Reputations count for nothing in Junior C football - even if you are an Irish soccer legend.

Niall Quinn learned that the hard way after being on the receiving end of a quick witted jibe from a straight talking goalkeeper.

After bringing the curtain down on his illustrious soccer career, the former Dublin minor hurler decided to return to his roots and togged out for his local Kildare GAA club, Eadestown.

Speaking to Richie Sadlier as a guest on Second Captain' Player's Chair podcast, he recalled how he was 'brought back down to Earth' by a none too impressed opponent...

"The night I played the first full game against Sallins. I got brought down for three penalties. And they were all three blatant penalties.

"I got brought down for the first penalty and everybody had gone back about 50 yards, so I knew I had to take the penalty. Anyway, I scored - it was a young lad in goal for Sallins, and I scored the three penalties.

"The last penalty, their umpire threw the green flag at me and told me to 'Get back to England ya divin' bastard!'

"And I got up and scored the third penalty, the final whistle went, and there was a little bit of pushing and fighting going on. I - as I would always do - swerved that, looked for somebody to say 'hard luck' to, and I saw their goalkeeper. And so I went over to him and I said: 'Listen, Jesus, hard luck, there, youngfella, I'd say you would have liked to have saved one of them'.

"And he went: 'Fuck off, ya prick. You wouldn't take one against Spain!'

"So I was brought back down to Earth. There was the retired hero, thinking he was coming home to this adulation that he'd become accustomed to, and good old Irish humour, wit, call it what you want... I was buried. Put in my place. And I've never forgotten that moment."

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