THEY PLAYED HERE TOO!

The story of famous names coming into the League of Ireland is one as fascinating as it is varied. Probably the first really famous player to be imported into the country was one William Ralph Dean. “Dixie” Dean, as he was known, had made his name at Everton and in the 1927/28 season set a scoring record for a League season of 60 goals (40 of them headers) from 39 games in the English First Division. Two seasons later, Everton were relegated despite scoring 80 goals, and two seasons later again, they were league champions again! Dem were the days! Dean also scored 17 goals in 16 caps for England! Well, in 1938, still only 32, he signed for Sligo Rovers and was top scorer for them during the 1938/39 season with 10 league goals. He also helped them reach the FAI Cup Final where they came up against Shelbourne. The first game was a 1-1 draw, with Dixie scoring for Sligo. However, Shels won the replay 1-0 and that was the last chance Dixie had of getting a FAI Cup winner’s medal. Compared to some of the players who would follow in subsequent decades, Dixie would have to get the thumbs up for value for money. Dean later worked as a publican and for the Littlewoods pools company after his retirement, and in 1976 had to have a leg amputated due to a blood clot. Ironically, he collapsed and died in Goodison Park in 1980 during a Merseyside derby match.

The next famous player to be imported into the League of Ireland was Horatio “Raich” Carter. Raich had begun his career with Sunderland before the Second World War and completed his career after the Second World War. He gained a total of 13 international caps for England and played for Derby County and Hull in the late 1940s. Cork Athletic decided to sign Raich for the 1952/53 campaign. By now 39, he scored three league goals during his brief spell at Cork, but it was in the Cup run where his impact was felt most. Cork Athletic reached the Final in 1953 only to come up against city rivals Evergreen United. The final, played in Dalymount Park, resulted in a 2-2 draw with Carter scoring Athletic’s first goal. In the replay, Athletic won 2-1 with Carter scoring the winner. These two gentlemen of the game would prove to be in sharp contrast to some that were to follow.

The next big player over was Bobby Tambling. Tambling was a forward who had begun his career at Crystal Palace and later moved to Chelsea, for whom he scored in the 1966/67 FA Cup Final against Spurs. He was also capped three times by England, scoring once. Bobby was a committed Jehovah’s Witness and the League of Ireland owes more to his faith than its own merits for having Bobby grace its playing fields. He was dispatched to evangelise Munster and was based in Cork. Cork Celtic duly signed him up in 1973. He scored seven league goals in his first season as Cork Celtic clinched their only League of Ireland championship. The following season, as player/manager he grabbed eight league goals as Celtic finished seventh in a disappointing defence of the title. In 1975/76, Celtic finished eighth with Bobby notching 15 goals and he scored nine more the following season. A season at Waterford yielded eight league goals before he ended his career with a goalless Shamrock Rovers stint and a brief spell at Cork Alberts where he scored twice.

In the 1970s though, League of Ireland crowds were dwindling alarmingly and clubs came up with novel ways to bring them back. A combination of highlights packages (such as “Match of the Day”) and ITV’s “The Big Match” on Sunday afternoons, plus the fact that Irish people were devolving into a shower of lazycouch potatoes, were some of the factors. One idea was to bring over big-name players from England nearing the end of their careers – flying them in on the day of the match and flying them out either later that day or the following day, all at enormous expense. Rodney Marsh was one of the first. The former Queen’s Park Rangers, Manchester City and Fulham striker was brought in by Cork Hibs. This nine-times capped England international, who is now a Sky Sports pundit, scored once for Hibs during his brief spell in Leeside but he did recommend the experience to a rather famous old friend of his.

As we’ve seen, the 1970s was a very bad time for the league as Irish people took to watching TV from their couches rather than from the stands. To entice people out, therefore, clubs – particularly the Cork clubs – started flying in ageing English stars at enormous expense to up their profile, which would go some way to explaining why so many Cork teams went bankrupt! Rodney Marsh played for Cork Hibs, and recommended the league to his friend, George Best. Bestie had a brief spell with Cork Celtic in between stints playing summer soccer in the North American Soccer League for, among others, the San Jose Earthquakes. He played only three games in the league and failed to score. He spent most of his career with Manchester United, retiring in 1974 at the age of 27. He then had a brief renaissance at Fulham in tandem with Rodney Marsh before trying his luck in the USA. He would later line out for Stockport County and Hibernian in Scotland before playing football in Australia prior to hanging up his boots. When he is not making tabloid headlines, Best can be found on TV as quite an incisive and witty pundit. In his heyday, he was one of the most brilliant of footballing talents and was voted European Footballer of the Year in 1968. He was capped 37 times for Northern Ireland scoring 9 goals. Bestie was arguably the greatest footballer never to grace a European Championships or World Cup, but his spell at Cork Celtic was largely forgettable.

Gordon Banks’ story is one of the more well-known. St. Patrick’s Athletic had something of a mini goalkeeping crisis in the 1977/78 season, so into the breach stepped former Leicester City and Stoke City goalkeeper Gordon Banks, now 40, but who had been rated the best in the world during the 1960s. Banks had been a vital member of the England 1966 World Cup-winning side. He was capped a total of 73 times for England and would have had more only for his career to come to an abrupt end after a car crash in December 1972 which resulted in him losing an eye. Incredibly, he came back into action first in the North American Soccer League and then for St. Pat’s. He played just the once – a home game at Richmond Park on 2nd October 1977 againstShamrock Rovers, keeping a clean sheet in a 1-0 win.

So what of the other three 1966 World Cup finallists? Well, our opponents today were responsible for bringing one over – one Bobby Charlton. Waterford had won six League titles in eight seasons up to1973, but had finished 1974/75 trophyless. In 1975/76, they decided to try a 1966 World Cup Final hero themselves. Charlton had seen and done it all in his long career with Manchester United. He had played 606League games between 1956 and 1973, scoring 109 goals. He moved to Preston North End and took on the manager’s role for two seasons without any success. At a bit of a loose end, he came over and lined out for Waterford, scoring once during his brief spell at Kilcohan Park as the Blues finished the season third.

Another ’66 legend to come to Ireland was the most famous of them all – hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst. Former Stoke City and West Ham United striker Hurst was persuaded to line out for Cork Celtic, again in the mid-70s. The 49-times capped England international did weigh in with three goals during his brief sojourn Leeside and the crowds did increase for the few games he was here, but it wasn’t enough to take Celtic higher than eighth place in a fourteen team league. No disrespect to Geoff but not his finest hour!

The fourth player is possibly the most surprising of the lot – everyone automatically thinks of the English team given England’s proximity to Ireland, but no-one stops to think of one of the Germans playing here! But one did – Uwe Seeler, who had appeared more than anyone (except Wladislaw Zmuda, with who he was level) in the World Cup until Lotthar Matthäus smashed his record. Seeler played 72 times for Germany, scoring an impressive 43 goals and played for Cork Celtic during the 1977/78 season. His brief spell with Cork Celtic was unable to prevent them finishing fourteenth of sixteen, although he did score twice in a 6-2 hammering by Shamrock Rovers!

Also in the 1970s, Terry Venables – the former Chelsea and Queen’s Park Rangers player and England international – lined out for St. Pat’s. This decade was an interesting period in Venables’ career because he played League of Ireland football a few short years after playing in the top flight, created the TV Series "Hazell" and also garnered a few coaching qualifications which would set him up for a long an distinguished career as a coach and manager. He left Pat’s to become manager of Crystal Palace and wound up as England manager, taking them to the semi-finals of Euro ’96, having been boss at, among others, Barcelona, along the way.

And what of UCD? Well, in the mid-80s, shortly after we abandoned our policy of a students-only team (we now play students and graduates only, with the exception of the odd experienced player such as Derek Swan), we signed one Peter Lorimer, famous for being one of the hardest hitters of a ball of his generation. Lorimer played three games for us before heading back across to England to sign for Aston Villa. Remarkably, after he left, he returned the wages UCD had paid him on the grounds that he hadn’t played well enough to deserve them! He did, however (rather understandably too), keep the expenses paid to him!

There were other players who played in the League of Ireland whose full stories we just don’t have space for! Trevor Brooking, now a BBC analyst, played in Cork for a season in the early ’80s. And of course, the Shamrock Rovers team of the late 70s and early 80s was loaded with stars, the most well-known being the player-manager, Johnny Giles. Gilesy was also manager of the Vancouver Whitecaps, who played a summer season, allowing him to manage both sides for a while. One of the players he brought over to play in the famous green and white was one Éamon Dunphy, the former York, Millwall and Republic of Ireland player perhaps now better known as being an RTÉ analyst! Another who played with that Rovers team was future Ireland manager Eóin Hand.

There is a bit of a trend to a lot of these signings. Initially, players came over to Ireland to prolong their careers by a year or two. Then many were lured over by money, which sent may clubs to the wall, particularly in Cork. However, just last season we saw signs of the improving status of the League of Ireland when Derry City signed former Ireland international David Kelly. Kelly played for a third of the season – which coincided with Derry’s only good spell! – before being appointed assistant manager of Tranmere Rovers. He deliberately didn’t register as a player with Tranmere, however, in order that he could come back and play in the FAI Cup Final for Derry against Shamrock Rovers. In his last ever senior game, Kelly won his first ever senior medal and missed an open goal to boot! However, there can be few doubts that Kelly wasn’t merely looking for one last big pay-day, as had so many stars previously, and had been signed on merit – surely an encouraging sign for more stars on these shores!

A couple of other players deserve a mention. There was Bobby Collins, who won 31 caps for Scotland and played for Shamrock Rovers – he had been part of Don Revie’s great Leeds team of the early 70s. His fellow Scot Neil Martin had a spell with St. Pat’s. Pat’s also appointed Jack Burkett, who won the FA Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup with West Ham while playing alongside Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst, as manager in 1973. One of his signings was Tom Lally, reserve keeper for Celtic as they reached the European Cup Final in 1970.

One final interesting story concerns Scottish international Jack Dodds, who signed for Shamrock Rovers in 1946. Dodds’ career stats included 255 goals in five season for Blackpool! The club were asking for £8,000 for his transfer – huge money in those days – but Dodds took advantage of a rule which allowed players to move from Ireland to England – and vice versa – for nothing. The rule had mainly been used for English clubs to sign Irish players for free, but this transfer eventually forced the Home Nations to recognise the League of Ireland’s retention lists and so ensured that any British team buying a player from an Irish club would have to pay a fee!