“I’m trying to think if I’d even seen my family, I don’t think I had at that point. I don’t think I’d seen my family at all, they’d all come on a bus from Colchester and I think they had gone straight back to Colchester, a few of them had gone back to the Suffolk Showground as well.

“The bus journey home was memorable after we’d won, that was probably for me the best hour and a half, the getting back to Ipswich. A lot of the day is a blur.

“We were on the bus and just celebrating singing Wonderwall over and over again for what must have been, and you think I’d be exaggerating when I say 100 times, but we just kept putting it on repeat. George was at the back of the bus, it was a good trip back.”

Once back in Ipswich the celebrations continued at the Suffolk Showground, now Trinity Park: “A dinner, a reception and Jim Magilton on the mic, that was pretty much how the evening went. You’d do well to get the mic of Jim at that point. You’d do well to get a word in edgeways with Jim at the best of times.

“That was pretty much how our evening went, something to eat and then listening to Jim all night.

“I went back after that, I wasn’t tired, more drained. Normally I didn’t sleep after a game because of the adrenalin flowing, I never slept after any game, and after that type of game I was never going to sleep.

“But I went back home and watched the game with my dad. I think it might just have been the highlights.”

The following day it was into the town centre for the traditional open-top bus parade:“It’s a special thing, and then being on the Cornhill at the end of it. It was a nice moment, nice to be able to enjoy it like that, see that number of people and the smiles on faces, the flags, the blue and white, all of that, that was a really good day. I enjoyed that.

“On the day itself sometimes you don’t necessarily enjoy the moment as much as you perhaps should, but a day or two afterwards you’re able to reflect on it and realise what’s happened, and that’s when you can relax a bit more about it all rather than on the day. I think I probably enjoyed that perhaps more than the celebrations on the day itself.”

Where does the final rank in his career achievements? “I think it’s right up there. I always say that and scoring in the World Cup [in 2002 as Ireland drew 1-1 with Cameroon] are the two highlights really.

“Obviously the Premier League season was a really good one and I enjoyed that but for a one-off game and the atmosphere and everything around it and the prize at the end of it, and for me playing in the Premier League for the first time as well, it was a big thing.

“So I think that and scoring in the World Cup are the two big ones really. Obviously the World Cup, one was more of an individual thing and the play-offs were more of a team thing, but both are right at the top really.”

The victory at Wembley was the result of several years of hard work by the players and management, rebuilding after the 1994/95 relegation from the Premier League.

“We’d been knocking on the door for a number of years,” Holland added. “It was a job well done in terms of the squad, the players, the individuals, the characters, getting everything right.

“George had been had been in charge for three or four years and each summer he’d made one change, two changes, one out, one in, made a little tweak here, a tweak there.

“Kieron Dyer would have been one of our better players, he wasn’t there anymore. We sold Kieron and we had a bit of money in the bank, and Marcus Stewart came in, so it was fitting all the pieces of the jigsaw together for a number of years and eventually that summer the jigsaw came together. We sort of found the last piece and we managed to do it. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work.”

Photo: Action Images

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