Liam Tuohy

Born in Dublin in April of 1933, Liam Tuohy’s footballing talent came to the attention of Shamrock Rovers when he competed against them in an F.A.I. Youth Cup match with St. Mary’s, of East Wall. Signing for the club in August of 1951, Tuohy initially struggled to break into the Hoops’ first-team plans (despite finishing top scorer for the u-21 and reserve sides, and the fact that Rovers had no out-and-out left-sided forward), so much so that he began lining out for the St. Mary’s club again in 1953. A selection crisis at Milltown saw him handed a League of Ireland berth against St. Patrick’s Athletic in March of 1954, however, and Tuohy would go on to make a telling contribution to what was Shamrock Rovers’ first league championship success for 15 years, scoring the winner in the title decider against Evergreen United.

As part of Paddy Coad's “Colts”, Tuohy won further League of Ireland medals in 1957 and 1959 (finishing as club top scorer in this latter season), was part of the F.A.I. Cup-winning sides of 1955 (scoring in every round of the competition, and the only goal of the final against Drumcondra, the club he had supported as a youth) and 1956, and also picked up four League of Ireland Shield medals between 1955 and 1958. His intuition, pace and great eye for goal saw him attract the attention of a number of English clubs, and in 1960, Tuohy was signed by Newcastle United. Intense competition for the outside-left berth at St. James’s Park saw his first-team opportunities being limited, however, and after three largely unspectacular years (he did manage to score nine English League goals), he was back with Shamrock Rovers in time to make an important contribution (scoring 13 league goals, and also seeing out the F.A.I. Cup final replay despite sustaining two cracked ribs) to their “Grand Slam” success of 1964.

With the controversial departure of Sean Thomas as Rovers’ manager at the end of that historic season, Liam Tuohy was a natural choice to take over as player-manager in time for the beginning of the 1964-65 campaign. Under Tuohy’s guidance, the Hoops won the F.A.I. Cup for each of the next five years to complete an incredible six-in-a-row. Tuohy retired as a player after the 1967-68 season, but not before he had amassed a total of 87 League of Ireland goals (he finished as the league’s joint-second highest scorer for the 1965-66 season) and 20 F.A.I. Cup goals for Shamrock Rovers, and scooped the Irish Soccer Writers’ “Personality of the Year” award for 1966.

Having scored European goals for Rovers in clashes with O.G.C. Nice, Valencia, Zaragoza and Bayern Munich (the latter a tremendous individual effort), Tuohy also had hugely impressive international and inter-league careers. But while the League of Ireland selectors rewarded him with 24 inter-league caps over the course of his playing career (his total of seven goals for the representative side is a record shared with Donal Leahy), the F.A.I. international selection committee only saw fit to name Tuohy on the Irish team a total of eight times. Having been handed his Ireland debut as far back as October 1955 in a friendly defeat by Yugoslavia at Dalymount Park, Tuohy found himself excluded from the first 11 until April of 1959 (he won three ‘B’ caps in the meantime), when he scored his country's first ever European Championship goal in a 2-0 win over Czechoslovakia. Although retained for the next outing against the same opposition, he was squeezed out of the side again after this (the lack of regular first team football at Newcastle would not have helped), not returning until a Dalymount Park friendly against Austria in April 1962, where he scored in a 3-2 defeat. Retained for two subsequent European championship matches against Iceland, Tuohy scored in both, ensuring that he was responsible for Ireland’s first home and away goals in the European international competition. But despite three goals in these three successive matches, Tuohy was subsequently dropped (he was never dropped by Shamrock Rovers after that appearance against Pats in 1954) by the international selection committee, and was destined to win just two more caps for the Irish national side.

His job as a H.B. Ice-Cream regional manager having taken him to the north-east of the country in 1969, Tuohy took over as manager of Dundalk F.C. (he also sat on the club’s board of directors) soon afterwards, and succeeded in balancing the Louth club’s precarious finances, as well as reviving their youth and local player policies. Mick Meagan’s resignation as Republic of Ireland manager in 1971 gave Tuohy the opportunity to combine club and international management, but this stint as dual-manager took in only one Ireland match, a disappointing 6-0 defeat by Austria in October 1971. Leaving his Dundalk post at the end of the 1971-72 season, Tuohy took an Irish squad to a “mini-World Cup” tournament in Brazil, where victories over Iran and Ecuador represented Ireland’s first international wins since 1967.

Despite beginning a second spell as Shamrock Rovers manager on his return, Tuohy remained international boss for Ireland’s qualifying campaign for the 1974 World Cup, where a win and a draw were accrued against France, but two defeats against a strong Soviet Union side would cost his team a place in the finals. He resigned as manager in May 1973 (he would, however, manage a “Shamrock Rovers XI” all-Ireland team against Brazil at Lansdowne Road two months later) citing work pressures, but having been in the running for the Ireland job on a couple of subsequent occasions, he was controversially overlooked in favour of Eoin Hand in 1980. Tuohy did (after a brief spell as Shelbourne manager) take control of the Irish youth teams a few years later, and a very successful stint (with future Ireland manager Brian Kerr as his assistant) saw him lead the u-19s to the semi-finals of the European Championships in 1984. This achievement was just the latest in a series of services that Tuohy had performed for the game of football in Ireland.