Football | A Bohemian Sporting Life

Harry Willits – the Darling of Dalymount

Posted on May 19, 2016 by gerrytastic

Co-written with Brian Trench

When Harry Willits finished his first season as Bohemian captain in spring 1916 he had other major responsibilities on his mind. He had joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in late 1915 “for the duration of the war” and soon he would be sent to the western front in France during the Battle of the Somme.

He had followed his friends and several Bohemian colleagues in signing up for the army. His choice was the Commercial Battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers, established to cater for young men of the “commercial class” and farmers.

Willits was not the military type, according to his daughter Audrey, still living in the family home aged 93. But English-born and a civil servant, he moved in circles where enlisting for military service would have been regarded as a matter of duty.

He was promoted to corporal in February 1916, three months after enlisting. According to military records he became a sergeant in July 1916, though he was already identified in a June 1916 report of a cricket match between King’s Hospital and 10th Dublin Fusiliers as “Sgt Willetts”, bowled out for a duck.

He had a short period – three months – of active military service, yet he lived all his days with the consequences of it. In October or November 1916 he was wounded in the thigh, and he spent several months in hospital in southern England before returning to Dublin, and to Bohemians. His injury was serious enough for amputation to have been considered.

He missed all of the football season, 1916-17, as he recovered from his injury. The mark of the wound remained visible and the strain of playing in a weakened condition took its toll on his health in later life.

Harry Willits was born in Middlesborough in 1889 and already made a strong impression as a footballer in his teens, when he played for Middlesbrough Old Boys, Cambridge House and the famous South Bank club where a team-mate was later English international George Elliott.

Willits’s father was headmaster of Middlesborough High School when Harry and George were pupils there. But it was apparently in order to get away from his over-bearing father that Harry sat the civil service examinations and then, when he was admitted to the service, chose to take up a post in Dublin. He worked in the Post Office stores and later, over several decades, in the Registry of Deeds.

He joined Bohemians just after the club had captured the Irish Cup for the first time in 1908. He was a regular first-team player over the following years in the forward line, at inside-left or outside-left, alongside internationals Harold Sloan and Johnny McDonnell.

In spring 1916 he played football and cricket for the Dublin Fusiliers as well as captaining Bohemians. When he resumed service with Bohemians in late 1917, he was profiled in the Dublin weekly newspaper, Sport, as The Darling of Dalymount. The writer claimed there were many who came to Dalymount specifically to see Willits play.

A feature on Harry in a 1917 edition of Sport

Tall and prematurely balding, he was a striking figure. He was best-known as a skilful passer and crosser of the ball, but also contributed goals, including some from the penalty spot. Willits and Johnny West were a potent partnership at inside- and outside-left. (West was also a popular baritone singer, who performed at summer evening ‘promenades’ in Dalymount during the war years.)

Willits lived for a time near the Botanic Gardens with his mother, who had moved to Dublin following the death of Willits’s father. In 1919, however, Harry married Annie ‘Cis’ Wilson and with her inheritance they bought a house in Lindsay Road that remains in the family nearly a century later. The furniture includes a large dining-room sideboard that was a wedding gift to Harry and Cis from Bohemians, and a mark of the high esteem in which the club held him.

Willits was Bohemian captain again in 1920-21, when he was reported to have had a “new lease of life” as a footballer. Now in his thirties, he was prominent also in the Bohemian team that won their first League of Ireland title in 1923, and was selected with four other Bohemians for the new league in their first representative match against their Welsh counterparts in 1924. Willits played for club and league alongside Christy Robinson, who had a very different military record as a member of the IRA during the War of Independence.

Harry stars in the first ever inter-league game against the Welsh League

Some newspaper correspondents suggested that, but for his English birth, Willits might have been selected for Ireland. From 1925 onwards, he was playing with Bohemians’ second team and scored in a 4-0 win over Dublin University (Trinity College) in 1929, when he was 40. He featured in a short Bohemian’newsreel’ of 1930 as a “model Bohemian” who was “still going strong” and “a sportsman to the core”. Nearly fifty years old, in April 1938, he lined out for an Old Bohs team in a charity match in Dalymount against an Old Rovers side.

Even before his playing days with Bohemians finally ended, Willits became involved with the club’s Management Committee, also later the Selection Committee, and he served as Vice-President.

From the 1920s Harry Willits was a keen and competitive tennis player, being club champion in Drumcondra Tennis Club several times over the period 1923-33. He served also as club president and vice-president.

A man of routines, he always had two books on loan – one fiction, one non-fiction – from the Phibsborough Library. He dressed formally, in suit, tie and hat, and walked from his home to the Registry of Deeds in King’s Inns, responding to the frequent greetings of Bohemian fans in the streets. He practised calligraphy and did charcoal drawings.

His daughter Audrey and son Alec were both kicking footballs with their father in the family’s Glasnevin garden from early days. Alec played briefly for Bohemians first and second teams in the 1940s, but could not live up to what was expected of him as his father’s son. He later played for the Nomads.

Audrey applied her kicking skills to keeping goal for Pembroke Wanderers hockey teams for many years, appearing also for Leinster provincial teams and serving many years in the club’s committees.

From 1937, as Audrey recalls, Harry Willits developed asthma due to the strain of living with a war wound and this had a serious impact on his quality of life, also taking a financial toll. Harry had to reduce his work to half-time, which also meant half-pay, and Audrey remembers that the family often struggled to get by.

Despite this, Willits continued his involvement with Bohemians, as club officer and selector, and even – up to the age of 60 – as a coach. He was actively associated with Bohemians in one capacity or another for over forty years. He died in April 1960, aged 70, and is buried with his wife in Mount Jerome Cemetery.

This post originally appeared on the official Bohemian F.C. website in May 2016. Co-written and researched with Brian Trench as part of an ongoing series on Bohemians players from the First World War to the end of the Irish Civil War

College Football Classic – Ireland’s relationship with American Football

Posted on April 7, 2016 by gerrytastic

As many of you will know, this September 3rd Boston College and Georgia Tech will be taking to the Aviva Stadium to compete in the Aer Lingus College Football classic.

There are going to be over 20,000 American football fans crossing the Atlantic for the game and tickets for Irish fans go on sale from April 6th. American football has been growing in popularity here in Ireland in recent years, if you visit any Dublin pub late on Super Bowl Sunday you can see that but there is a longer history connecting Ireland with the Gridiron game. In this post we take at some of those connection…

The Beginnings

The first ever College Football match took place way back in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers Universities. President of Princeton at the time was the Scottish philosopher James McCosh, his Belfast-born son Andrew James McCosh attended the University in the 1870s and was part of the Princeton College Football teams that were College Football national champions in 1874 and 1875. So even way back at the beginnings there was a bit of an Irish connection to College Football.

American Football Comes to Ireland

There are reports of an American football game taking place in Ravenhill, the home of Ulster Rugby back in 1942 when two teams of American armed forces personnel played each other in front of the reported crowd of 8,000 spectators. The first game to take place in Dublin happened in 1953. Again this was between two teams of American armed forces personnel who were still stationed in England after the end of the Second World War. The two teams were called the Burtonwood Bullets and the Wethersfield Raiders, with the bullets running out easy 27-0 victors on the day. The size of the crowd was estimated at 40,000 and this was one of the first occasions that sports other than those controlled by the GAA were played in Croke Park since it became the organisation’s home.

Seeing as it was the first time that the sport had been in the city the American embassy even organised lessons for the press about the rules of the sport and ran special screenings of football games in the embassy offices. The game was organised as a successful fundraiser for the Red Cross and was even attended by the President of the day Sean T. O’Kelly.

More Games for Dublin

There was quiet a gap between the game of 1953 and other visiting teams coming to the city. The next big game featured one of this year’s competing teams, Boston College, taking on the Army team of West Point Academy in Lansdowne Road in 1988, the year of the Dublin Millennium. There have been four further games since then, including two of the classic encounters between Notre Dame v Navy (in 1996 and 2012) as well as most recent game which took place in Croke Park game 2014 between Penn State and UCF. Croke Park also hosted NFL sides the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Chicago Bears in a pre-season game back in 1997.

The League of Ireland Footballer Who Made a Career in the NFL

Neil O’Donoghue grew up in Clondalkin, Dublin in the 60’s and 70’s and did what many young men did, he kicked a ball around the streets of his home town. At the age of just 18 he was good enough to make his debut for Shamrock Rovers in the 1971-72 season. On the back of his performances he won a soccer scholarship to Saint Bernard College in Alabama, however the school soon closed down it’s scholarship programme and Neil moved to Auburn College, also in Alabama where he started to play football of the American variety. During this time he won “All American” honours as a place kicker in 1976 (this means they were selected by media and as the best players, in a season, for each position) before being drafted into the NFL by the Buffalo Bills in 1977. His spell at the Bills was short-lived and he moved to the struggling Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1978. After two years in Florida Neil moved to the St. Louis Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals) for the longest stay of his career. In 1984 he set a Cardinals record by scoring 117 points in a single season and he finished his NFL career the following season having played 110 matches and kicked 576 points. He remains the most recent Irishman to play in the NFL.

Irish Teams Taking Up The Game

In the early 1980s American Football began to get greater coverage in Ireland and interest from Irish people, and American ex-pats in playing the game began to develop. By 1986 such was the interest that the Irish American Football League had been established. The following year the first full season was played with 11 teams participating with the top two teams competing in the annual “Shamrock Bowl”. The league is an All-Ireland affair and the most successful side to date have been the Dublin Rebels who have won 7 titles.

Watching Football

As interest in American Football has grown in recent years so has the demand to see games, especially the Super Bowl each February. Plenty of venues around the city now show the game, and its famous half-time show live, for the recent 2016 edition (Super Bowl 50) some of our favourite places like the Living Room, Harry’s on the Green, the Woolshed, The Boar’s Head, Doyle’s, and Sam’s were all showing the game, often providing American themed food and entertainment.

This first appeared on DublinTown.ie in April 2016

Bohemians during Easter 1916

Posted on March 29, 2016 by gerrytastic

In April 1916 Bohemians were coming to the end of a season disrupted by war, but in which they were rewarded yet again with the Leinster Senior Cup, their fifteenth win in twenty years. It took two attempts to secure the trophy from old rivals, Shelbourne. The first was on St Patrick’s Day, a scoreless draw watched by 6,000 spectators, the second on 1st April.
No Dublin clubs took part in the Irish League that season due to the war and several Bohemian players had enlisted with the army. But the club insisted that football should continue and they managed to maintain Dalymount Park as a playing pitch when some rugby and cricket grounds were taken over for relief works.

Half-back Josh Rowe was with the East Surrey Regiment and was wounded many times. At the end of March he was reported to be returning to duty after convalescence and, it was said, “he hopes to play football again”. Full-back J.J. Doyle had joined the Officer Training Corps in early 1916 but got leave to play for Bohemians in the Irish Cup semi-final, which Bohemians lost to Glentoran in Belfast.

Also involved in that cup campaign was outside-left Harry Willits, who was team captain in 1915-16. An English-born civil servant, he played during 1916 both for the Royal Dublin Fusiliers’ regimental team and for Bohemians. By the start of the next season, however, he was at the war front with the Dublin Fusiliers and in November 1916 was reported as wounded. He survived and was back with Bohemians in 1917-18. Bohemians’ squad in 1916, coached by the everlasting Charlie Harris, included two internationals, Billy McConnell and Johnny McDonnell, whose 1915 Irish shirt hangs today in the JJ Bar at Dalymount Park. Others included regular goal-scorers Ned Brooks and Dinny Hannon, and defender Bert Kerr, who had joined in 1915 and was to have a notable career with Bohemians, including as team captain. He also had a remarkable career as a pioneer in the Irish bloodstock industry.

On Easter Monday 1916, a Bohemian team travelled to Athlone to play an end-of-season friendly, as they had done for several years. So friendly was it that McDonnell and Hannon played for Athlone, in a team that included several army officers. (Hannon later won the Free State Cup with Athlone Town.) Neither team can have been aware of what was happening in Dublin as they played their game in bad weather (3-2 for Bohemians) and were later entertained at the Imperial Hotel and at a dance at the Commercial Quadrille Class. “The Bohemians expressed themselves highly pleased with their visit,” the Westmeath Independent reported. However, the trip was to end less pleasantly for the Bohemian team. Due to the Rising, train services were disrupted from Mullingar, and they had to arrange car transport back to the capital.

Their late return was reported in the Irish Times among the repercussions of the Rising: “Some of the [Bohemian team] members who lived on the south side of the city had to stay in Phibsborough for the [Wednesday] night and, after walking via Islandbridge, Kilmainham, Goldenbridge, Rialto, Crumlin and Dolphin’s Barn, these did not get home until Friday (April 28), at 1.30 p.m.”

While the Bohemian party were concerned about getting back to the city from Athlone the rebels were worried about the arrival of British Army reinforcements from the same location. Many of the sites occupied by the rebels were chosen for their ability to delay the troops coming into the city, most notably the engagement with the Sherwood Foresters at Mount Street bridge.

In Phibsborough members of B Company of the Dublin Brigade built barricades on the railway bridges on the Cabra Road and North Circular Road close to St. Peter’s Church. They even went as far as to try and blow up both bridges with gelignite.
While B Company was able to hold off a number of attacks from small arms and machine gun-fire, the arrival of artillery onto the Cabra Road (outside what is now the Deaf Village) and the use of shrapnel-loaded shells raining down on the bridges just yards from Dalymount Park and as far down as Doyle’s Corner meant that the Volunteers could not hold their positions. A number of civilians were killed by over-shooting shells, while 15-year-old Fianna Éireann scout Sean Healy was shot dead outside his Phibsborough home.
The rebels eventually abandoned their positions hoping to link up with Thomas Ashe in Finglas but by the time they got there he and his men had already left for Meath and the Battle of Ashbourne. Many of B Company found their way back into the city and some joined the garrison in the GPO and then Moore Street.

While there is no record of Bohemians fighting with the 1916 rebels, some Bohemians did work in the British administration during that period. Highest-placed of these was founder member Andrew P. Magill. He was an 18-year-old clerk in the Land Commission when he attended the club’s first meeting, and later a clerk in the office of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He rose to become private secretary to Chief Secretary Augustine Birrell, who resigned in May 1916 after failing to predict or take preventative action to stop the Rising. Magill later worked in the post-partition civil service of Northern Ireland.
While Magill was serving the Chief Secretary, fellow-Bohemian Joe Irons, an army reserve who was called up when World War 1 broke out, was posted to the Vice-Regal Lodge in Phoenix Park, to what is now Áras an Úachtaráin, to protect the Viceroy.

This article was co-written and researched with Brian Trench for the Bohemian FC website where it appeared in March 2016. In later articles we will look further into the life and career of Harry Willits, report on other Bohemians who fought in World War 1, and tell the stories of some Bohemians who were IRA volunteers in the War of Independence.

League of Ireland International XI

Posted on March 4, 2016 by gerrytastic

A good while back I did up a League of Ireland International XI elsewhere on this blog. It seemed to go down well and provoked a little bit of discussion. My previous version featured those players who had been capped by other nations and had featured in league football in Ireland, it included the likes of George Best, Bobby Charlton, Uwe Seeler and of course Avery John. That post deliberately excluded Irish internationals but I’d like to redress this by compiling my Irish International League of Ireland XI. My criteria are that all players included have to have been capped for Ireland while playing for a club in the League of Ireland. I’ve focused on players from the immediate years after the split with the IFA right up to the modern day. I’ve tried to represent various different eras basing much on pieces of research and reportage and the input of various older football fans. As always this is just a personal selection of players I like or that interest me so this will obviously reflect my own bias and interest but hopefully might create a bit of discussion, hence the sizeable bench! Anyway in goal I’ve gone for….

Goalkeeper – Alan Kelly Sr. (Drumcondra, 47 caps): A man with a strong claim to be one of Ireland’s greatest ever keepers and a founder of somewhat of an Irish goalkeeping dynasty. (Not the only one mind, hello to the Hendersons) Alan Kelly Sr. was a FAI Cup winner and a League champion with Drumcondra during their 1950’s heyday when he made his debut for the Republic of Ireland as they defeated World Champions Germany 3-0 in Dalymount Park. Before long a move to Preston North End beckoned and he spent 14 years as a player at Deepdale making a club record 513 appearances, including an impressive performance in the 1964 FA Cup final where the unfancied Preston were deafeated 3-2 by the West Ham of Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst. Such was his importance at Preston that in 2001 a redeveloped stand was named after him. Kelly would later manager Preston and would assist John Giles during his managerial reign as well as being caretaker manager for Ireland during a 2-0 win over Switzerland.

Right-back – Paddy Mulligan (Shamrock Rovers, 50 caps, 1 goal): Paddy was already a four-time FAI cup winner and an Irish international by the time he left Shamrock Rovers to head to West London and the glamorous surroundings of one of Chelsea’s pre-Abramovich high-points. While at Chelsea he tasted European glory as Chelsea beat the might of Real Madrid 3-2 on aggregate in the Cup Winners Cup final before moving onto Crystal Palace and later West Bromwich Albion, managed at the time by his international team-mate Johnny Giles. While Paddy finished his career with a very respectable 50 caps he didn’t have the easiest start to his international career, he was a part-timer with Shamrock Rovers while also holding down a job with the Irish National Insurance Company when he was called up to the Irish squad in 1966, his employers weren’t too happy about his decision to travel with the squad to face Austria and Belgium and he was issued with an official warning by the company directors!

Centre Back – Al Finucane (Limerick, 11 caps): An elegant, ball playing centre-half Al Finucane won all of his 11 international caps while on the books of his home-town club Limerick. However his time in the green of his country coincided with a dreadful run of results and his international record reads played 11, won 0, drew 1, lost 10. There was to far most success on the domestic front where he captained Limerick to two FAI Cups (1971 & 1982 when he was 39!) as well as lifting the famous old trophy with Waterford in 1980. Only the second player to achieve this after Johnny Fullam who captained both Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians to victory. Finucane’s longevity was astonishing and along the way he picked up a number of records in his 28 year League of Ireland career including the record number of appearances by any player in the league and also becoming the oldest player ever to play in a UEFA competition. At the age of 43 years 261 days he lined out for Waterford United against Bordeaux in the Cup Winners Cup, breaking a record previously held by Dino Zoff. His final game was at the age of 45 for Newcastlewest.

Centre Back – Con Martin (Drumcondra, 30 caps, 6 goals): Con Martin made his first two international appearances as a Drumcondra player and in somewhat unexpected circumstances as a goalkeeper. His first appearance came as a substitute away to Portugal. With Ireland trailing 3-0, thanks in no small part to the prolific Sporting striker Fernando Peyroteo, the Irish keeper Ned Courtney is forced to go off injured. Courtney kept goal for Cork United and was an officer in the Irish Army, he had also won a Munster title in Gaelic Football with Cork. Brought on in his place was Con Martin, who at the time was in the Irish Air Corps and had also won a provincial GAA football title, with Dublin in 1941, he kept a clean sheet for the remainder of the game and started in goal in the next match, a 1-0 victory over Spain. Martin was a hugely versatile player, he lined out as a centre half for Drumcondra he played almost an entire season in goal later in his career for Aston Villa and also regularly played as a half back or at inside forward. He was a regular penalty taker for Ireland and it was Con Martin who opened the scoring in the ground-breaking 2-0 win over England at Goodison Park.

Left Back – Mick Hoy (Dundalk, 6 caps): While the selection of the likes of James McClean and Marc Wilson has generated some ire with those in the IFA they are certainly not the first men born north of the border to play for an FAI selection. Mick was born in Tandragee, Co. Armagh and began his career at Glenavon before moving south to Dundalk in 1937 the same year he made his international debut in a 3-2 defeat to Nroway. He started that game alongside his fellow Dundalk team-mate Joey Donnelly. Mick won five further caps and his debut was to be the only game where he finished on the losing side. His final match for Ireland was the 1-1 draw away to Germany in 1939, the nation’s final international fixture before the outbreak of War.

Midfield – John Giles (Shamrock Rovers, 59 caps, 5 goals): To celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2004 UEFA asked each of its member associations to select their greatest player of the preceding 50 years. The FAI selected Johnny Giles. While there will always be
differences of opinion regarding the selection of any one player over another there would be a general consensus that Giles was worthy of the accolade. He was a FA Cup winner with Man Utd in 1963 before moving to Leeds where he won two league titles, another FA Cup, a League Cup and two Inter-City Fairs Cups and played in the final of the 1975 European Cup where Leeds finished runners-up to Bayern Munich. Only two years after playing in that final Giles was lining out as player-manager for Shamrock Rovers in the League of Ireland where he was attempting to make Rovers not only a force in Ireland but also in Europe with the introduction of a full-time, professional ethos, the “Milltown project” as it was dubbed by some. While this approach did yield an FAI Cup in 1978 it yielded little else in terms of silverware. During this time however Giles was a very busy man. As well as being player-manager at Rovers he was also the national team player-manager and also spent a summer in 1978 playing in the NASL for Philadelphia Fury! During this time he continued to add to his caps total, his final game coming in 1979 at the age of 38.

Midfield – Frank O’Neill (Shamrock Rovers, 20 caps, 1 goal): Frank O’Neill is the most capped League of Ireland player in history with a total of 20 to his name. All of these came during his time at Shamrock Rovers. Despite treading the well-worn path going from Home Farm schoolboy to England, joining Arsenal aged just 18 it was as one the classiest players in Rovers’ “Cup Kings” sides that he made his name. After only two league appearances for the Gunners, O’Neill, then aged 21 joined Rovers on their Summer 1961 tour of North American where they took part in the grandly titled Bill Cox International Soccer League against the likes of Dukla Prague, Red Star Belgrade and Monaco. O’Neill impressed grabbing six goals in seven games after which he was signed for £3,000. O’Neill would make over 300 appearances for Rovers, winning a league title as well as six consectutive FAI Cups, mostly playing on the right wing. His international career coincided with a downturn in the national team’s fortunes though there were highlights including the scoring of his only international goal against Turkey in a 2-1 victory.

Midfield – Mick Martin (Bohemian FC, 51 caps, 4 goals): The second member of the prolific Martin football family in our team, Mick, son of Con began his career at Dalymount Park with Bohemians. His early international career didn’t get off to a great start as he was selected by new manager Liam Touhy for his début in a 6-0 defeat to Austria. The Irish team that day was comprised of League of Ireland players as the match had been scheduled just a day after a full English league fixture programme. He also made a number of appearances at the Brazil Independence Cup while still of Bohs player, scoring in a 3-2 win over Ecuador. Better was to come for Martin, he got to mark Pelé as part of a Bohs/Drumcondra select that took on Santos and shortly afterwards secured a move to Manchester United and later joining Johnny Giles at West Brom. In his club career he is probably most associated with Newcastle United, who he joined for £100,000 in 1978. He was hugely popular with the St. James’s Park faithful who dubbed him “Zico” and he got to play alongside the likes of Kevin Keegan and a young Chris Waddle during his time there.

Forward – Jimmy Dunne (Shamrock Rovers, 15 caps, 13 goals): Jimmy Dunne began and ended his playing career at Shamrock Rovers. In his first spell at the club the Ringsend native didn’t manage to get much playing time due to the dominance of Rovers’ “Four Fs” forward line of “Juicy” Farrell, Jack “Kruger” Fagan, Bob Fullam and John Joe Flood though when he did get a look in he usually scored. A move to New Brighton (a now defunct club on Merseyside) in the old Third Division North followed, as did the goals. He joined First Division Sheffield United in 1926 though he had to bide his time before getting a prolonged run in the first team. However he exploded into life in the 1929-30 season scoring 42 goals in 43 games and winning his first cap for Ireland (he scored twice in a 3-1 win over Belgium) that year as well. Dunne however wouldn’t be released by United for further fixtures (though he was allowed to play 7 times for the IFA selection) during his prolific scoring exploits over the next few years and he wouldn’t win a second cap until 1936 when he was playing for Arsenal by which stage he had fallen down the pecking order at Highbury due to the arrival of Ted Drake. A season at Southampton followed before Jimmy or “Snowy” as he was known to some returned to Dublin and to Shamrock Rovers in 1937 at the age of 32. It was while on the books of Rovers that Dunne would win nine of his 15 caps and score five of his international goals. Dunne still has by far the best scoring ratio for Ireland of any player who has scored 10+ goals at 0.87 goals per game and one wonders what his stats would have been like had he been made available to play for Ireland during his peak years at Sheffield United.

Forward – Glen Crowe (Bohemian FC, 2 caps): The best striker that I’ve personally witnessed in the League of Ireland and the most recent player to feature on this list. Crowe during the years of his peak was unplayable for opposing defences, he had strength, aerial ability and a cracking shot. He’s Bohs record league goalscorer, FAI Cup scorer and European scorer and was the League’s top scorer three years running. He’s also won 5 league titles (4 with Bohs, 1 with Shels) and two FAI Cups. At international level he featured against Greece under care-taker manager Don Givens and then again early in the reign of Brian Kerr in a cameo appearance against Norway.

Forward – Alfie Hale (Waterford, 14 caps, 2 goals): The Hale’s are one of the great football families in Waterford, a place that has given us plenty of them, including the Coads, the Fitzgeralds and the Hunts. Alfie’s father (Alfie Snr.) had been part of the first Waterford side to compete at League of Ireland level and at one stage formed an entire half back line for the club along with his brothers Tom and John in the 1930’s. Alfie Jnr. was born in 1939 and began his career with his hometown club before a somewhat peripatetic existence brought him to Aston Villa, where he would win his first international cap against Austria, and later to Doncaster Rovers where he would spend the majority of his stay in Britain. After seven years away Hale returned to Waterford where he was joined by Johnny Matthews and a little later by keeper Peter Thomas as part of a team that would dominate the League of Ireland, bringing five titles to the south coast between 1967 and 1973. Alfie’s final game for Ireland was as a Waterford United player in 1973 at the age of 34 when he came on to replace Don Givens in a 1-0 victory over a Polish side that had just finished ahead of England in World Cup qualifying.

Subs: Peter Thomas (Waterford) Tommy McConville (Dundalk & Waterford) Johnny Fullam (Shamrock Rovers) Willie Browne (Bohemians) Shay Brennan (Waterford), Peter Farrell (Shamrock Rovers), Tommy Eglinton (Shamrock Rovers) Joe O’Reilly (Brideville, St. James Gate) Paddy Coad (Shamrock Rovers) Paddy Moore (Shamrock Rovers) Pat Byrne (Shamrock Rovers) Paddy Bradshaw (St. James Gate) Jason Byrne (Shelbourne)

*a note on the layout, I’ve listed players’ Irish clubs when they received their international caps only but have listed their total number of caps won at all of their clubs.

I am the Lord Thy God. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me – From Messi to Messiah

Posted on February 7, 2016 by gerrytastic

The Spanish Conquistadors brought much to South and Central America; a lust for conquest, cannon and Spanish steel, deadly European diseases and indeed Christianity. But there were things that they found in New Spain that were new to these violent colonisers as well. Just picture the scene; a scorching hot day in the glorious Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, surrounded on all sides by lakes and swamps it is the site of the modern metropolis of Mexico City. In a formal cordoned off rectangular space beneath tiers of grey stone steps populated by the masses of the city, ordered by social rank, a group of men compete fiercely in a ball game. The two teams face off, the purpose of the game is to get the hard, heavy, solid rubber ball through a circular hoop or goal at either end of the field. The players can’t handle the ball but propel it with amazing skill with their hips, knees and buttocks. This is sport but not as we know it today, instead it is part ritual, part religious rite.

Andreas Campomar in his encyclopaedic study, Golazo! on the history of football in Latin America emphasises the sheer importance of these sort of ball games not just to the Aztecs but to the Mayans and other pre-Colombian civilisations. For example thousands of rubber game balls were paid as tribute to kings, the myths of great societies featured stories of ferocious ball games played against gods and monsters, and most frighteningly of all there was a very real connection between these ball games and forms of religious human sacrifice. There are stories of losing sides in games being beheaded in ritual sacrifice in the civilisations of Veracruz. Stories of racks of human skulls being kept pitch-side displaying the chilling fate of previous competitors, and artworks showing fountains of arterial blood bursting forth from the neck of recently decapitated players. The Christian Spaniards saw these ancient ballgames as forms of witchcraft but the Mesoamerican people viewed them with much greater awe and significance, in many cases the ball itself seems to have had an almost spiritual quality, this circular orb flying through the air in games providing a metaphor for the orbit of the sun and the stars. Another view was that their ballgames were a form of proxy war, literally competitions of life or death or of communing with the divine.

An example of a Mesoamerican ballcourt

While the ancient games of the Mayans were part of religious ritual, those who codified the game of football; the British Victorians, also viewed their sport as having a religious element. Sports were part and parcel of the ethos of “muscular Christianity” that found favour in the public school system of 19^th Century Britain. Health and wellbeing, exemplified by the gentlemanly virtues of team sports were seen as an absolute “moral good”, taking inspiration directly from the Bible, for example the passage in Corinthians which noted:

What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

While the conquering Spaniards saw the ballgames and customs of Latin American as one of many vices to be expunged by colonialization and the introduction of Christianity the Victorians viewed the role of sport in muscular Christianity as a great virtue and to some measure as part and parcel in the manufacture of robust soldiers and sailors for the British military and hence the creation of the British Empire. The competitive nature of team sport, its focus on defence and attack in unison, and its obvious role in physical development helped form a generation of officers for the British military. To take the most critical viewpoint of this movement would be to say it formed a part of an outlook not dissimilar to the American concept of “Manifest Destiny” or the earlier notions of the “virtuous” Crusaders of the 11^th , 12^th and 13^th Centuries, a “Born to rule” mentality. The author James George Cotton Minchin when writing on the influence of the British Public School system was moved to speak of “the Englishman going through the world with rifle in one hand and Bible in the other” and added, “If asked what our muscular Christianity has done, we point to the British Empire.” George Orwell, himself a former Eton schoolboy was highly critical of what he saw as the recent and cultish growth in sport, he wrote the following after the tour of Dynamo Moscow to Britain in 1945 on the topic of “serious sport” and football in particular: “It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.” Perhaps closer to the brutal games of Mesoamerica with their emphasis on sport as a proxy war than we might like to admit?

If the role of team sports like football had a part to play in the creation and spread of the British Empire and militarism, and the idea that this had a certain divine authority, then religious organisations were also keen to use football to promote the causes of their Churches and the social causes that they supported. The more appealing side to the notion of “muscular Christianity” would be that these muscular Christians had a duty to protect the weaker and more downtrodden in society.

Students at Charterhouse Public school 1863. Past pupils formed Old Carthusians FC who won the FA Cup in 1881

During the age of industrial upheaval towards the end of the 19^th Century and into the 20^th Century many saw sport as a way to support the working classes who faced terrible living conditions, poor sanitation and were excluded from many areas of society. As Peter Lupson notes in his book Thank God for Football many of the most historic clubs that make up the top divisions in England today were founded as part of Church groups, whether it was Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur, Bolton Wanderers or Everton, whose Goodison Park stadium has a church between its famous Gwladys Street End and Goodison Road stand. Manchester City were formed out of St. Mark’s West Gorton FC, founded by the public school educated clergyman Arthur Connell and his proselytising daughter Anna. Concerned about the violence and alcohol abuse that were rampant in the West Gorton area of Manchester, St. Mark’s was established as a way to get the men of the area to focus their energies elsewhere, first in cricket and then later in football. There were many such links with church groups and sports clubs and often with a specific connection to the temperance movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

From the ancient ballgames of Central America and their religious, ritualistic significance, to the Victorian use of football and other team sports to create a notion of the muscular Christian (whether as soldier and imperialist or as a social and sporting evangelists for the disadvantaged in society) we can see how religion and sports were crucially interlinked, however the point would come when football would move beyond religious links. With the rise of Communism in the early part of the 20^th Century there was a move, nominally at least, towards atheistic societies. As Karl Marx famously said:

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness”

In some ways the early view of football in Communist nations was not dissimilar, there was an opinion that football was a distraction from the issues that should have been of greater concern to the disenfranchised working classes. That football was another “opiate” just like religion to use the phraseology of Marx and de Sade. We can turn again to George Orwell on this matter and take a quote from his seminal piece of dystopian fiction 1984 in which he described the future of the working classes as; “Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbour, films, football, beer and above all gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult” [my emphasis]

It was not long however before Communist nations realised the propaganda value of sport. Rather than acting as a distraction to the masses why could football not work as the perfect exemplar of the successful Communist state? An example not of individual dominance but of cooperation, planning, teamwork and self-sacrifice for the greater good. One high profile clash between a supposedly atheist Communist state, Yugoslavia and the Republic of Ireland took place in 1955 in Dublin. Much of the controversy surrounded the Croatian Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac who had been imprisoned by Josip Tito’s government, ostensibly on the basis that he had collaborated with the fascist Ustaše group during World War 2, however critics of Tito’s regime claimed that Stepinac’s trial and imprisonment was a show trial brought about because the Cardinal had been critical of the new Communist post-war regime in Yugoslavia. Although Stepinac was released in 1951 it was viewed that Yugoslavia, and Tito in particular were actively persecuting the Catholic Church.

It should be noted that the Ireland of the 1950’s was not necessarily a bastion of freedom either. The modest economic growth and modernisation that would take place under Sean Lemass’ tenure as Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) were still some years in the future and Ireland of 1955 was an impoverished nation with a high rate of unemployment and mass emigration. The social and intellectual sphere was limited, in literature alone despite there being a glut of talented writers emerging in Ireland at the time many fell afoul of draconian censorships laws (such as Brendan Behan, Liam O’Flaherty and later Edna O’Brien) which meant their works were banned from publication never mind the works of non-Irish writers (Balzac, Huxley, Salinger et al). Furthermore the Irish Constitution of 1937 protected freedom of all religions but made special mention of the Catholic Church:

The State recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens. – Article 44.1.2 of the Irish Constitution (1937)

It was no surprise that the “special position” of the Catholic Church was recognised in the Constitution as Fr. John Charles McQuaid was one of the key advisors on the creation of the document to his old schoolmate, Taoiseach Eamon de Valera. This same Fr. McQuaid would within three years of the Constitution being ratified become Archbishop of Dublin. It was in his role as Archbishop of Dublin that McQuaid helped scupper a modest 1951 proposal from Health Minister Dr. Noel Browne to provide free health care to Mothers and children. He stated that the “Mother & Child scheme” was against the moral teaching of the Catholic Church which led to Browne’s resignation from Government.

It was against this background that in 1952 McQuaid persuaded the FAI to cancel a proposed match with Yugoslavia, however the football association decided to arrange another game against the Yugoslav’s three years later. McQuaid called for a boycott of the game and urged the FAI to cancel the match but the Association persisted with the fixture scheduled for Dublin’s Dalymount Park on Wednesday 19^th October 1955. McQuaid’s view was in contrast to the recent instructions of Pope Pius XII who recommended against the Church or politics taking any stance on sporting events.

This game was never likely to pass without controversy. It was alleged by FAI board member Peadar Halpin that he had agreed to the arrangement of the fixture against the Yugoslavs on the advice that Archbishop McQuaid had been consulted and given his approval. Upon learning that the Archbishop was opposed to the game he still backed the match to proceed but only because to do otherwise would cost the FAI a significant chunk of cash. The call for a boycott of the game had other consequences, the FAI could not secure a band to play the anthems on the day after the Irish Army No. 1 band withdrew so they resorted to playing a recording of both nations’ anthems over a record player in the stadium. The regular trainer for the Irish national side, Dick Hearns of Dublin club Shelbourne also withdrew his services from the team and had to be replaced by Shamrock Rovers trainer Billy Lord. It was ensured by de Valera that President Sean T. O’Kelly (notionally at least the First Citizen of the State) would not attend the game in an official function, nor would de Valera himself or any of his senior Ministers. The voice of football at the time on RTE radio, Philip Greene also made himself unavailable to cover the game. It was suggested that this was in part a direct response to a call from Archbishop McQuaid not to cover the match and lead to the infamous headline “Reds turn Greene Yellow”. The lone political representative of note in the ground that day was Oscar Traynor TD who was also President of the FAI and a noted former footballer with Belfast Celtic. He received a rapturous welcome.

Despite the various organs of the theoretically separate Church and State boycotting the match a decent crowd of 22,000 turned out. Although larger attendances of around 35,000 were recorded at other home matches around this time it is worth noting that the Yugoslavia game was a midweek friendly played in wet and overcast conditions. The FAI were at pains to point out that no tickets were returned on foot of the Bishopric denunciation and it is striking that in a country so under the influence of the Catholic Church that 22,000 football fans ignored the condemnations and calls for boycott of one of the most powerful men in Ireland. In doing so they had to pass a cordon of irate, anti-Communist, placard-carrying Legion of Mary members. Not only were there fans in the ground but newspaper reports state that they gave the Yugoslavs a warm reception and a rousing ovation at the end of the game. The Yugoslavs had put on a fine attacking display and run out easy 4-1 winners against the Irish, a display that had obviously impressed the home crowd.

Shamrock Rovers young forward Liam Touhy who made his debut that day summed up the opinion of the players when he said their only concern about playing Communist Yugoslavia was that the game might be called off and the players might miss out on a cap. Tuohy was also quoted as saying that many of the Yugoslavs blessed themselves upon entering the pitch and that “there were nearly more Catholics on their side than there were on ours”. The Yugoslavs for their part were bemused at the involvement of the Catholic Church having not encountered previous calls for the boycott of matches. North of the border in Belfast, Unionist politicians cited the interference of the Archbishop as another example of the dangers of having Dublin involved with any of the affairs of Northern Ireland due to the strength of influence of the Catholic Church in the Republic.

Headline from The Irish Times the day before the match – October 1955

It would be decades before the scale of the abuses of power perpetuated by the Catholic Church in Ireland would emerge; in the culture of silence that existed the simple act of attending a football match after the Church had called for a boycott was a powerful statement, against the influence of the Church but also in support of the beautiful game. This wasn’t sport in service to religious ritual as in Central America, or sport in the service of Christianity as in Victorian Britain but sport as a form of protest against religious power and hypocrisy. Perhaps the next evolutionary step would be football as religion and footballers as icons or even messianic figures?

Such comparisons between football and religion are as obvious as they are simplistic, the stadium as Cathedral, the chants of fans as psalms or hymns, even collective footballing passion and hysteria could be seen as having religious counterparts whether that is spiritual possession or speaking in tongues. There is also a devotional and messianic aspect, a form of footballer worship, many players have engendered a certain cult around themselves, developed followings convinced of their significance but even of their divinity? The most extreme example is probably that of Diego Maradona, a man who has inspired his own devoted Church and following, the Iglesia Maradoniana. While El Diego is not averse to religious comparisons himself, the Hand of God being the most obvious example, the creation of a religion complete with prayers, ceremonies, works of devotional art and even its own calendar; (we’re in the year 55, the calendar starts in 1960 the year of Maradona’s birth), is another step entirely! While many feel uncomfortable with this worship of a hugely talented but highly flawed human being, some viewing it as blasphemy, others are happy to pass on their Maradona related creed to succeeding generations, to their sons (many named Diego) and their daughters. The “religion” unsurprisingly borrows heavily from the Christian faith and Roman Catholicism in particular, there is an “Our Diego” prayer modelled on the Our Father and there are Ten Commandments to live by. Such syncretism with Judeo-Christian faiths can create further searches for parallels between Maradona’s life and that of Jesus Christ. Would Claudio Caniggia be the apostle John, the favoured disciple? Or could Diego’s infant grandson, the son of Man City star Sergio Aguero, be a “Second Coming” of the divine? While the Iglesia Maradoniana is an extreme example of the footballer as saviour or messianic figure the form of secular devotion and religious comparisons drawn with football are plain to see. That’s without even mentioning ex-footballers who might think themselves as saviours. The ex- Coventry and Hereford United goalkeeper David Icke infamously declared at a 1991 press conference that he was “Son of the Godhead”.

Football; from the ancient ball games of Central America which were part of religious ritual to the 19^th Century role of religious organisations in the early growth and development of the game as social good, the interaction between the game and religion has developed over time. While religious institutions helped to create circumstances for the growth of football they were not necessarily prepared for rejection by the newly popularised game, even in good Catholic Ireland football could become a rare form of resistance against dominant religious interference. Today, at a great remove from the Corinthian, public school, class-orientated view of “muscular Christianity” one would imagine that Thomas Hughes or any of the other propagators of that phrase would struggle to recognise the highly commodified, modern professional game. They would certainly balk at the idea that professional footballers would be idealised, and dare we say worshipped as secular idols well beyond the confines of their mega-stadiums and into the homes of their acolytes around the world. While not every footballer will have his own Church or followers like Diego Maradona, for an increasing number of people the ritual of following their football team is the closest they will come to a religious experience. Now altogether

Our Diego, who is on the pitches,
Hallowed be thy left hand….

This article first appeared in issue 10 of The Football Pink with some original artwork from Kevin McGivern the new issue 11 is out now which also features one of my articles.

Puskás, Di Stefano…Prati – the career of a Milan legend

Posted on January 24, 2016 by gerrytastic

Only three players have ever scored a hat-trick in a European Cup or Champions League final. Alfredo Di Stefano scored three in the famous Hampden Park final of 1960 when Real Madrid defeated Eintract Frankfurt 7-3, his team-mate Ferenc Puskás scored the other four in that game. Puskás would score a hat trick two years later but it was all to no avail as a Eusébio inspired Benfica retained the Cup beating Madrid 5-3. Puskás and Di Stefano, the attacking stars of one of the greatest club sides ever, the storied five in a row Real Madrid, men justifiably regarded as amongst the greatest players ever.

How many remember the third of this three-goal scoring triumvirate? The final member of the triptych was Italian international Pierino Prati who, in the 68-69 final, at the age of 22 scored three against the emerging force of Cruyff’s Ajax in a 4-1 victory for AC Milan. That hat-trick capped off an astonishing two year string of triumphs for Prati. From the beginning of the 1967-68 season to the end of 1969 season the young striker won a Serie A title, the Cup Winners Cup, the European Cup and the Intercontinental Cup for Milan, the 1968 European Championship for Italy as well as picking up the coveted Capocannoniere award for Serie A’s top scorer for the 1967-68 season.

What makes this run of successes all the more remarkable was that Prati had spent the previous season on loan at Serie B side Savona where, despite scoring 15 goals for the Ligurian side they were relegated to Serie C. It was only after the re-appointment of Nereo Rocco as coach of AC Milan that his prospects would change.

Prati was born in December 1946 in the small town of Cinisello Balsamo just north of Milan. He was on the radar of AC Milan at an early stage and played with various Milan youth teams. The then head coach Nils Liedholm was apparently alerted of his talents by another Milan player, Luigi Maldera who spotted the young striker’s talent in a youth tournament. Before he would make his Milan breakthrough though he had to begin his senior career in 1965-66 on loan with Serie C side Salernitana where he scored ten goals (despite suffering a serious injury) to help them attain promotion to Serie B. Prati returned to Milan but only made a couple of appearances before his loan move to Savona began. By this stage there was considerable change at managerial level leading to the appointment of Rocco, a man most synonymous with the defensive system of catenaccio.

Prati after suffering an injury playing for Salernitana

Rocco had achieved great success with Milan in the early 60’s winning both the league and the club’s first European Cup before leaving for Torino. His return signalled a revival in the fortunes of the club and would mark a turning point in Prati’s career. Not that it started out so smoothly. Rocco asked for the young forward to be recalled from Savona and he arrived at the club with long hair, jewellery and wearing a pair of flares. Rocco is reported to have reacted by saying “I asked for Pierino Prati the footballer, not Pierino Prati the pop singer”. By the end of his career he’d be known as “Prati the pest” due to his driven and persistent style of play.

Any concerns that Rocco may have had were allayed in that first full season when Prati became Serie A top scorer as Milan strolled to the title, nine points clear of second placed Napoli. Prati formed part of a formidable attack along with the Brazilian born Angelo Sormani, newly-arrived, experienced winger Kurt Hamrin and the legendary Gianni Rivera with whom he developed a close on-field partnership. Behind this array of attacking threat was a solid midfield based around the more defensively focused Giovanni Trappatoni and Giovanni Lodetti, a man whose style of play allowed Rivera freedom as the creative fulcrum of the side and led to him being known as Rivera’s “third lung”. Behind them was a defence that only conceded 24 times in 30 games with either Pier Angelo Belli or the newly arrived Fabio Cudicini in goal and German international Karl-Heinz Schnellinger in defence alongside the likes of Roberto Rosato, Saul Malatrasi and Angelo Anquilletti. Early on it was difficult to find a role for Prati. Sormani was the first choice centre-forward, but in one game the right-footed Prati was asked to fill in on the left side of the attack and given the no. 11 jersey, he scored in that game and didn’t stop thereafter. He’d found his place in the side.

By May 1968 Prati had added the Cup Winners Cup to his accomplishments, starting
the final in Rotterdam against the Hamburg of Uwe Seeler which was decided by two early goals from Kurt Hamrin. Such was the success of his breakthrough season that Prati was called up by the Italian national team for Euro 1968. The Azzurri had comfortably topped their Euro qualifying group without Prati’s help but his form ensured that he made his debut in the competition’s two legged quarter final against Bulgaria due to an injury to regular starter Luigi Riva. He impressed, scoring in both legs as Italy advance 4-3 winners on aggregate, securing their place at the four team tournament proper hosted on Italian home soil.

Prati in action against SV Hamburg in 1968

The Italians were drawn against the Soviet Union in the semi-finals, a tough task as the Soviets had been the side to knock them out of the World Cup two years earlier. It was tight game and Italy were beset by injury problems, first Rivera was forced from the field for lengthy treatment. Then as the match entered injury time Giancarlo Bercelli also had to go off injured, and with no substitutions allowed Angelo Domenghini was withdrawn from the forward line to left back. Prati had a good chance to seal the win but shot wide and there was to be no separating the sides. In the days before penalty shoot-outs the game was to be decided on the toss of a coin. Team captains Giacinto Faccetti and Albert Shesternev joined the referee in his room inside the stadium and Faccetti correctly called tails. He sprinted out to his team-mates on the pitch, his celebrations confirming to all that they were through to the final.

Prati would retain his place for the final against a strong Yugoslavia side who had just defeated England and featured the exceptionally talented winger Dragan Džajić. As with the semi-final, the first final was a very close affair. Džajić had opened the scoring in the first half and Italy, without the injured Rivera were struggling to find a breakthrough. It looked as though Italy might lose the final in Rome’s own Stadio Olympico but ten minutes from the final whistle Angelo Domenghini of Inter thumped a free kick past Pantelic in the Yugoslav goal to secure a replay.

With two consecutive games going to extra time the Italy coach Ferruccio Valcareggi made significant changes to his side for the replay of the final. In came Mazzola and Di Sisti to the midfield while Sandro Salvadore started as a fifth defender. Crucially for Prati and for his whole future international career, his place in the attack was taken by fit-again Luigi Riva of Cagliari. It would prove a decisive change, Riva opened the scoring after only 12 minutes with one of his trademark powerful left-footed drives, on the half-hour Pietro Anastasi, much improved from the first final, notched a second. With Tarcisio Burgnich marking Džajić out of the game Yugoslavia were unable to find a way back in. Italy won Euro 68 in their Capital city. Riva was the hero, he could have scored a hat-trick in the game given the number of chances that fell to him.

For Pierino after his first full season in Serie A he was a League Champion, Cup Winner’s Cup winner and now a European Champion with Italy. However much of his subsequent international career would be lived in Gigi Riva’s shadow.

While 67-68 had been Prati’s breakthrough season when he finished as Capocannoniere this achievement was bookended by Riva’s scoring exploits as it was he who had finished as top scorer in 66-67 and would again in the 68-69 and 69-70 seasons. As a result Prati was left out of the starting line up for most of Italy’s World Cup 70 qualifying despite the fact that he had continued his excellent form into the 68-69 season. The one game he did play, a 2-2 away draw with East Germany saw Italy line-up with a front three of Riva-Mazzola-Prati with Rivera in behind. Riva scored both of Italy’s goals.

Despite a scoring record that showed 38 goals in 70 games over the previous two seasons, including the goals that won the 1969 European Cup, Prati was not in the original squad for the Mexico World Cup in 1970, it was only some locker room hijinks that got him on the plane to Mexico. The Juventus forward Pietro Anastasi, at that time the most expensive footballer in the world, was in the Italian pre- World Cup training camp, he was a bored 22 year old with too much energy and was spending his time winding up the team masseur Tresoldi. The masseur had had about enough of Pietro’s messing when he turned around swiftly and hit Anastasi square in the testicles. Anastasi hit the deck but it was only later that night when the pain became too much to bear that Anastasi realised something was seriously wrong. He was rushed to hospital for surgery, his World Cup was over before it began.

The Italian coach Valcareggi had been pinning his hopes for success on the perfect strike combination of Anastasi and Riva, but with this unexpected injury he called up two forwards to replace one; Roberto Boninsegna of Inter and Prati, while he sent home Prati’s team-mate and Rivera’s “third lung” Giovanni Lodetti to make room. While Boninsegna would have a major impact on the finals, scoring against Germany in the semi-final, providing an assist for Rivera in the same game as well as scoring Italy’s consolation goal against Brazil in the final. Prati meanwhile spent the entire tournament either on the bench or in the stands. Despite the physical demands on the rest of the squad of the Mexican altitude, the heat, and the semi-final against Germany going to extra time Valcareggi kept faith with a core group of players with no space for Prati.

Prati as a spectator at a show in Mexico

It was Prati’s misfortune that his international career overlapped with that of Riva, a man whose national team goalscoring record (35 goals in 42 games) has remained unbroken for over 40 years. Riva was a true star of the European game, he had propelled little Cagliari to their only ever league title in 1969-70, the same year he finished second for the Ballon d’Or behind his international team-mate Rivera. Even despite Prati’s exceptional form it was also an injury to Riva that gave Prati his first starts for Italy, his return to the Azzurri jersey after the disappointment of the 70 World Cup also coincided with Riva suffering a serious leg injury while playing in a friendly which caused him to miss much of the 1970-71 season. In his absence Prati helped Italy top their qualifying group for Euro 72, scoring in both of their games versus Ireland, as well as netting against Austria, however he was dropped for the quarter-final games against Belgium when Italy were knocked out.

By the 72-73 season Prati’s time at Milan was coming to an end. Milan had just won back to back Coppa Italia’s and while Prati had been central to their success throughout 72 where played regularly through to the final he wasn’t involved at all in the 1973 edition of the cup. There was increased competition at Milan from the likes of Romeo Benetti, Alberto Bigon and the latest arrival, Luciano Chiarugi who would score 22 in his first season. The following year, after 209 appearances and 102 goals for Milan in all competitions, Prati was on the move. He was on his way to the capital to join his old coach Nils Liedholm at Roma.

At Roma Prati become the focal point of their attack and would be the club’s top scorer for each of the next two seasons as they steadily improved; finishing 8th and then 3rd, but as the 70s progressed and Prati entered his 30s, games were harder to come by and niggling injuries began to take their toll. He joined Fiorentina for the 77-78 season but played only eight times without finding the net. It was to be his last year in top flight Italian football. He would spend the rest of his career (apart from a short spell in the NASL with the Rochester Lancers) with one of his earliest clubs, Savona, by then lining out in Serie C2. He retired in 1981 having made 458 appearances for his various clubs, scoring 205 goals, for Italy he won just 14 caps, scoring seven times.

In a league noted for the miserly nature of its defences, especially during the heyday of catenaccio as espoused by the likes of Rocco and the Inter Milan sides of Helenio Herrera, the scoring exploits of Prati are worthy of praise. He was a versatile forward, capable of playing through the middle and on either wing. At just shy of six foot and blessed with a powerful leap he was a handful in the air while possessing a formidable right foot which saw him score his fair share of goals from distance, including a certain speciality with thunderous free kicks. It was noted that at the time that it was common for Italian strikers to drop deep, afraid of being isolated further up the pitch or being caught on the counter-attack, Prati went against this completely and played a high line, always looking to get forward. in his style of play he was likened to the great striker of the 30s and 40s Silvio Piola by no less an authority than the infamous Gianni Brera.

And of course he is the last man to score a hat-trick in a European Cup final. His set of skills were demonstrated ably by the three goals he scored. His first on seven minutes a powerful head from ten yards out as he meets a Sormani cross. The second and third goals showing his intelligence, positioning and most of all his on-field connection with Rivera. The second shows Rivera in possession with Prati feinting as if to head for the left touchline, before quickly changing direction, losing his nominal marker Barry Hulshoff to take possession off a delicious Rivera back-heel. Now finding himself in acres of space 20 yards from goal he lets fly with a right foot rocket into the Ajax net just before the end of the half. The final goal sees Rivera in possession again, sending Ajax defenders one way and the other as he waits for support to arrive, charging through the centre comes Prati, Rivera deftly chips in a cross right onto his forehead as he heads home from six yards to seal a 4-1 victory over a side that will dominate the early 70s.

Milan celebrate their European Cup victory in 1969

On an island in the sun – UD Lanzarote

Posted on January 16, 2016 by gerrytastic

As any League of Ireland fan knows we have one of the longest football off-seasons anywhere in Europe. The last game of the season was the FAI Cup Final won by Dundalk FC on the 8th November 2015 and the new season won’t kick off again until March 4th 2016. It’s a long gap between live football matches, especially as a I missed a few of Bohs later fixtures last year.

This lacuna in live football got me to reminiscing about this time last year when I was able to get away for some winter sun in the Canary Islands, specifically Lanzarote. It was the first time I’d gone away to the sun at that time of year but I’d heartily recommend it. It was something to look forward to after the inevitable post-Christmas comedown and it broke up the drudgery of bleak, dark January evenings.

Any time I get away I try to catch a game, or if it’s the off season even just visit the local stadium. I dropped by to see a game between UD Lanzarote and UD Telde from the neighbouring island of Gran Canaria. Both teams play in the regionalised Tercera division which is officially the fourth tier of the Spanish football pyramid and is split into 18 different regional groups. The Canary Island teams feature in Group 12.

The match was played in the local municipal sports ground, the Ciudad Deportiva de Lanzarote in the main city of Arrecife. In keeping with the rest of the architecture on the island it is low-rise and whitewashed collection of buildings, and has a running track surrounding the pitch. The capacity is listed at around 6,000 with most accommodated in a main stand opposite the primary entrance to the ground. The entrance fee was a modest €5.

On the day there were may 700-800 supporters present, I was trying to get a handle on the make-up of the support, there seemed to be a few tourists like myself, some ex-pat British and Irish who’d probably retired to the sun and a fair number of local Canarians, one of whom, a somewhat older, man was highly vocal and had a habit of banging the advertising hoarding for the slightest of reasons. I know that a lot of the marketing and promotion of the club is done by an English ex-pat named Ian Lane and he was to be found running the Lanzarote club shop at half-time. This consisted of a patio table selling jerseys, scarves and other souvenirs along by the track (there is a good interview with Ian in issue 6 of the Football Pink by the way). Nearby was a red food and drinks kiosk that did up some tasty fried pork sandwiches and some ice cold beer, which thankfully you could take back to the shade of the stand. Despite this generous concession there was no mass drunken uproar in the stands for the beginning of the second half, just a thought.

As for the level of football, that’s a hard call. It reminded me quite a bit of League of Ireland standard, a certain mix of players, some obviously playing at the very height of their ability and the handful of players of certain quality probably wondering how they ended up playing at this level. However, there were some serious defensive lapses and the quality of goalkeeping from both sides was especially poor. There was a midfielder lining out for Lanzarote who particularly looked the part, a constant attacking threat, he was hard to miss with his Fellaini-like mop of hair. The game ended 2-2 and there were some lovely moments of skill and two cracking goals from distance.

It’s now the middle of January, the heat is on in the house, there’s ice on the ground and no live senior football in Dublin. This year I’ll be off to the home island of UD Telde, Gran Canaria, and hopefully to catch a La Liga game featuring the islands’ only top flight side Las Palmas. I can’t wait.

Football, revolutionaries and my great-grandfather – 1916 and all that

Posted on January 4, 2016 by gerrytastic

We’ve only begun the year of commemorations and there has already been a great deal written about the various organisations, groupings and competing actors around the dramatic events of Easter 1916. In much of nationalist history there is a huge role played by sport in the recruitment and training of the Volunteers, this is something often celebrated by the GAA and is born testament to in the naming of stadiums and club teams around the county.

This involvement with the nationalist cause was not limited only to the sphere of Gaelic games. Despite its occasional portrayal as a “Garrison Game” many individuals who were actively involved with football clubs also became key players in the struggle for independence. Among them were family members of my own.

In doing some family tree research I’ve started looking into the history and background of some of the relatives on my Da’s side of the family, people I was vaguely aware of but who by and large had died before I was born. This trail has brought me to a few individuals, my great-grandfather Thomas Kieran (occasionally spelled Kiernan) his sister Brigid and her husband , my great-uncle, Peadar Halpin.

At this point I must state that I do indeed have some non-Dublin blood in my veins, not much mind, but both Thomas and Peadar were from Co. Louth. Peadar would come to prominence due to his association with Dundalk FC and the FAI. He was a founder member of the club and spent decades on the management committee of Dundalk FC and was also club President. He also served as Chairman of the FAI’s international affairs committee and President of the League of Ireland and also Chairman of the FAI Council.

Football in Dundalk, in a somewhat disorganised fashion could be found as far back as the late 19th Century and some of the impetus given to the game in the early 20th Century can be traced back to a Dundalk architect named Vincent J. O’Connell. He had played for scratch teams in the town in his youth and had been a member of Bohemian FC between 1902 and 1907 during a sojourn in Dublin. Upon his return north he set about working with others to bring some structure to the playing of the association game in the town. The club we know today as Dundalk FC began life as Dundalk GNR, the GNR standing for Great Northern Railway, and they spent a number of years in junior football before being elected to the League of Ireland in the 1926-27 season. The campaign for election to the league as well as the eventual re-branding of the club to Dundalk FC was apparently the result of the machinations of a group of local football enthusiasts comprised of Peadar Halpin, Paddy McCarthy, Jack Logan, Paddy Markey and Gerry Hannon. According to a report in the Irish Times the decision to change the club’s colours from black and amber to white and black was made by one Barney O’Hanlon-Kennedy who promised his silver watch as a raffle prize for a fundraiser for the club. As he was the one putting forward the funds he was given the honour of selecting the team’s colours.

That Dundalk should be so connected with the railway shouldn’t be that surprising, then as now, Dundalk was a major station between Dublin and Belfast, even if the creation of the border did cause disruption. My great-grandfather Thomas Kieran (born in 1889, son of Patrick and Annie Kieran) was a worker for the railway, at the time of the 1911 census when he was 22 years old and residing in the family home of 14 Vincent Avenue in Dundalk (five minutes from the train station). He was listed as being an “engine fitter”, while his father Patrick was a carpenter for the railway as well. Later reports show that Patrick was also involved with the union (the Irish Vehicle builders and Woodworkers Union) and was among the workers representatives when a strike was threatened in 1932. The census also reveals that of the family of five both Thomas and his sister Brigid spoke Irish.

House in Vincent Avenue today, they were build c.1880

Republican roots, what the records say…

When searching through the Bureau of Military history records I came across a number of references to the Kieran family. One referred to the family as a “Volunteer family….railway people”. This came from the witness statement of Muriel MacSwiney, the wife of future TD and Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney who stayed with the Kieran family during one of Terence’s frequent bouts of imprisonment. This is confirmed by the witness statement of another local Volunteer James McGuill who referred directly to Brigid saying that Muriel MacSwiney “stayed in Dundalk with Miss Kieran now Mrs. Peadar Halpin.”

Muriel MacSwiney

On a slight digression Muriel MacSwiney was a fascinating woman, born Muriel Murphy, her family owned the Midleton Distillery and they were firmly against her marriage to Terence MacSwiney and even tried to get the Bishop of Cork to intervene to delay it. As a footnote that will become relevant later, the best man at their wedding was Richard Mulcahy the future Chief of Staff of the IRA, Minister for Defence during the Civil War and later still, leader of Fine Gael. Terence was in and out of various gaols during the course of his short marriage with Muriel, he would be dead by 1920 at the age of just 41, wasting away on hunger strike in Brixton Jail. The impact his death had on the wider world is probably comparable to that of Bobby Sands six decades later. MacSwiney was viewed by many as a martyr in a fight against Imperialism and was cited as an influence by Mahatma Gandhi as well as India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Apart from providing lodgings for Muriel MacSwiney it’s worth looking at what else the Halpins and Kieran’s were up to at this turbulent time. Thomas Kieran is mentioned again the the Bureau of Military History. In the witness statement of Patrick McHugh, Operational Commander and Lieutenant of the Irish Volunteers in Dundalk during Easter week 1916 listed Thomas Kieran among those “who served Easter Sunday 23rd April 1916, remained with company that day and, volunteered to return home when uncertainty of position was explained to them. Some returning Sunday night, others Monday morning or as Stated.” Interestingly Thomas is already listed as living in Dublin by this stage while most of those mentioned were still living in Dundalk. Peter Kieran (a possible relation?) another Dundalk based Volunteer declared in his witness statement that Thomas Kieran was among a group of Volunteers who had arranged to meet on the night of Thursday 20th April with plans to make their way to Dublin to join the rest of the Volunteers in the Rising. They had elaborate plans to get there via motor boat but were warned that the Royal Navy had vessels patrolling the area.

The plans for the Thursday journey to Dublin was called off and the group met again on Friday and Saturday night, however word came that the Rising was off, probably a reference to Eoin MacNeill’s order cancelling the Rising, which obviously had a significant impact on the numbers of those who arrived in Dublin. Peter Kieran went on to state that about the second week in May arrests were made in the town by the RIC. The family version of the story that I’ve been told was that Thomas was one of those arrested while cycling his bike with a rifle on his back and that he was later interned!

Peter Kieran in his statement also noted that “Those who served 23rd, 24th and 25th April 1916 and became disconnected, were ordered home on account of age, infirmity or as stated. [included] Peter Halpenny or Halpin [of] Byrnes Row Dundalk” Although it is hard to be absolutely certain this Peter Halpin could well be our Peadar Halpin, he was listed as Peter on the earlier census return. There is also a record of a P. Halpin from Byrne’s Row who was arrested a couple of weeks after the Rising and sent to Stafford Detention Barracks in England on 8 May 1916. There are other references in other sources to a P. Halpin of Byrne’s/Burn’s Row being arrested and sent to Stafford.

In searching the medal rolls for this issued the 1917-21 Service Medal both Peadar and Brigid appear. Both were issued the medal, Brigid in 1943 and Peadar in 1951. Her deposition states that Brigid was a member of Cumann na mBan from before the Rising. She was involved in dispatch work, fundraising for the purchase of arms, did election work for local candidates and visited republican prisoners. Peadar in his deposition states he was a member of “A” company of the 4th Northern Division of the IRA and that his involvement also predated the Rising, going back to 1915. It doesn’t however, detail individual operations of which he was part.

Patrick McHugh (who we encountered above) managed to escape arrest although he was interrogated by RIC men just after the Rising. He then moved up to Dublin to stay with his sister on Iona Road for a short time until he “got in touch with friends Tom Kieran and his wife [the granny Kiernan], who had a room in Mountjoy Street.” It seems that Thomas Kieran had moved to Dublin sometime between 1911 and 1916. I know he ended up working in the CIE engineering works in Inchicore for many more years. He obviously met Jane Brennan (2 years his junior) when he moved to Dublin, she had been living on Dominick Street Upper at the time.

The house at 27 Blessington Street, just off Mountjoy Street, where the Kierans lived.

Peadar was born in 1895 and grew up in Stockwell Lane, Drogheda. He trained as a cooper, (the trade of his father John) before moving to Dundalk to work in the Macardle Moore Brewery where he later became the foreman cooper. It is interesting to note that his wife Brigid was 12 years his senior. He came from something of a Republican family and a street (Halpin Terrace) in Drogheda bears the family name. This street has something of a tragic history to it as it was named after Peadar’s younger brother Thomas, who was killed there by the Black and Tans in February 1921. At the time Thomas was an Alderman of the local Corporation representing the Sinn Féin party. Thomas Halpin, along with another man, John Moran were abducted from their homes and brought to the local West Gate barracks where they were brutally beaten. They were then dragged to a third man`s home, that of a Thomas Grogan whose house was also raided but fortunately Grogan had been tipped off and had made his escape before the Tans arrival. It was at this spot that Thomas Halpin and John Moran were murdered, their bloodied bodies being discovered there the following morning. Each year the local Council commemorates this event and a monument now stands at the site of the men’s murder.

Commemorations for Alderman Thomas Halpin & Captain John Moran in 2014

Footballing connections; all roads lead to Bohs

Thomas, is something of a family name, Peader’s brother Thomas was tragically killed and Peadar would name a son of his as Thomas, perhaps in tribute to his murdered sibling. Thomas Kieran would also have a son named Thomas and there is an interesting football overlap as both of these men named Thomas would have a part to play in the history of Bohemian FC.

Peadar’s son Tom lined out for Dundalk in the early 40s before moving to Bohemians in 1947. He featured prominently in Bohs run to that season’s FAI Cup Final where he was part of a team that defeated Drumcondra FC, Shelbourne in the semi-final (where Halpin scored a penalty) and took on a highly talented Cork United side in the final. Cork United had been the dominant team of the 1940s and had already won five league titles by the time they took on Bohemians in front of over 20,000 fans at Dalymount Park on April 20th 1947. The Leesiders were the strong favourites. Bohs were at an added disadvantage as two of their key, experienced defenders (Snell and Richardson) were out injured. Halpin was playing at right half and spent most of his time trying to counteract the attacking threat of Cork’s forward line which included Irish internationals like Tommy Moroney and Owen Madden.

The Bohemian team from the 1947 final

Bohs were already 2-0 down before 30 minutes were on the clock but Mick O’Flanagan managed to pull one back before Halpin scored a penalty after Frank Morris was fouled in the box. The game finished 2-2 and went to a replay four days later. In a howling gale and lashing rain Bohs lost out in the replay in front of barely 5,500 people with the Munstermen winning 2-0.

Tom Kieran’s connection with Bohemians was a very long one, a referee for decades, including at League of Ireland level in the 1960s. The uncle Tom was a member of Bohemians since 1969 and was Vice-President of the club from 1985 to 2000 and was later made an Honorary Vice-President for life. Tom’s daughter Susan and her husband Dominic are of course still very familiar faces down at Dalymount to this day.

The uncle Tom as photographed for an Evening Herald profile in Dalymount Park

There are further remarkable connections with the Halpin family and with Dundalk and Bohemians as Thomas Halpin’s grandson; Peter was the Commercial Manager at both Dundalk FC and Bohemian FC as well as having a spell with Belfast club Glentoran.

Despite these many connections with the beautiful game the strongest and most influential roles in Irish football were undoubtedly held by Peadar Halpin. He was on the committee of Dundalk FC since at least 1926 and had two spells as Club Chairman from 1928-1941 and 1951-1965 and in 1966 he was appointed Club President, a position he was re-elected to in 1973. He also held a number of roles for the FAI, he was Chairman from 1956-1958 and had many years previous experience on various FAI committees and had made an unsuccessful attempt at arranging UEFA mediation to help resolve the long-running schism between the FAI and the IFA. At the age of 70 he was elected as President of the League of Ireland, it was a role he hadn’t been expecting to fill but after the Dundalk rep Joe McGrath became ill Peadar was the only member of the Dundalk committee with sufficient experience to take on the role. While the FAI and League of Ireland have (with good reason) been seen as conservative and at times backward there were a number of advances that took place during his tenure. It was the Dundalk committee that suggested the introduction of the B division which would eventually lead to the creation of the First Division as well as overseeing the admittance of new clubs to the League of Ireland. On a local level he was crucially involved with the development of Dundalk FC as a force within the League of Ireland, at present they are the second most successful side in Irish club football with 11 League titles and 10 FAI Cups. He claimed that of the many successful years that Dundalk enjoyed his favourite was 1942 when Dundalk beat Cork United 3-1 in the FAI Cup final and Shamrock Rovers 1-0 in the Inter City Cup.

Mattie Clarke in action for Dundalk in the 1950s as featured in the Irish Times

A potential politician?

Despite this extremely long connection with Dundalk FC the earliest reference to his involvement was in 1926. Prior to that we know that he was working as a foreman cooper in the Macardle Moore Brewery but in March 1923 his name appears in a debate in Dáil Éireann when his local TD Cathal O’Shannon raised a question on his behalf with the then Minister for Defence, General Richard Mulcahy. This is the same Richard Mulcahy who had performed best man duties at the wedding of Terence MacSwiney and Muriel Murphy who the Halpin’s would later shelter. It is testament to the divisiveness of the Civil War that such former allies could be so opposed.

O’Shannon had been elected TD for Louth-Meath in 1922 as a member of the Labour Party and was a supporter of the Treaty of 1921 which had officially led to the partition of Ireland. Mulcahy as Minster for Defence was a highly controversial figure for some as it was he who gave the order for 77 executions during the Civil War. The content of O’Shannon’s query was a request for an update on the status of Peadar Halpin and the likelihood of his release from Newbridge Barracks where he had been held since August 1922. Mulcahy replied that “Mr. Halpin was arrested for aiding and abetting Irregulars during the time of their occupation of Dundalk. It is not considered advisable to release him at present”, he further added that Peadar was not to be allowed send or receive letters.

As for what “aiding and abetting the Irregulars” referred to, the most likely answer given the fact that Peadar was arrested in August 1922 in Dundalk was that he was involved in assisting the anti-Treaty IRA (or “Irregulars”) in their attack on Dundalk on August 16th 1922. During this attack, led by future Tánaiste Frank Aiken, the anti- Treaty forces captured the town, freed over 200 prisoners held in the barracks and also took over 400 rifles. Rather than try to hold their position the town was re-taken the following day by Free State forces. In all the attack on Dundalk cost the lives of six Free State soldiers and one officer as well as the lives of two of the “Irregulars”. It is not clear what assistance Peadar provided during this time but it was obviously significant enough to warrant him being held in gaol for months without charge.

Family recollections of Jane Kieran née Brennan, the wife of Thomas Kieran are fairly clear on her views on Mulcahy and Cumann na nGaedheal, she put it bluntly and succinctly, saying “they cut the old age pension and they shot them in pairs”. It was not to be the last connection between Peadar and Cathal O’Shannon or Frank Aiken for that matter as the below excerpt shows.

From the Irish Times April 29th 1927

Cathal O’Shannon stood in the new Meath constituency in the first general election of 1927 and in his absence as the Labour candidate it was proposed that Peadar should run. Among his competition would have been the man he likely assisted during the Civil War, Frank Aiken. However as is the cross that left-wing politics must bear, there was a split, those who proposed Peadar as a candidate were not successful in securing his nomination and Thomas O’Hanlon and Michael Connor ran, unsuccessfully, for the Labour Party. As another of my many side notes, Cathal O’Shannon was unsuccessful in gaining election in 1927 however he later became the first Secretary of the Congress of Irish Unions in 1945, the last president of this Congress was one Terence Farrell, head of the Irish Bookbinders and Allied Trades Union. His nephew Gerard, after whom I’m named, married Nancy Kieran which brings together the Farrell and Kieran clans. Their eldest son was my Da, Leo and as many in the family will know he played for Bohs in the early 60s.

Anyone who has read this blog regularly will know that I often try to look at life and history through the prism of football. Of particular interest is the role that “soccer men” played in the Rising and subsequent War of Independence and Civil War. This is probably the most personal post as I’ve tried to do the same with my own family and their involvement with the nationalist movement. There are many stories that I would love to include but haven’t but would appreciate any feedback or additional information from family members. I hope that this could be the first in a series of posts that might be of interest or maybe just a first draft of something more extensive, there were certainly enough stories told at uncle Joe’s funeral to fill a book, but I hope this might be a start.

With a special thanks to Jim Murphy, Dundalk FC historian for his assistance with some of the research for this piece.

The Magyar martyr- the killing of Sándor Szűcs

Posted on December 30, 2015 by gerrytastic

There are certain teams that occupy a space in the popular imagination of the football fan not because of the trophies that they’ve won but due to their style of play and to an extent the romanticism of their glorious failure. The two that most readily spring to mind are the Dutch side of 1974 and the Hungarian side of 1954, both beaten by West German teams in the World Cup Final.

Even more than 60 years later there is a certain mystique around the Hungarian side of the 50s, the Magical Magyars or the Aranycsapat (Golden Team) as they were know in Hungary. Foremost in the minds of football fans surely are names like Ferenc Puskás, the goalscoring “Galloping Major” who would later star for Real Madrid and score 4 goals in the 1960 European Cup final. Other key figures included the wing half József Bozsik after whom the stadium of Honvéd is named, or Nándor Hidegkuti who revolutionised attacking play in his role as a deep lying centre-forward which gave free reign for the exceptional talents of inside-forwards Puskás and Sándor Kocsis to raid forward to devastating effect.

Despite losing the 1954 final in surprising (and according to plenty of Hungarians, controversial circumstances) the modern reputation of the Golden Team lies with their numerous other achievements, not least their twice systematic dismantling of the English national team (6-3 in Wembley in 1953 and 7-1 in Budapest in 1954) which did away once and for all of the notion of innate British superiority or the idea that England could not lose to Continental opposition on home turf. This Hungarian side were also Olympic gold medallists in 1952, Central European Champions in 1953 after defeating Italy, and went over four years undefeated in international football.

The Hungarian National team circa 1953- Ferenc Puskás is crouched front and centre.

Hungarian football had emerged from the war strongly with a new generation of stars who it was felt could deliver international success. This team was born from a time of violence and into one of political tension and civil unrest from which even the brilliance of their play could not be a defence.

The Hungarians had lost out 4-2 to Italy in the 1938 World Cup final, by 1945 with the War in Europe complete, Hungary witnessed the international début of an 18 year old Puskás while the other stars of the Golden Team would follow in their débuts within the next few years. Despite the terrible damage caused by the battle of Budapest in 1944-45 which claimed the lives of over 45,000 people Hungary witnessed free elections at the end of 1945, despite the powerful influence of the Soviet Union, and a coalition government was formed, with some Communist officials in positions of significant influence. For these first few post-war seasons professional football existed in Hungary and the emerging star players could earn decent money.

However as time progressed the political situation began to change. Mátyás Rákosi, the chief secretary of the Stalinist Hungarian Communist Party slowly set about removing political opponents from positions of power and influence while consolidating his own power base. He later boasted that he removed his supposed partners in government one by one, “cutting them off like slices of salami”. By 1949 there was a change in constitution, Hungary became the People’s Republic of Hungary and the nation officially fell behind the Iron Curtain. With this change of government came a change to how football was run in the country. Kispest, the club of Puskás and Bozsik became Honvéd the team of the Hungarian army, while Újpest FC became the team of the team of the police. Among the star players at Újpest was the international defender Sándor Szűcs. He’d be executed in secret within two years.

Szűcs was born in November 1921 in the town of Szolnok about 100km from Budapest and began his football career with local side Szolnoki MÁV. Already an international by the time he moved to Újpest in 1944 he would win three consecutive league titles with the Budapest club between 1945 and 1947 playing alongside team-mates like Gyula Zsengellér, who had played in the 1938 World Cup final and would later move to AS Roma, and Ferenc Szusza who still holds the record as the Hungarian League’s highest goalscorer and after whom Újpest named their stadium. Szűcs was also an established international by the time Puskás would make his scoring international début against Austria, both men playing in a comprehensive 5-2 victory.

However things started to go wrong for Sándor after the change of government and a chance meeting with a young, and crucially, a married woman. In 1950 a passionate Újpest fan invited Szűcs and some of his team-mates back to his house for a get together, it was that fateful night that Sándor met Erzsi Kovacs the 21 year old wife of their generous host. The young Erzsi was already becoming well known in Hungary as a popular jazz singer and the two apparently fell for each other immediately.

Sándor, then only 29, was also married and a popular international footballer playing for a club then just coming under the control of the police was in a hugely difficult position and tried to hide their affair to avoid a scandal that seemed inevitable. In fact due to the re-allingment of the club with the police force Sándor had technically become a policeman in the same way that Puskás and his Honvéd team-mates were army officers. That didn’t stop Erzsi being called for questioning by the AVH, the notorious secret police about the affair. After the interview Sándor recieved a chilling phone call advising him to cease the relationship or else he would end up somewhere where his footballer’s legs couldn’t help him.

The couple resolved to flee the country. Under the new Rakosi regime everything that they had in Hungary was reliant on the good will of the state. Szűcs received better clothing and food than the regular working person and was able to benefit from additional income through the black market. As a form of bonus top Hungarian athletes were able to bring in black market goods from away internationals and foreign tours to supplement their income, the state security forces would conveniently look the other way. However in the current circumstance all that was at risk.

Their plan was to cross the border into Yugoslavia and from there into Italy. Sándor knew that the Italian side Torino had been interested in him in the past and he would have known that former team-mates like Zsengellér had found some success as a player in Italy but this bold plan carried a serious risk. An illegal attempt to cross the border carried the death penalty.

They resolved to borrow a car and to pay a smuggler a fee to arrange safe passage across the border and into Italy. They were to leave in March of 1951. Sándor had to be careful, he couldn’t risk telling his team-mates seeing as Újpest was the police club and a player, a team-mate, could turn informer to the dreaded AVH. The club were certainly not immune from AVH interference, indeed the club had only signed their new star striker Ferenc Deák after he got into a fight with two AVH men who threatened him with serious jail time if he didn’t move from Ferencváros to Újpest.

The young couple set out on March 6th, the person who agreed to smuggle them out had advised Sándor to take along a pistol as an added precaution, however this seems to have been just another part of an elaborate trap. The couple were stopped by a security patrol on the way to the border, at first everything seemed to be alright, they merely asked for their ID before sending them on their way, however a few kilometres later they were surrounded by AVH men, the smuggler had been a plant and they were waiting for the young couple all along. The gun that Sándor had been told to carry was seized and he and Erzsi were taken to the AVH headquarters at 60 Andrássy Avenue, commonly known as the House of Terror. Both were brutally interrogated before Sándor was charged with illegally attempting to cross the border and with high treason. He was tried in a Military Court in May 1951 with a court appointed lawyer that he did not know, the sham trial found him guilty of all charges and sentenced him to hang along with the confiscation of all his property. Erzsi was sentenced to four years in prison.

Former team-mates including national team players József Bozsik , Ferenc Szusza and Ferenc Puskás petitioned the National Defence Minister, Mihály Farkas for clemency on behalf of Szűcs but they were refused. Puskás had in the past been able to use his influence to get team-mates and friends out of trouble but now his pleas fell on the deaf ears of the new Stalinist regime. On June 4th 1951 Sándor Szűcs was executed in secret. Erzsi didn’t learn about his death until her release in 1954 and details of the execution and the location of Sándor’s grave did not emerge publicly until 1989.

One theory explaining the severity of the sentence and the elaborate set up of Szűcs and Kovacs was that aside from the fact that their relationship offended a conservative Stalinist regime the execution of Szűcs would act as a deterrent to other sports stars or entertainers who might consider defecting. This is only a theory but perhaps it did work. We know that Puskás was offered a huge salary by Juventus which he turned down and he wasn’t the only player offered such inducements. Part of the reason for this could well have been the brutal treatment meted out to their erstwhile colleague Sándor Szűcs. It was only after the vicious reprisals against those who took part in the 1956 Uprising that players defected en masse. This was aided by the fact that Puskás and his Honvéd team-mates were out of the country, in Spain to play a European Cup match against Athletic Bilbao. Ultimately Puskás would have a hugely successful “second” career in the white of Real Madrid, international team-mates such as Koscis and Czibor would also find success in the blaugrana of Barcelona.

Erzsi was released towards the end of 1954 and after a short time was able to resume her singing career and found popular success in Hungary in the 1950s and 60s before moving abroad and performing around Europe as well as on cruise ships. She eventually returned to Budapest and continued recording music well into her 70s. She passed away in 2014 at the age of 85.

A later album of Erzsi Kovacs

With the collapse of Communism in Europe, Hungary held free, multi-party elections in May 1990, as part of this return to democracy the crimes of the country’s past could be redressed and the execution of Sándor Szűcs came back to the fore publicly. In 1989 his death sentence was revoked, he was posthumously promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the police force and today a school is named after him as is a stand at the Ferenc Szusza Stadium where Újpest play. He was the only professional footballer killed by the regime although many more fell victim to the AVH and the House of Terror. Sándor Szűcs is now better remembered in modern Hungary but his death casts a dark shadow on the glory of the Golden Team.

The Ferenc Szusza stadium, home of Újpest

Dick Forshaw – Waterford pioneer and troubled soul

Posted on December 8, 2015 by gerrytastic

Waterford has had its share of visitors over the centuries, ever since the Vikings first set up shop there back in the 9th Century. The football team have been no different, whether it was former World Cup winner Bobby Charlton, Polish international Piotr Suski or the Coventry born duo of Johnny Matthews and Peter Thomas who would enjoy great success down on the south coast, all playing in the blue of the city at one stage or other.

In his recent, meticulously researched history of soccer in Munster, David Toms goes into some detail in the development of the sport in the southern province and he focuses especially on developments in urban centres like Cork, Limerick and Waterford. What Toms’ research shows is that the Waterford predilection for a British footballing import has a long history. In 1930, despite the city suffering significant unemployment levels as well as the economics effects of the Great Depression the city’s business community and local football supporters embarked on a significant fundraising venture. Their aim? To provide sufficient funds to have a competitive Waterford team in the League of Ireland.

To compete with the likes of Shelbourne, Bohemians, Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers it was felt that Waterford FC would need to invest in bringing in some quality professional imports to play along home grown stars like Alfie Hale Sr. and future Ireland international Tom Arrigan. Brought in as player-coach was former Brighton and Man City player Jack Doran who had been capped three times by Ireland and he used his connections in the game to recruit a number of players with experience of the English league.

In fact for Waterford’s opening fixture in league football seven out of their starting XI were players who had some experience of cross-channel football. That opening game was in front of 10,000 spectators in the Dundalk Athletic Grounds on August 24th 1930 where the fledgling Waterford site were defeated 7-3 by the home side. It was somewhat of an inauspicious start for the Munster side but their undoubted star on the day was an Englishman named Dick Forshaw who scored Waterford’s first goal in league football. Forshaw opened the scoring in the match against Dundalk and was unlucky not to grab a second as he struck the post late on in the second half. He’d grab two goals the following week in Waterford’s first home league fixture as they secured their first win of the season, a 3-2 victory over St. James’s Gate.

That Forshaw was such as instant success should not be that surprising, although he had just turned 35 before he made his Waterford debut he had until very recently been playing in the English second division for Wolves. Prior to that he had enjoyed an illustrious and record-making career with both Liverpool and Everton.

Born in the Lancashire town of Preston in 1895, Forshaw had joined the British army as a young man and spent some time during World War I stationed in the British colony of Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka), at the time a fairly favourable posting as the area was spared the sort of brutality endured on the like of the Western Front. Upon returning to Britain he was signed by Liverpool manager George Patterson and made his debut for the Reds in September of 1919 with the Evening Telegraph describing him as a hockey and tennis enthusiast who was destined to “develop into a top-notcher”. Forshaw was a skillful right sided inside-forward, his early seasons for Liverpool weren’t prolific in goal scoring terms but he did tend to enjoy “purple patches”, for instance he grabbed a hat-trick against Derby County in his first season.

Dick’s progress in those early seasons was steady, he became a first team regular as Liverpool enjoyed consecutive fourth place finishes, it was however in the 1921-22 and 1922-23 seasons that Forshaw would really make his name. It was in these seasons that Liverpool would win back to back titles and Forshaw wouldn’t miss a single league game for those two years, chipping in with an impressive 36 goals from 84 matches, second only to centre forward Harry Chambers in the club’s goalscoring stakes. One of his team-mates in that Liverpool side was Wexford man Billy Lacey who he would encounter again as player-manager of Cork Bohemians during Forshaw’s sojourn with Waterford.

Although further titles would elude Liverpool for the next two decades Forshaw continued his good form including a knack of scoring hat-tricks against Manchester United. In fact he scored three against United at Anfield two seasons running in 1925 and 1926! In all he scored seven hat-tricks in his time at Anfield and also jointly holds the record (with John Aldridge) for scoring in the most consecutive games (9 in case you’re wondering) in one season.

It wasn’t just with Liverpool that Forshaw made history, he made history by leaving the club as well. Despite playing well during the 1926-27 season (he was on 14 league goals at the time of his departure) the club sold him for £3,750 to city rivals Everton in March of 1927. While this was a significant sum at the time (the transfer record was the £6,500 Sunderland paid for Bob Kelly) especially for a man that was nearly 32, it still came as somewhat of a shock to the Liverpool faithful and to Forshaw and his family. As was the style of the time this was something agreed by the Directors of the two clubs with no discussion with the player. His wife was said to have declared “I have never been an Evertonian and I don’t know what I shall do about it.” By the time he left he had scored 123 goals in 288 games for the Reds in all competitions.

Success followed Forshaw to Goodison Park however and he made history by becoming the first, and so far only man, to win league titles with both Everton and Liverpool when he was part of the triumphant Everton side of 1927-28. Central to this achievement of course was “Dixie” Dean who would score his record breaking 60 league goals that season, he was helped in part by his forward partner Forshaw.

However by the start of the 1929 season Forshaw was on the move again, aged 34 he signed for a “substantial fee” to second division Wolves. He was only there a matter of months before he handed in a transfer request and began somewhat of a peripatetic existence, popping up at non-league sides like Hednesford Town and Rhyl Athletic (now simply Rhyl FC) for short spells. It was in this set of circumstances that John Doran was able to sign Forshaw for Waterford, only two years after he was playing alongside Dixie Dean and winning a Championship with Everton.

Dean of course, would also enjoy a spell in the League of Ireland in the 1930s, spending some time on the books of Sligo Rovers in 1939 and scoring a club record 5 goals against a hapless Waterford side, however by that stage Forshaw was long gone and his life after football was filled with more tragedy than joy.

Within a year of leaving Waterford Forshaw was up in court charged with defrauding an acquaintance of his, one Richard Green. In April 1932 Green had given Forshaw £100 to place a bet on a horse at Ascot, the horse won and Green of course expected to collect his winnings of over £2,000, however Forshaw was nowhere to be found. Not expecting the horse to win Forshaw had doctored betting slips to make it appear that he had placed the full wager when in fact he had only placed a couple of £2 bets and kept the remained of the stake money for himself.

Forshaw had acted, according to the judge, with “peculiar meanness”, and he gave little consideration to Forshaw’s justifications about needing the money. Now aged 36, Forshaw claimed that due to an accident he had been forced to give up on his playing career, he had tried his hand at other trades and at the time of his trial was living in Kilburn, London and running a Fish and Chip shop with his wife. This carried little weight and the unfortunate ex-footballer was sentenced to 12 months of hard labour for his offence.

His difficulties did not end here, within months of completing his sentence Forshaw was back in court, when in November 1933 and listing his livelihood as a salesman, he pleaded guilty to four counts of theft and was sentenced to a further 17 months of hard labour. The next few years would repeat this pattern, release from gaol before almost immediate re-arrest, mainly for offences like theft. In 1937, then he was in the dock on two counts of theft. Only hours after release from his previous sentence Forshaw had gone out drinking, he had stolen some silverware from a London hotel before drunkenly stealing two suitcases from Euston train station. At the trial the magistrate spoke to Forshaw, a married man, father of three who was now stuck in a cycle of crime and punishment, he said the following to Forshaw as he told him he was likely to face imprisonment with hard labour;

“I want you to take warning from this. Can’t you pull yourself up before it is too late?”
Forshaw replied– “That’s what I want to do.”

Forshaw would pass away in 1963, in what was an era of dominance for his former clubs, Everton winning the league in 1962-63 and Liverpool bringing the title across Stanley Park the following year. Waterford too were improving, they finished second in the 1962-63 season with Mick Lynch taking up the role as the side’s main attacking threat. Lynch, who was a friend of Coventry City manager Jimmy Hill used that connection to bring over the likes of goalkeeper Peter Thomas and Johnny Matthews to Waterford where they would help (along with the likes of the returning Alfie Hale) bring unprecedented success to the south coast by the end of the decade.

Forshaw played a small part in helping to establish a league footfall foothold in the city, Waterford finished a credible 9th in their first season of League football and even picked up some silverware with a victory of the League of Ireland shield. Despite the hardship of his later life it’s worth remembering his small contribution to the growth of football in Ireland.

There is some great further reading available at the excellent http://playupliverpool.com/

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