Born in Athlone in July 1946, Turlough O’Connor began playing junior football for local side Gentex at the age of just 15. Although lining out at outside-left, O’Connor’s goalscoring instincts were soon obvious, and his performances saw him secure two F.A.I. Youth caps, which in turn led to a move to League of Ireland side Limerick. Despite scoring on his debut in a 1-0 shield win over Sligo Rovers, the young forward never fully settled at the Munster club, and soon returned to Co. Westmeath to play for Athlone Town in the League of Ireland ‘B’ league.
Having previously been beaten to his signature by Limerick boss Ewan Fenton, Bohemians manager Sean Thomas finally succeeded in bringing O’Connor to Dalymount Park in February 1965. Another debut goal in a 1-0 win over Cork Hibernians precipitated seven more league strikes that season (enough to install him as the club’s top scorer), and O’Connor’s goals helped propel the Gypsies to third place in the table, their best finish for 24 years. He was in the scoring groove again the following year by the time that Fulham scouts arrived to watch his teammate Jimmy Conway, and both players were soon on their way to the west London outfit.
Despite spending two seasons with the Cottagers, O’Connor was limited to just a single first team appearance for the club, and had to make do with being the top scorer for the Fulham reserve side. A debut international appearance for Ireland against Czechoslovakia in Prague (in which O’Connor scored a dramatic late diving header to deny the eastern Europeans a place at the 1968 European Championships) was the only real highlight of a dour tenure, and although two hernia operations had certainly not helped his cause, the centre-forward was put out of his misery with a £4,000 transfer to Dundalk in 1968. The move was an instant success, with O’Connor finishing as the Lilywhites’ top marksman in the 1968-69 campaign (second only to Mick Leech in the overall league standings), and he scored twice in the club’s Dublin City Cup final win over Shamrock Rovers (O’Connor also scored on his inter-league debut against the Irish League). Although severely restricted by a cartilage operation the following year, he did score four goals (two of them audacious efforts from inside his own half) for Dundalk in a 6-1 league victory over Waterford, in the season that the Blues completed a championship “three-in-a-row”.
O’Connor topped the club’s goalscoring charts in 1970-71 and 1971-72 (bagging another league hat-trick against champions Waterford in March 1972), and scored in Dundalk’s 5-0 shield final win over local rivals Drogheda, before financial problems at Dundalk forced them to offload O’Connor to Bohemians in time for the start of the 1972-73 season. As the club’s top scorer, he helped them to a third consecutive top four finish, before topping the overall League of Ireland goalscoring charts (along with teammate Terry Flanagan) in 1974 with 18 goals. Those strikes were not enough to prevent Cork Celtic from becoming champions, but despite O’Connor missing much of the following campaign through injury, the league title, and also the League Cup, came to Dalymount Park during the 1974-75 season.
Despite his contribution to that victory in Prague (which would actually come to represent Ireland’s only win over the course of a 24-match stretch) O’Connor had to wait four years for his next cap, when he lined out in an almost exclusively home-based team against Austria in Linz. Although the side was hammered 6-0 by their hosts, O’Connor himself was included in Liam Tuohy’s squad for the Brazilian Independence Cup (seen as a mini World Cup), and gaining caps against Iran, Chile (unfortunately being sent off in this game) and Portugal, he also scored a 40-yard winner in a 3-2 victory over Ecuador. Two further substitute appearances (as a Bohemians player) in a World Cup qualifier against France and a friendly against Poland brought the curtain down on O’Connor’s international career.
With the former Ireland striker as one of the side’s most influential members, Bohs (with Billy Young having taken over from Sean Thomas in 1973) continued to enjoy success as the 1970s progressed, taking the F.A.I. Cup in 1976, another league title in 1978 (O’Connor scoring a club record 24 goals to top the league’s scoring charts for a second time), and, with O’Connor scoring both in a 2-0 win over Shamrock Rovers, a second League Cup in 1979. At the end of the 1978-79 season, having installed himself as not only the top league goalscorer in Bohemians’ history (120 goals), but the top scorer in the history of the League of Ireland (he would later be overtaken by Brendan Bradley and Pat Morley), O’Connor returned to Co. Westmeath to become player-manager of Athlone Town.
With two of his brothers in the side as well (Padraig had also been a teammate of Turlough’s at Bohemians; both Padraig and Michael would manage Athlone later), the managerial reign of Turlough O’Connor began very satisfactorily, with the League Cup (the club’s biggest coup since the Free State Cup of 1924) and the Tyler Cup being captured in that first campaign. The club also finished third in the 1980 league table, but it was still a huge surprise when they managed to hold off Dundalk to take a very first league title the following season, and O’Connor was presented with the Irish Soccer Writers’ “Personality of the Year” award. Although a vast amount of goalscoring talent at the club (Eugene Davis, Frank Devlin, Larry Wyse, Michael O’Connor, Noel Larkin etc.) prevented him from making a real playing contribution, the team went from strength to strength in the seasons that followed, reaching three consecutive League Cup finals (winning two), and, with a 100% home record at St. Mel’s Park, taking a second League of Ireland title in 1983. Two further third-placed finishes brought the curtain down on O’Connor’s reign as Athlone Town manager (he also retired as a player at the end of 1984-85, having scored 178 League of Ireland goals), before he took the reigns at Dundalk in June 1985.
With the Lilywhites having grown accustomed to success under Jim McLaughlin, O’Connor responded well to the pressure of his new post, and by the 1986-87 season, had built a very formidable outfit. That season brought a League Cup final win over Shamrock Rovers (O’Connor’s men had lost the previous year’s decider to Galway United), but the Hoops prevented Dundalk from taking the year’s most coveted prizes, winning the F.A.I. Cup final 3-0, and finishing nine points clear at the top of the league to capture their third successive “double”. With Rovers handicapped by the Milltown saga the following season, however, the way was clear for O’Connor’s Dundalk to step into the breach, and a 1-0 win over Derry City in the cup final combined with their besting of St. Patrick's Athletic in the league title race meant that the Oriel Park club recorded a double of their own.
Edged out by Derry City in the league and the League Cup final the following year, O’Connor masterminded his fifth managerial League Cup win in 1990 when the Brandywell club were beaten on penalties. Better was to follow, however, with a Tom McNulty goal at Turner’s Cross ensuring another league championship success in 1991. An F.A.I. Cup final defeat to Shelbourne in 1993, however, would prove to be O’Connor’s last flirtation with honours at Dundalk, as he took over the vacant Bohemians hotseat later that year.
Despite spending five years at the Dalymount Park helm, an increasingly competitive championship meant that two league runners-up finishes (1996 and 1997) and four successive F.A.I. Cup semi-final defeats (three of them at the hands of Derry City) were as good as it got for O’Connor as Bohemians’ manager. He left the post in 1998, but his reputation as one of the League of Ireland’s most successful players, and managers, remained wholly intact.
