Thankfully, this incident didn’t lead to any further friction between the FAI and a young Jon Walters.
He’s the new hero of Irish football, but at one point Jon Walters’ international future was less clear, as a misunderstanding between the Stoke man and Under-21 boss Don Givens led to his removal from the underage set-up.
It was 2004, and Walters had earlier that season made his first appearance for the Under-21 side, naturally netting a brace in a win over Switzerland, when Givens called to check in with the forward and found out he was on holidays instead of preparing for an end-of-season fixture.
The unimpressed Givens ‘didn’t appreciate that,’ adding that: ‘It was no way to prepare for an international, so I told him to stay on holiday’.
Walters’ side of the story is far more sympathetic, as he recounted in the Sunday Independent.
”My wife was having a baby and there were complications, so I took her away to Magaluf, but kept training each day. When Don rang and asked me where I was, I tried to explain, but he said: “I’m not going to pick you then”.’
Walters never played for Givens or the Under-21s again, and indeed did not wear the green of Ireland again until a B international against Scotland in 2007, but the 32-year-old thankfully never lost his desire to play for the country of his mother’s birth.
Eleven years, 38 caps and ten incredibly important goals later, isn’t that a relief?
