Summer travelling can be fraught with danger and inconvenience: flight delays, thefts and the loss of luggage. The Irish u18 squad is not immune to these problems. They arrived in Dusseldorf yesterday for two friendly games with the Germans and discovered that their gear was not there.

The travelling party are left with nothing but the clothes on their backs and there is no guarantee that they will ever get the gear back. Luckily all the players were carrying their boots as hand luggage.

Manager Brian Kerr said: "We literally have nothing other than the clothes we are wearing. Luckily I told the players to take their boots out of their luggage before they left Dublin and carry them as hand luggage.

"Having tried to find out what went wrong, I have been given no guarantee that the missing luggage will turn up for our match against the Germans or where, indeed, it has gone."

Kerr has lost six of the originally named squad. Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Barry Roche has been withdrawn and made his league debut yesterday for the club.

The other players to miss out are: Colin Larkin (Wolves), Alan McDermott (Man Utd) and Niall Hudson, Anthony Shelvin and Andy Reid, all of Nottingham Forest.

Revised u18 squad: Brian Murphy (Man City), Saul Deeny (Notts County) Fred Murray (Blackburn Rovers) Ken Coleman (Wolves) Robbie Van Zanten (Celtic) Alan Cawley (Leeds Utd) Clifford Byrne (Sunderland) Danny Murphy (QPR) Robert Martin (UCD) John Lester (Everton) Joe Gamble (Reading) Robert Doyle (Blackburn Rovers) Ian Rossiter (Sunderland) JJ Melligan (Wolves) Declan Field (Celtic) Brian Cash (Nott'm Forest) Niall McNamara (Nott'm Forest) John Byrne (VFL Kirchhein) Sean Thornton (Tranmere)