Another link with the glory, glory days of Irish football was broken yesterday with Tony Cascarino's announcement that, at the age of 37, he is quitting international competition.

Cascarino convened an impromptu press conference in the departure lounge of Istanbul's international airport in the early hours to confirm that a record breaking Ireland career, which had brought him 88 caps and 19 goals, was finally over.

Earlier, he had suffered in the collective disappointment of his team-mates in going out of the European championship to Turkey on the away goals rule but subsequently it emerged that he always intended to take his leave after the controversial game in Bursa.

"I informed Mick McCarthy some time ago that I didn't wish to be considered for selection for the Euro 2000 finals if we qualified and that win, lose or draw, I was finishing after the play-off.

"I've had the best times of my career with Ireland but there comes a point when realistic decisions must be made. I've been aware for some time of the need to move on to accommodate younger players coming through but at the request of the manager, I stayed on to help them adjust.

"I never realised when I started out with Ireland in 1985 that I would get so much enjoyment or that it would last so long. In the end I finished with the chance of getting two records, one as leading scorer, the other as the holder of the record number of caps. I got the second one and while records are there to be broken, I'm very pleased with that.

"All the other Ireland players of my generation who retired have told me that they miss the old camaraderie. I'll be no different but life goes on."

Cascarino, known to an older generation as the Ice Cream Man, so labelled by Jack Charlton after the manager had problems remembering his name during a training session, arrived almost unnoticed as an Ireland player in 1985 and leaves with a reputation as one of its more charismatic personalities.

It means that Niall Quinn, the man who has competed with Cascarino for the target-man role in Ireland teams over the years, is now the longest serving member of the squad after making his international debut against Iceland at Reykjavik in May, 1986.

Given that he has been involved at the cutting edge all his football life, without ever getting involved in controversy, it was faintly ironic that in his final moments as an Ireland player, Cascarino should be involved in a brawl at the end of the scoreless draw in Bursa .

Video evidence shows that he was punched in the face by a Turkish player and then kicked by a Turk wearing an official badge at a stage of the fracas when Irish reinforcements hadn't yet arrived on the scene.

That and the belated intervention of Turkish riot police prevented the possibility of the situation deteriorating into an all-out skirmish, inflamed by the invasion of the pitch by at least a 100 Turkish fans.

FAI officials will await the submission of the report of UEFA's official observer at the game to assess the situation further but it is unlikely that an official protest will be filed with the European authorities.

As the inquests continued yesterday into Ireland's third consecutive play-off defeat in four years, Mick McCarthy again made it clear that it is not a resignation issue.

Asked if he was reconsidering his position, he said: "Absolutely not. There are no reasons for me to think in this way. If I looked at our performances and blamed myself for being in part responsible for them, it would be a different matter. But that is not the case".

Later he gave substance to the point by confirming that on December 7th he will travel to Tokyo with the FAI president, Pat Quigley, and the association's chief executive, Bernard O'Byrne, for the draw for the preliminaries of the 2002 World Cup.

Reflecting on his team's performance in Turkey, he said: "I cannot blame my players. They were magnificent in their workrate and general application, I certainly could not have asked for more.

"Over the two legs of the tie, we created as many chances as the Turks but in the end it all came down to that penalty at Lansdowne Road. Having said that, however, I must stress that we lost our best chance of qualifying in the game in Macedonia.

"A major factor in our elimination was that we lost many key players at critical stages of our programme. And again in Bursa on Wednesday we had to make do without the likes of Robbie Keane, Mark Kennedy, Steve Staunton and Gary Kelly.

"It's no coincidence that our best performances were achieved at home against Yugoslavia and Croatia in games in which we were able to put out our strongest teams."