Waterford

The playoff that never was

Posted on by gerrytastic

The 1940-41 title race was a nail biting affair that went almost down to the wire with two great teams, Cork United and Waterford battling it out for supremacy. While the majority of the rest of Europe was engulfed in the violence and destruction of the Second World War the League of Ireland continued as usual, or as usual as possible under the circumstances. In fact, the War had the effect of improving the standard of player in the League of Ireland as many Irish players returned home from Britain where league football had been effectively postponed until the cessation of hostilities.

Cork United, had only been in existence for a season by that stage, formed immediately after the dissolution of the original Cork City, they were an ambitious club who were about to begin a period of league dominance. They were a full-time outfit from the outset and they made a statement of intent by bringing back to Ireland players who had had experience in England, such as Irish international Owen Madden, Jack O’Reilly signed from Norwich, while the goalkeeper berth was taken up by Jim “Fox” Foley, an Irish international who had played for Celtic and Plymouth Argyle. The following year they went further and signed Bill Hayes, a top international full-back who had been plying his trade with top-flight Huddersfield Town in England.

Cork had also recruited wisely from the local area for that 1940-41 season, signing a teenage striker from Dunmanway called Sean McCarthy who despite his tender years would chip in with 14 goals in the debut campaign of what was destined to become a prolific goal-scoring career.

Waterford were no slouches either, although they had struggled both financially and on the pitch in the previous two seasons they still retained a core of veterans who had helped win them the cup in 1937 and finish runners up in the 1937-38 season. Among them were Tim O’Keeffe, an Irish international left winger with a ferocious shot that earned him the nickname “Cannonball” who had just returned after a spell in Scotland, and Walter “Walty” Walsh at left half. Also among their number was a 20 year old local lad who played at inside forward named Paddy Coad who was already making a name for himself as one of the most skillful players in the league. John Johnston, a Derry-born centre forward, was also signed from Limerick to help lead the Waterford attack. Johnston and O’Keeffe would finish the league as joint top scorers that year with 17 goals apiece.

Waterford 37

Waterford in 1937

Cork had a slow start to the season but as the league approached Christmas they went on a ten-match unbeaten run which was only ended by their title rivals Waterford. Over 8,000 fans packed into the Mardyke to see this Munster derby and it was the men in blue of Waterford who emerged triumphant. In fact in both league games played that season Waterford came out on top, winning 2-1 and 4-0 over Cork.

Of the two sides it was Waterford who were the more attacking, by the end of the 22 match series of league games Waterford had scored 62 goals compared to Cork’s 50, though the Leesiders had a somewhat better defensive record. Goal difference between the two sides was ultimately +4 in Waterford’s favour but it would be more than 50 years before the League of Ireland employed goal difference to separate teams so a league playoff was decided as the fairest way to split the two teams.

By the time this match rolled around Cork United had already defeated Waterford 3-1 after a thrilling and fiery replay in the FAI Cup final at Dalymount, Sean McCarthy, the youngest man on the pitch opened the scoring and although Johnstone equalised, a Jack O’Reilly brace brought the cup to Cork. They now had their sights set on making history as the first club from outside of the capital to win a cup and league double.

The teams were due to meet again some weeks later on May 11th in Cork’s ground, the Mardyke, for a test match to decide the outright championship winners after both sides finished level. Sensationally, that play-off never took place as seven Waterford players, who were offered bonuses of £5 for a win and half that amount for a draw, demanded the draw bonus be paid even if they lost. Waterford’s directors rejected the demand and suspended all seven, including three Cork-born stars, Tim O’Keeffe, Thomas “Tawser” Myers, and goalkeeper Denis “Tol Ol” Daly. The Cork United directors, fearing the loss of an estimated £1,000 gate, intervened and offered to pay the bonuses, but Waterford, on a point of principle, refused the offer and subsequently withdrew from football. The seven players were then banned from league football for the following season.

With Waterford unable to field a team Cork United were awarded the League title, although despite winning both the league and the cup the loss of the expected bumper gate for the playoff game meant that they finished the season incurring a small financial loss. Despite this minor setback that victory set in train a period of dominance for Cork United which saw them win four of the next five league titles and another FAI Cup. For Waterford however things were very different.

Paddy Coad

Waterford withdrew from the league for the following season and would not return to League of Ireland football until the beginning of the 1945-46 season. When they returned their squad was mostly made up of local players and they brought in former Irish international Charlie Turner as a player coach for a spell. The stars from 1941 were long departed, Paddy Coad (pictured left as a cup winner for Shamrock Rovers), although suspended from league games, signed for Shamrock Rovers and played only in cup matches in his first season at Milltown. He would go on to become a legendary figure as a player and coach for Rovers. Poor Tim O’Keeffe who had helped win the club the cup in 1937 was less fortunate, he signed for Cork United for a brief spell after his suspension but died from cancer in 1943 at the age of just 33.

In the longer term it was Waterford who would prevail, despite their great success Cork United went bust and left the league in 1948 and were duly replaced by Cork Athletic. Waterford endured a fallow time in the 40’s and 50’s but became a dominant force in the League of Ireland in the 60’s and early 70’s winning six league titles and never having to make do with playoffs in any of their victories.

Jimmy Gauld: goal-poaching & match-fixing

Posted on by gerrytastic

When Dundalk dominated a couple of seasons ago there were many accolades thrown in the direction of the team and its players as they progressed to a historic double. Among the awards amassed was that of top scorer in the league for their prolific striker, Patrick Hoban who fell just one goal short of the 30 mark. A hugely impressive achievement. In fact the last time someone hit the 30 goal mark in the League of Ireland was way back in the 1954-55 season. That man’s name was Jimmy Gauld, and his thirty-goal haul for Waterford was only one dramatic chapter in a life full of intrigue and incident.

Gauld was born in Aberdeen in 1929 and although he lined out as a youth player for his hometown club he never made a first time appearance, instead he plied his trade in the Highland leagues before being signed by Waterford in time for the beginning of the 1954-55 season. The Blues obviously had been keeping an eye on the Scottish game as they also signed ‘keeper Tom Hanson from Greenock Morton on a trial.

Gauld joined an exciting Waterford side who were on the up and featured plenty of talented players in their ranks, including three of the Fitzgerald brothers, the Hale brothers George and “Dixie”, and Scottish-born, United States international, Ed McIlvenney who had been signed from Manchester United.

Stocky, tough and with an incredible burst of acceleration (Jimmy had been a useful sprinter in his youth) Gauld could play anywhere across the front five but tended to line out at inside right for Waterford. He made an immediate impression on the league, within a month of joining Waterford Gauld had been selected to represent the League of Ireland against the Football League in front of an estimated 35,000 spectators at Dalymount Park. The Football League were convincing winners on that day with a certain Don Revie netting a hat-trick, ably assisted by team-mates of the calibre of Stanley Matthews and Billy Wright.

Jimmy Gauld however would have more success on the domestic scene however, over the course of a thrilling season Waterford pushed St. Patrick’s Athletic close for the league title, Pats eventually winning the title race by three points. It was however, an amazing season of goals for runners-up Waterford. In a 22 game league campaign they scored 70 goals, and they broke the 100 mark in all competitions. Gauld got 30 in the league and an incredible 42 in all competitions to beat St. Pats centre-forward Shay Gibbons into 2nd place for the top scorer award. In particular he developed a fine understanding with Jack Fitzgerald and their partnership brought huge crowds to Kilcohan Park with their attacking style of play. Jimmy would also feature again for the League of Ireland XI, this time starring alongside four of his Waterford teammates in a 2-1 victory over the Irish League.

Gauld scores against St. Pats’ from the Irish Press – 28th March 1955

Jimmy Gauld’s scoring exploits didn’t go unnoticed across the water. Charlton Athletic who were enjoying a spell in the top-flight earmarked Jimmy Gauld as the man to replace their departing superstar striker Eddie Firmani who was on his way to Sampdoria. A fee of €4,000 was agreed with Waterford and Gauld enjoyed immediate success in the English First Division, scoring an impressive 17 goals in his first season with Charlton. His good form continued into the early weeks of the following season which prompted a big money move to Everton for over £10,000. Apparently Gauld was upset by dressing room criticism of his style of play from Charlton teammates who accused him of not doing enough in terms of his defensive duties. According to a number of accounts he was also a good friend of Everton captain Peter Farrell who had begun his football career with Shamrock Rovers.

Gauld only lasted a season at Everton, playing 26 games and scoring 8 goals but by the 1957-58 season illness and injury had seen him dropped from the Everton first team. This helped Plymouth Argyle manager Jack Rowley pull off something of a coup by getting him to sign for the club who were then in the Third Division. Gauld’s style of play, goal-scoring ability and searing pace quickly endeared him to the Home Park faithful and he helped the club to promotion to the Second Division, scoring 21 goals in that promotion season of 1958-59. Once again however, Jimmy and the club management had a failing out.

Perhaps enamoured by their star striker’s success and hoping to cash-in on a player who had just hit 30 goals, Plymouth made it known that they would entertain offers for Jimmy’s services. Gauld was upset by this treatment, as were his many fans of the Argyle. There were offers for him to move into a player-coach role at Gloucester City but Plymouth insisted on a significant four-figure transfer fee which the Southern League club couldn’t afford. Ultimately Jimmy’s next port of call was Swindon Town who signed him for a club record fee of £6,500.

Despite a respectable return of 14 goals from 40 games in his only season for Swindon it was around this time that rumours first started to swirl about Jimmy in relation to match fixing.  He was released at the end of the season after accusations that he helped to fix a match in April 1960 versus Port Vale, which Swindon lost 6-1. Four years later, he admitted that “Swindon were comfortably in the middle of the League, with nothing to win or lose, so it didn’t seem such a terrible thing to do”.

It turned out that Gauld was able to make good money convincing teammates to throw games while at Swindon which saw him rack up betting earnings of up to £1,000 per game. Huge money when the maximum wage in football was still in place and even the best players couldn’t earn more than £20 a week. Gauld and his colleagues in the Third Division would have been earning considerably less than even that modest amount.

Despite being released by Swindon there were still demands for Gauld’s services in 1960. The match-fixing side of his life hadn’t come to public prominence yet and there was interest in Jimmy from the likes of QPR, Peterborough and from Irish Champions Limerick who surely remembered his record-breaking season just five years earlier and wanted him to lead the line ahead of their first season in European football.

It wasn’t to be however, rather than return across the Irish Sea Jimmy went back to his home country of Scotland and signed for St. Johnstone. After a very brief spell north of the border he was back in the Football League with Mansfield Town in the old Fourth Division. Jimmy had a good start scoring three times in his first four games, but in the last of those games he broke his leg and despite attempted comebacks his career as a player was effectively ended aged just 31.

In 1964 a shock exposé by The People newspaper named Gauld as the ringleader in a bribery scandal which shook British football to its core. It showed that he was at the heart of a scam which had fixed up to three matches per week by utilising contacts from his years in the game, most of whom never knew each other nor who was in on the scam.

One of the most high profile matches that Gauld was involved in fixing was the meeting between Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich Town which he arranged through his former Swindon teammate David Layne. Wednesday midfielder Tony Kay, who was capped by England and later moved to Everton, recalls Layne approaching him about the game saying;

‘What do you reckon today?’ I said, ‘Well, we’ve never won down here [Portman Road].’ He said: ‘Give me £50 and I’ll get you twice your money.’ I thought that was a good deal.

The story of my bet eventually came out after I was transferred to Everton. I was in a Liverpool nightclub one Saturday night [in 1964] and a friend said to me: ‘You’re all over the front page of the Sunday People about the Ipswich game. They’re saying you bet on the match and the bookmakers have been screaming because they lost £35,000 that week.’

Kay was ironically named Man of the Match in that 2-0 defeat to Ipswich. After the revelations became public he was doorstepped by Jimmy Gauld, who he claimed to never have met previously. Gauld fired a rapid barrage of questions at him about the game and match fixing before leaving his house. It turned out he had secretly been recording Kay and used those taped recordings in the subsequent trial. He also sold his story to the Sunday People newspaper for a reported fee of £7,000.

After pleading guilty Gauld served four years in jail and was fined £5,000 for his illegal activities which also saw nine other players imprisoned, including England internationals Peter Swan and Tony Kay. The judge stated at the hearing in January 1965 that,

“It is my duty to make it clear to all evil-minded people in all branches of sport that this is a serious crime. You are responsible for the ruin of players of distinction like Swan, Layne and Kay.”

After prison Jimmy Gauld did return to Ireland, living on Co. Mayo in the 1970’s, he worked as a driver and assistant to the wealthy industrialist Denis Ferranti who owned Massbrook House on the shores of Loch Conn. Locals remember him as a popular and sociable character, he was well-liked by the local youngsters due to his habit of giving them copies of Shoot magazine, a rare commodity in rural Mayo.  He later returned to London where he passed away in 2004. He remains the last player to score 30 goals in a League of Ireland season but this impressive statistic is lost obscured by his key role in organising one of the biggest betting scandals in British sporting history.

A special thank you to Frank Gibbons for information on Jimmy Gauld’s later life on Co. Mayo.

Don’t you remember? They called me Al

Posted on by gerrytastic

Quiz question – no phones, no Google – who is the oldest player ever to feature in a UEFA club competition?

Think about it… Champions League, oldest player… must be a keeper, Dino Zoff maybe? Someone from the Cup Winners Cup back in the day, lying about their age maybe?

Well the answer gets a little complicated, the records for the Champions League/European Cup show several players in their 40’s who featured in preliminary qualifying rounds, including Pasquale D’Orsi and former Roma midfielder Damiano Tommasi who both featured for teams from San Marino at 47 and 44 years old respectively. Sandwiched in between them is Northern Irish goalkeeper Mickey Keenan who lined out for Portadown FC against Belarus side Belshina Bobruisk back in 2002 aged 46.

In all these instances these players were on the losing side of a qualifying round game, however another Irishman played in UEFA competition proper, at the age of 43 years and 261 days, breaking a record held by Italian World Cup winner Dino Zoff. That man was Al Finucane and he set this milestone when he lined out against Bordeaux in the first round of the Cup Winners Cup in September 1986.

This was no mean Bordeaux side, they were in the middle of one of their most successful periods under the stewardship of future World Cup winning manager Aimé Jacquet. That same season they would win the French league and cup double to add to their French cup triumph from the previous year. Their squad included the likes of classy midfielder Jean Tigana and fellow French internationals René Girard, Patrick Battiston and the unfortunately named goalkeeper Dominique Dropsy. There was an international element to their line-ups as well with Croation twins Zoran and Zlatko Vujovic who were both Yugoslavia internationals at the time, they even had a German international, striker Uwe Reinders. A stern challenge for a Waterford side who were only in the Cup Winners Cup as losing finalists after Shamrock Rovers had won the league and cup double the previous season.

Not that Waterford were without international experience themselves. Al Finucane had won 11 Irish caps, granted the most recent of those had come some 15 years earlier, but there were also Noel Synott and Tony Macken, both veterans aged 35 and 36 respectively who had previously been capped by Ireland. There was a dash of youth in the Waterford side with a teenage Paul Cashin in midfield making a name for himself by nutmegging Jean Tigana during the home leg of the tie.

Finucane also had plenty of experience in European competition in addition to his international caps, during his long League of Ireland career which stretched back to his Limerick debut in 1960, Al had featured against the likes of Torino, CSKA Sofia, IFK Göteborg, Southampton, Dinamo Tbilisi and even scored a goal against Hibernians of Malta at the age of 37 as he helped Waterford through to the second round of the 1980-81 Cup Winners Cup.

Michael Alphonsus Finucane was born in Limerick in 1943 and by the age of 17 had made his League of Ireland debut for his local club against Shamrock Rovers in 1960. He would go on to make a record 634 appearances in the league across 27 seasons and win three FAI Cups. He began his career as an attacking, left footed midfielder but would spend most of his career as a classy, ball-playing defender.

He had the rare honour of captaining Ireland while still a League of Ireland player in a game against Austria in 1971. He also represented the League of Ireland XI on 16 occasions. He came from a family with a strong association with football, including with his uncle John Neilan who had played full back from Limerick in the 1950’s.

Finucane had two spells with both Limerick and Waterford before winding down his league career with another Limerick side, Newcastlewest during their short tenure in the League of Ireland first division. He was 45 when he finally left League of Ireland football, though he didn’t hang up his boots, he continued playing football regularly and also indulged his passion for golf.

But returning to that record breaking game with Bordeaux, as with many European nights for League of Ireland sides it was a story of bravery and determination before eventually succumbing to overwhelming odds. A competitive first leg tie in Kilcohan Park in Waterford saw Bordeaux take a two goal lead thanks to French internationals René Girard and Philippe Vercruysse before veteran defender Noel Synott got Waterford back in the game with a late goal. The away leg in front of a relatively small Bordeaux crowd of around 10,000 finished 4-0 to the French side but that tells only half the story. Waterford, and in particular young goalkeeper David Flavin, put on a fine display and striker Bernard Lacombe missed a number of chances, it was only in the 79th minute that Bordeaux broke the deadlock. A tiring Waterford defence, once breached, could stem the tide no longer. three more goals followed in last ten minutes.

That defeat remains the last time a Waterford side have competed in Europe. Finucane still holds that record more than 30 years later. At more than 43 and up against a top French side packed with internationals Waterford manager Alfie Hale, (a former team-mate of Finucane) kept faith with the veteran star, saying simply, “if he wasn’t playing well, he wouldn’t be in the side”. While Irish players don’t hold too many European records Al Finucane’s achievement as part of a remarkable career is one that League of Ireland fans can take pride in.

Dick Forshaw – Waterford pioneer and troubled soul

Posted on 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.

Waterford Shield

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/