireland the previous October against Macedonia.
Go back to the early 1980s and Michael Robinson told Shoot! magazine that the person he’d most like to meet was then England manager Ron Greenwood on international duty.
A couple of months later, Hand gave Robinson his first Ireland cap and the player has himself since admitted that it broke his heart to be overlooked by England.
Mark Lawrenson was one of Robinson’s Ireland team-mates and he has has a similarly open relationship with the English and Irish parts of his personality.
Depending on whether he is working for an Irish or English media outlet, Lawrenson regularly uses the word ‘we’ when he’s talking about either national team.
Lawrenson has been pilloried for doing this but why? He is only being true to himself.
He was born in England and has lived all his life there.
Lawrenson is both English and Irish and such dual nationality is hardly unique.
We know that others see Irishness and Englishness very differently.
James McClean is the proudest of Derrymen but you don’t need to be born on this island to be proudly Irish.
Back in 1981, Hand, the then-Ireland manager, rang up Seamus McDonagh, the Bolton goalkeeper, to ask him to come aboard and he was left dumbfounded by the player’s response.
McDonagh cleared his throat and recited the 1916 Proclamation of Independence down the phone-line.
Few of the ‘Anglos’ were as committed as McCarthy — who famously gave up the chance to be best man at his brother’s wedding to play for Ireland in a friendly in Japan.
But McCarthy admitted in his autobiography ‘Captain Fantastic’ that his love of football was rooted in cheering on England at the 1966 World Cup.
And you could hear a pin drop when an Iranian journalist questioned his Irishness in a Tehran hotel back in November 2001 before a World Cup play-off.
“How do you feel as an Englishman trying to motivate an Irish team?”, was the question.
McCarthy took a moment to gather his thoughts and his answer was considered and intelligent.
“Say if your father left Iran because he couldn’t get work at home,” he said.
“And he ended up going to England where there was lots. And say if your father had a son who grew up in England, speaking English with an English accent.
“Now, does that mean the boy isn’t entitled to call himself Iranian?”
From a man who has as much Yorkshire as Ireland in him, the point was well made.
And the reactions across what was known here as the garrison game to Queen Elizabeth II’s passing will be many and varied.
The complicated ties between the two countries make sure of that.
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