Five years ago, Ireland's World Cup campaign got under way in Japan and South Korea in the aftermath of the row that led to the team's talismanic captain, Roy Keane, leaving the team's training camp in Saipan, writes Mark Rodden
The incident divided friends and families as the debate raged as to whether Keane was right to go. But it left one sector of society with a particularly painful dilemma. For it was bad enough trying to sit the Leaving Cert during a World Cup; but football-loving students now had to try to avoid the wall-to-wall coverage on the latest developments in the biggest Irish football story in years. Sad as it may seem, many of the class of 2002 had difficulty getting the issue off our minds when we were supposed to be focusing on the most important exams of our lives.
Consider our predicament. Sky had rolling coverage of events, replaying any footage they had of Keane and talking to anyone who cared to voice an opinion. Then there was the radio coverage. In the evening, it was tempting to see what the RTÉ analysts had to say, and we couldn't help but wait to enjoy the Après Match comedians take on the situation.
Sure, the ins and outs of probability, statistics and differentiation had to be contemplated ahead of the maths exam, but what would Ireland's chances be like without Keane? The intricacies of rivers, cliffs and glaciers had to be revised for geography, but what of the rock-hard training pitch and the location of the missing skips which held the all-important training gear? Studying for biology only made me wonder if Keane's volatile character was due to something in his DNA.
For some Leaving Cert students, the themes of Hamlet suddenly seemed much more relevant to 21st-century Ireland as the tale of love, treachery and ambition centring around a melancholic hero played out. The issue was never far from students' minds as the will-he-won't-he saga unfolded. Tommie Gorman's interview - "Think of the children, Roy" - would certainly have struck a chord with many Junior and Leaving Cert students.
It's true that every four years thousands of students face this problem. But while it must have been difficult during Italia 90 and the World Cup in 1994, nothing compared with this ordeal, as, because of time zones, matches in the 2002 tournament kicked off at 7.30am and 12.30pm Irish time.
Thankfully the first match was on a Saturday morning, but perhaps it would have been better had our interest in the tournament ended there and then. Instead, Matt Holland's equaliser against Cameroon gave us a chance, which meant that English papers 1 and 2 would be falling at a bad time for World Cup enthusiasts.
On the opening day (of the Leaving Cert, not the World Cup), the football slipped momentarily to the back of my mind as the real business got under way with English paper 1. But it was never for too long, and I fear I may have brought Keane and Eamon Dunphy up in one of my essays. Apologies to whoever had the misfortune of marking that one.
After a desperate dash back home after the morning exam, there was just enough time to catch the build-up to the crucial encounter between Ireland and Germany. Ireland needed at least a draw to stay in the World Cup, so the works of Elizabeth Bishop, Seamus Heaney and Eavan Boland were cast aside when the game kicked off during lunch.
English teachers everywhere will no doubt be aghast that Keats and Larkin were discarded in favour of Kinsella and Kilbane, but for an 18-year-old football fanatic who didn't know any better it seemed the logical option at the time.
I left for the two o'clock exam with Ireland a goal behind. Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, seemed a particularly apt choice for my last-minute revision. Early into English paper 2 though, distant cheers could be heard. Shortly afterwards, car horns were sounded on the road outside. It couldn't be, I thought.
Working out the time on my watch, I figured the match must have been over. If Ireland had equalised, there would have been an earlier cheer, surely? The fact matches were on during exams posed an unusual problem for invigilators. Should they tell students the score? Was that unfair to those who weren't interested?
In our case, the principal came in and announced the result: Ireland 1, Germany 1. Cheers reverberated through the room and students punched the air in delight before order was rapidly restored.
I for one will be forever grateful for being put out of my misery, even if it did lead to me frantically working out the possible effects of the result on our chances of qualifying for the second round. I admit I devoted about 20 minutes of exam time to the permutations. But not knowing would have been much worse.
So, Leaving Cert students, if you're reading this, be thankful that your exams fell in a fallow year for international soccer. For those finishing in three years' time, I feel your pain.