Emmet Malone/On Soccer: Former players recall Ireland's last trip to Bydgoszcz these days as perhaps the most extreme example of the way in which the FAI used to operate.
While the association's officials stayed on in the relative luxury of Warsaw, the team were thrown onto a bus and sent on a return trip to what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Just about everything that could have gone wrong during the couple of days that followed did and, given the circumstances, many viewed the result of the game itself, 3-0 to Poland, as a reasonable enough achievement.
This month's return to the small industrial city a couple of hundred kilometres from the Polish capital is likely to be very different affair as Brian Kerr continues to weigh up his options ahead of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
The trip may yet earn its own place in the history books, however, if renewed contacts between the Ireland manager and Roy Keane result in the team's former captain joining up with the squad as the first step towards a return to the international fold.
Officially there have been only denials since the story that the pair are on the verge of meeting broke last week, but none has been particularly convincing. There is a growing feeling that Keane has followed up his vague hints last month with firmer indications to Kerr that he does wish to play for his country again.
For Kerr the situation is tricky. The attraction of having Keane back on board is obvious. Under the new manager the team has consistently performed in friendly games. In competitive fixtures, however, things have been less impressive.
Kerr has previously said that any of the players that have ruled themselves out of the Irish set-up over the past couple of years are welcome to return as long as they accept his authority.
Whether Keane will deliver on any deal struck between the pair remains the manager's first concern, however. Last year the player had firmly indicated that he would return only to be talked out of it by Alex Ferguson, with the help of Manchester United medical staff.
When he revealed last month that he still harboured a desire to play again for his country, senior officials at old Trafford were quick to brief the media that they would not allow it to happen.
Keane's hand in his dealings with the club may have strengthened over the past season with Ferguson's outside difficulties, the team's failure to achieve anything more than a place in the final of the FA Cup, a competition the team's skipper has dismissed as worthless, and the player's apparent belief in his own ability to deal with a heavier workload, albeit on a controlled basis.
Ferguson has shown more than once before, though, that he has a strong hold on the Irishman and Keane will have to openly defy the Scot if he is to play international football again. There are reports that he is willing to do so but another last-minute change of heart would still have the effect of denting Kerr's credibility at a time when there is already some disquiet within the camp.
If Keane is brought back on board then Kerr's greatest test may well end up being his ability to maintain the fragile peace within the squad. The midfielder remains capable of making a hugely positive contribution on the pitch even if some other team members may be less willing these days to endure the wrath of a man who put his own pride above the group's collective fortunes at the 2002 World Cup finals. Off pitch, however, there are many ways - a further public swipe at the lack of ambition or professionalism he regularly perceives in others, some unannounced late arrival for a game or even a tantrum over a bus breaking down - in which the benefits of his return would bring might end up proving costly.
Kerr, of course, could ultimately suffer most if it all goes wrong and, though he is said to enjoy the respect of Keane, the Ireland boss won't need to be told that he owes his present position, in part at least, to the way in which the player undermined his predecessor.
