AARON HUGHES has empathy, if not quite sympathy, for Northern Ireland’s opponents this Saturday. The accomplished Newcastle United defender fully understands the pressures that go with playing for a team in a volatile environment. At Newcastle, he said, “when things are going well, there’s no stopping us, but when things are going badly the roof comes in”. He might have been talking about life with England.

Northern Ireland are level with Uganda (and just above Malawi) in the latest international rankings. Fifa’s statistics place Lawrie Sanchez’s side at No 111, 103 positions beneath England, and while the figures follow logic, when does football? After all, Hughes plays for a club that defies easy explanation and recently won eight matches in succession in the aftermath of deep unrest.

The Northern Ireland captain is relishing the opportunity for role reversal. “It’s like a third-round FA Cup tie,” Hughes said. “We’re the underdogs and we’ve got nothing to fear. We just go out and do what we can. I can make reference to Yeading, because I experienced that first-hand. Yes, Newcastle’s quality shone through in the end, but they made it tough for us.”

Old Trafford on Saturday, he said, will be a “David-andGoliath sort of day,” made more so by the suspension of Michael Hughes, their most creative individual. “Hopefully, all the neutrals will be getting behind us,” he said and there is no attempt at dissemination when asked how many of his team-mates would, if eligible, be selected for Sven-Göran Eriksson’s squad. “Well, to be totally honest, I don’t think anyone, really,” he said.

“If you’re picking your best 11 players in the England team, I don’t think any of us would be in there. That’s not being disrespectful, that’s just being truthful. You look at the calibre of players they have; they’re all in the Premiership or playing at the highest level, they’ve won medals, they’re in the Champions League.”

Yet Northern Ireland are not without quality, nor without hope. Their results have stabilised — in their past three qualifying fixtures they have drawn with Wales, Azerbaijan and Austria, although they lost 1-0 last month to a Canada side reduced to ten men — and Hughes, 25, can contemplate steady improvement under Sammy McIlroy and Sanchez.

There is another factor, too. Representing Northern Ireland has little to do with glamour or winning tournaments but something fundamental — in Hughes’s first game as captain, his team were thrashed 5-0 by Spain: “Supporters said they enjoyed it, because Spain played such good football”, he said. “But they clapped us off. We put up a fight.

“The one thing we’ve always had is a decent spirit,” Hughes said. “We’ve had to, because we’ve gone through games against the top nations where we’ve been absolutely battered, but always stuck together. Saturday might turn out to be the same, but if that’s the case and we come away with a 0-0, that’s fantastic for us, because no one expects us to get anything.

“Spirit’s a big part of it, but the manager has also tried to get us to believe in our own ability. He’s said: ‘look, there are going to be games where we play as well as we can, but come up against teams who are just better. You can’t do anything about that. But there are going to be games when we come up against better teams having a bad day and if we’re at it, we can get something’.

“That’s what we’ve got to think; give our all and hope England aren’t bang on. If we come off the pitch and we’ve given everything, the lads can hardly run, can’t move, and England have nicked a 1-0 win, we’ll have our heads held high. We’ve got to do ourselves justice and prove we’re not as bad as everyone makes out.”

Hughes cannot recall the last occasion the two countries met (1987 in Belfast), or the last Northern Ireland player to score a winning goal against England (Terry Neill, at Wembley, seven years before his birth).

He is not burdened by history, which, for a regular at St James’ Park, is refreshing. “We’ve shown before what can happen when everyone pulls in the same direction,” he said.

Reaching the World Cup finals is not a likely objective, but the attitude is positive and Hughes is unflappable, unsurprising given that he made his debut for Newcastle in the Nou Camp Stadium at the age of 18 years, 18 days — “I could have retired there and then”, he said — or that, shortly after Sir Bobby Robson’s appointment, he marked Francesco Totti, of AS Roma, in the Olympic Stadium. “ We’ve got to believe,” he said.

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