Former England manager Bobby Robson has credited Jack Charlton and Niall Quinn with roles in the sequence of events that led him to take up a consultancy role in Steve Staunton's new Republic of Ireland management set-up.
In a British newspaper column yesterday, the 72-year-old, who will be officially unveiled along with Staunton this morning at 11am at the Mansion House in Dublin, writes he had not given the vacancies created by the departure of Brian Kerr and his staff much thought, until Charlton suggested to him at a cricket dinner just before Christmas that he should consider putting himself forward.
His old friend also told him, it is reported, that he had advised the FAI to make an approach.
Quinn, he says, then rang on behalf of Staunton and, once it had been made clear that the FAI were amenable to his involvement, talks got under way, initially with Quinn, then with the would-be manager and FAI chief executive John Delaney.
"When it became clear that there might be an opportunity, I liked the idea very much," he said. "It suits me. I can continue living at home, because the majority of players are based in England, and there are daily flights from Newcastle to Dublin.
"Ireland," he continued, "have top-quality players and there are enough matches to keep busy without having the daily grind of a club job."
Staunton and the FAI apparently chose Quinn to act as the go-between in the talks because he had come to know Robson during his time living in the northeast of England playing for Sunderland.
The former Ireland international said over the weekend that he had first been asked to make contact with the veteran coach three weeks ago, and had called him to ask whether he would be interested in taking the matter further.
The pair then discussed the matter at a hotel just outside Sunderland during the middle of the week before last, and from that a meeting of the various parties involved was arranged for last Sunday in Leeds.
"It (the meeting) made me realise that I could work with Steve," said Robson. "He was young, relaxed and we got on."
The pair then met, for apparently only the second time, at Heathrow near London on Thursday and the arrangement was finalised.
He says his title of "international technical consultant" was suggested by the FAI, who were reluctant to call him assistant to somebody almost 40 years his junior.
Asked about the precise nature of the role involved, Robson insists, like his new employers, that it will be whatever Staunton wants it to be. Primarily, he suggests, it will be about providing guidance and advice based on his vast experience.
Beyond that, he insists, he has no interest in succeeding the Louth man in the main role. "This is not a route for me to get the manager's job," he says. "If Steve left in two months, I'd go with him."
