Paddy Coad

Paddy Coad, widely considered to be the best player never to leave League of Ireland football, was born in Waterford in April 1920. Having impressed for local junior side Corinthians (he had already become a Munster champion at table tennis), he made his debut for Waterford F.C. in a League of Ireland Shield match against Brideville in October of 1937, but would have to wait another six months before being used in the league itself. By the time the 1938-39 season rolled around, however, the youngster had become a key part of the squad, and though the club finished bottom of the League of Ireland table that year, Coad finished as the club’s joint top goalscorer.

A financial crisis at Waterford meant the club were unable to guarantee adequate pay to their players for the 1939-40 season, and having previously rebuffed their approach, Coad agreed to join Irish League outfit Glenavon in time for the beginning of the new campaign. The outbreak of the Second World War threw the northern league into uncertainty, however, and Coad returned to his hometown club not long afterwards. Although the side were again struggling in the league, eventually finishing eleventh, the following season would be a very memorable one for Blues fans, but perhaps not for all the right reasons.

A season-long struggle between Waterford and Cork United resulted in a tie at the top of the League of Ireland table, and though Waterford had the stronger goal average, a play-off was scheduled to decide the destination of the title. But with the Waterford players seeking remuneration for the extra match, and the club chairman not willing to accept this, several players, including Coad, made themselves unavailable. Waterford consequently withdrew from the play-off, and the championship was awarded to Cork. Other repercussions included Waterford being fined heavily, their enforced absence from the following season’s league, and Coad and the others being suspended from league action for one year. This compounded the disappointment of losing an F.A.I. Cup final replay to Cork a number of weeks earlier.

Though unable to contribute to anybody’s league campaign, Coad’s suspension did not apply to the F.A.I. Cup, and having joined Shamrock Rovers in January of 1942, he made his first team debut the following month in a first round cup tie against Brideville. Scoring in the Hoops’ 3-1 victory, he went on to score three more as the club progressed to the semi-finals, gradually endearing himself to the Rovers faithful. Finishing as top scorer for the club in five of the next six seasons (and joint top scorer in the League of Ireland in 1947), he won F.A.I. Cup winner’s medals in 1944, 1945 and 1948 (scoring in the 2-1 win over Drumcondra), and so when the unexpected death of Rovers’ coach Jimmy Dunne occurred in 1949, Coad (now a son-in-law of the Shamrock Rovers’ owners, the Cunninghams) was asked to step into the breach.

Reluctantly accepting the player-manager mantle, Coad soon began signing up young players from Dublin’s junior and schoolboy football leagues (it was said he signed virtually the entire Irish schoolboys’ team), hoping to mould the Rovers squad into one capable of once again making a challenge for the title (the Hoops had not won the league since 1939). Between 1950 and 1953, players like Paddy Ambrose (who had been one of Jimmy Dunne’s last signings), Ronnie Nolan, Liam Hennessy and Liam Tuohy began maturing into very useful footballers, and with the help of Coad’s progressive training methods (he attended F.A. coaching courses at Rhyl and Lilleshall) and his introduction of a passing style to replace the traditional “kick-and-run” tactics, the league championship pennant returned to Milltown in April of 1954.

In a decade seen as the “golden era” for League of Ireland football, “Coad’s Colt’s” (a nickname first used by W.P. Murphy of the Irish Independent in 1953) were the most successful team of the 1950s, with the trophy haul including three league championships (1954, 1957, 1959), two F.A.I. Cups (1955 and 1956), five League of Ireland Shields (including four in a row between 1955 and 1958), four Dublin City Cups and two Top Four Cup victories. Coad himself was as crucial to these successes as a player (he turned up at inside left, inside right, outside right and wing-half during his time with the club) as he was as a manager (unlike his predecessors at Glenmalure Park, he had the final say over team selection), and by the time he left Milltown to return to Waterford as player-manager in January 1960, he had scored 104 goals for the Hoops in the league and 37 in the F.A.I. Cup, with his total of 41 in the cup being a record that still stands.

Masterminding an F.A.I. Cup win over Rovers at Milltown in 1961, Coad led his hometown club to the league runners-up position in 1963, before overseeing Waterford’s unlikely league championship victory in 1966, the first time that the trophy had ever come to the south-east. Parting company with the Blues soon after this, he had laid the foundations for the remarkable league success that the club would achieve in the forthcoming seasons.

While Coad enjoyed remarkable success at club level, he also made an important contribution as an Irish international player. Cutting short his honeymoon to win his first cap against England in 1946 (he would probably have been capped much earlier only for the war), he played a starring role in Ireland’s next match against Spain, scoring one, and laying on two more for his fellow Waterford man Davy Walsh, as Ireland recorded a 3-2 victory at Dalymount Park. Although Ireland would lose their next five international matches, Coad was retained in the side throughout all these games (he was the only home-based player in the team for two of them), and his goal from the penalty spot against Portugal at Dalymount in May of 1949 saw the team’s winless streak come to an end.

Lining out in a World Cup qualifying defeat against Sweden the following month, he was then squeezed out of the international picture for a period of two years, but announced his return with the winner in a 3-2 victory over Norway in Oslo, having come on as a first-half substitute for Limerick’s Tim Cunneen (he was the first substitute to score for the national side). It was not enough to secure him a berth in any of the next three games, however, and Coad was to win his eleventh and final cap in a disastrous 6-0 defeat by Spain in Madrid in 1952. He proved he still had much to offer at the highest levels of the game some five years later, though, when he turned in a man-of-the-match performance for Shamrock Rovers in their European Cup second leg match against Manchester United at Old Trafford in 1957.

A professional, disciplined footballer, with vision, skill, and leadership qualities in abundance, Paddy Coad died in Waterford in 1992, aged 71. Capped 26 times by the League of Ireland representative side, his Shamrock Rovers testimonial in 1955 saw the Hoops famously hand English League champions Chelsea a 3-2 defeat at Milltown. Seen as a legend by both Rovers fans and the natives of Waterford city, Coad received a P.F.A.I. Merit award in 1983 for “services to the game in Ireland”, and was one of three inaugural members of the League of Ireland Hall of Fame in 1991. The Shamrock Rovers “Player of the Year” trophy is named in his memory.

Alfie Hale

Alfie Hale was born in Waterford in August 1939, and as a member of a family that already had a proven track record in League of Ireland football (his father and three uncles had all played for Waterford in the 1930s), he was accepted into the ranks of Waterford F.C. at the age of 16. The diminutive but dynamic forward was given his League of Ireland debut in March of 1957, scoring in a 3-1 win over Bohemians, a game that also saw another future Waterford and Ireland star, Peter Fitzgerald, scoring on his debut. When older brother George signed for Cork Hibernians for the 1957-58 season, Alfie Hale followed suit, but having been given little or no opportunity to impress, he returned to his hometown to spend the rest of the season in junior football, before re-signing for Waterford F.C. in time for the beginning of the 1958-59 campaign.

The centre-forward made a huge impact in his first season back, helping the club to victory in the League of Ireland Shield (he finished as the club’s top league goalscorer the same season, with 18 goals; another brother, Richard ‘Dixie’ Hale, scored seven), and his absence from the F.A.I. Cup final (and subsequent replay) through injury was cited as a major reason for the team’s unexpected loss to St. Patrick’s Athletic. Continuing to impress after his recovery (he hit hat-tricks in his inter-league debut against the Hessen League, and in an Olympic qualifier against Holland), Hale was signed by Aston Villa for £4,500 in June 1960, and although he made only seven first team appearances (scoring two goals) for the Birmingham club during the following two seasons, he was handed a first full international cap (he had previously represented his country at schoolboy, youth and amateur levels) for Ireland in a 3-2 friendly defeat by Austria in April 1962. He signed for Doncaster Rovers soon afterwards, and went on to score 42 goals in 119 league appearances (receiving three further international caps in European championship ties with Iceland and Spain), before transferring to Newport County in time for the 1965-66 season.

Hale scored 21 goals in 34 league appearances for the Welsh outfit, before returning to his native Waterford at the end of the season, where the local team had just secured their first ever League of Ireland title. Although the club slipped to fifth in 1967, Hale’s good form during the campaign did see him recalled to the Irish international team, albeit briefly, for another European championship encounter against Spain. The next three seasons would prove to be fantastic for Hale and his club, with the league trophy coming to Kilcohan Park at the end of each of those campaigns. He finished as the club’s top scorer in 1968, joint-top scorer in 1969, and as player-manager in the 1969-70 season, scored 12 important goals in his last 13 league matches. Meanwhile, a substitute appearance for the Irish national side in a friendly against Poland in May of 1968 saw Hale register his first senior international goal, and winning three more caps before the end of the year, he scored a second goal in another friendly against Austria in November (Hale would win five more international caps before the end of 1973, bringing his total to 14).

Waterford missed out on a historic “four-in-a-row” in 1971 by just one point, but Hale and his club regained the championship in dramatic circumstances the following year, coming from two goals down to defeat rivals Cork Hibernians 3-2 in the last match of the season. Hale scored in the Flower Lodge encounter (with a header; he scored a surprisingly large amount of goals with his head) to draw level with Hibs’ Tony Marsden on 22 goals, and finish the season as the League of Ireland’s joint-top goalscorer. Collecting a fifth league-winner’s medal in 1972-73, he again had to share the season’s goalscoring accolades, this time with Finn Harps’ Terry Harkin (both finished with 20 league strikes). Financial difficulties at Waterford forced them to sell Hale to Munster rivals Cork Celtic midway through the 1973-74 season, and he picked up yet another League of Ireland championship medal at the end of that campaign. Taking over as player-manager of Celtic for much of the following season, he joined up with St. Patrick’s Athletic in the summer of 1975, before moving on to Limerick F.C. for the 1976-77 season. Leaving the league scene for a number of years, Hale re-surfaced as player-manager of the doomed Thurles Town for the 1981-82 season, where he made history by becoming (at 42) the League of Ireland's oldest ever goalscorer, and also the only player to score in four different League of Ireland decades.

Taking over as the first manager of the newly-renamed Waterford United in 1982, he led the club to victory in the League Cup in 1985, and reached an F.A.I. Cup final in 1986, losing to the all-conquering Shamrock Rovers. Taking charge of Cobh Ramblers in 1988, he was unable to prevent them from being relegated from the Premier Division, and resigned his position in September 1989 (Hale had, however, introduced one Roy Keane to the Ramblers squad). Hale later renewed acquaintances with Waterford United, and led them to promotion to the top flight in the 1991-92 season at the expense of the Cobh outfit. As manager of Kilkenny City, Hale called upon the services of several of his former Waterford charges (including his son Richie) in guiding the Cats to the 1997 First Division championship. A poor season in the top flight saw Kilkenny being relegated the following year, but as was the case with his native Waterford, Hale’s legendary status amongst the city’s football fans had already been secured.

Al Finucane

Born in Limerick in 1943, Al Finucane is regarded as possibly the greatest defender ever to feature in League of Ireland football. Signed by Limerick F.C. from local youth side Reds United, a 17-year old Finucane made his debut for the club in a 2-2 draw with Shamrock Rovers in the League of Ireland shield. Playing primarily as a wing-half (he would become more associated with the centre-half berth in later years), his reputation among his Limerick teammates became such that he was handed the captaincy of the Shannonside club while still in his early 20’s, and amongst opponents, too, Finucane garnered tremendous respect. Eschewing many of the more traditional, overly-physical aspects of defensive play, his positioning, composure and distribution were among his most celebrated attributes.

As part of a largely local Limerick team, Finucane was the losing captain in the 1965 and 1966 F.A.I. Cup finals, with Shamrock Rovers denying the Shannonsiders on both occasions. Having been voted Irish Soccer Personality of the Year in 1967, he led his side to a first Dublin City Cup in 1970, before the club finally got their hands on Irish football’s greatest prize the following year, Finucane climbing the Dalymount steps after Limerick’s 3-0 F.A.I. Cup final replay victory over Drogheda.

Already established in the inter-league side (regularly captaining the selection, most notably in the 1971 League of Ireland “Jubilee” match against the English League, he would win a total of 16 caps), Finucane was drafted into the senior international team in 1967, being deployed as a sweeper in a disappointing 2-1 European Championship qualifier defeat in Turkey (the player's own performance was singled out as one of the few positives for the Irish team). Although retained for the next outing, Finucane’s culpability for both Czechoslovakian goals in a 2-0 defeat at Dalymount Park saw him being excluded from the international reckoning for a period of two years, before being recalled in the midst of a four-match winless streak for Ireland for a World Cup qualifier against the same opposition, at the same venue. While the Czechs again took the spoils, Finucane would remain a key player for his country over the next two years, but unfortunately, without being part of a winning Irish side. By the time Finucane won his eleventh and last cap as captain (11 other League of Ireland players also featured that day) in a 6-0 European Championship qualifier defeat against Austria in Linz, the team had gone 20 matches without a victory.

Denied any real success in the League of Ireland itself, Finucane transferred to the all-conquering Waterford side in 1973, hoping to contribute to what would be an incredible seventh championship win for the Suirsiders in just nine seasons. A win over Finn Harps in the final of the inaugural League Cup was the highlight of that first year, however, and although Waterford would play their part in many league races in the second half of the decade, championship honours would ultimately escape Finucane. His greatest day as a Waterford player came in 1980, when (at the age of 37) he captained them to their first F.A.I. Cup win in 43 years, becoming only the second player (after Johnny Fullam) to skipper two clubs to victory in that trophy.

A return to his hometown club in 1981 was rewarded with a third F.A.I. Cup medal in 1982, before Finucane departed for Waterford again in 1986. The defender made history in the club’s European Cup Winners’ Cup tie against Bordeaux that year, when at 43, he became the oldest ever player to appear in a European match. A subsequent stint at Newcastlewest saw Finucane cement another record, as the player with the greatest total amount of League of Ireland appearances. Perhaps equally remarkable was the fact that in a 28-year League of Ireland career, Finucane never once received a red card, and indeed was only booked on three occasions.