Second-half substitutions during preseason friendlies rarely provoke ‘I was there’ moments for Irish soccer fans.
One notable exception occurred during Chelsea’s most recent visit to Ireland in July 2019. Chelsea were leading Bohemians 1-0 at Dalymount Park when the hosts introduced 14-year-old Evan Ferguson, who became the club’s youngest ever player at senior level.
The change worked with Bohemians recovering to draw 1-1. Three days later Chelsea enjoyed a much easier outing in Dublin, beating St. Patrick’s Athletic 4-0 at Richmond Park.
Chelsea’s most famous visit to Ireland came in May 1955 when, having just secured their first major trophy by winning the league title, the new English champions immediately travelled to Dublin to play Shamrock Rovers in a testimonial match for Paddy Coad. The Hoops raced into a 3-0 lead after just 23 minutes and clung on to win 3-2.
The large support for the Blues in Ireland was highlighted in 2018 when a preseason match between Chelsea and Arsenal attracted 46,000 fans to the Aviva Stadium for a 1-1 draw.
Despite these regular friendly matches, Chelsea have never played a competitive game against an Irish team. This will finally change on Thursday night when Shamrock Rovers visit Stamford Bridge for a Uefa Conference League fixture. The two sides remain unbeaten in a competition whose joint top scorers are Johnny Kenny (Shamrock Rovers) and Christopher Nkunku (Chelsea) with five goals each.
Two players have been transferred directly from Shamrock Rovers to Chelsea. Paddy Mulligan won four FAI Cups with Shamrock Rovers before signing for Chelsea in 1969 and spending a decade playing in England before rejoining the Hoops. John Coady won three league titles and two FAI Cups with Rovers before joining Chelsea in December 1986.
The most recent Chelsea purchase from the League of Ireland was goalkeeper Nicky Colgan, who in 1992 moved from his hometown club Drogheda United. Despite only playing one first team match for Chelsea, Colgan was unfortunate to miss out on an FA Cup winner’s medal in 1997 when Kevin Hitchcock was preferred as substitute keeper at Wembley. A month earlier Colgan had been on the bench for Chelsea’s 3-0 semi-final victory over Wimbledon.
A couple of high-profile League of Ireland managers have played for both clubs, most notably Damien Duff who won two Premier League titles and the League Cup with Chelsea before finishing his playing career with Shamrock Rovers.
Post-retirement Duff began his coaching career with the Shamrock Rovers under-15 team before recently leading Shelbourne to the League of Ireland title. Pat Fenlon began his playing career by spending three years as a trainee at Chelsea and later both played for and managed Shamrock Rovers.
A number of Jack Charlton’s Ireland team had spells at Chelsea including Terry Phelan, Andy Townsend and Tony Cascarino. In recent years no Irish player has broken into the first team, with the closest being Conor Clifford, who was captain of the Chelsea team that won the 2010 FA Youth Cup, scoring the winning goal in a 3-2 aggregate victory over Aston Villa in the final.
The most recent prospect to try his luck is Harry McGlinchey, who last week signed his first professional contract at Chelsea having recently been named as Ireland under-17 player of the year. The other Irish player at Chelsea is winger Shaun Wade who has played three times for Ireland at under-17 level.
Although World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez was spotted in Greystones during the summer, it remains impossible to imagine any of Chelsea’s stars ever playing in Ireland.
However an earlier generation of Chelsea superstars ended up both playing and managing in the League of Ireland, using their connections to sign some of the worlds greatest players.
Bobby Tambling’s 202 goals established him as Chelsea’s record goalscorer for nearly five decades before Frank Lampard finally overtook him in 2013. Tambling finished his career by playing for four League of Ireland clubs including Shamrock Rovers. His greatest success came at Cork Celtic where he helped lead the club to their only ever league title in 1974, and where Tambling’s team-mates would include both George Best and Geoff Hurst.
Tambling’s regular partner in the Chelsea forward line was Barry Bridges who also finished his career as a player-manager in the League of Ireland, briefly with Sligo Rovers and more successfully with St Patrick’s Athletic. Among the players Bridges enticed to Inchicore were Gordon Banks and former Chelsea team-mate Terry Venables.
John Hollins made almost 600 appearances for Chelsea, subsequently managing them for three years. After being sacked by Chelsea in 1989 he came out of retirement to sign for Cobh Ramblers but only played one match for the club. The chairman who sacked Hollins was Ken Bates, who in 1982 purchased Chelsea for £1.
Bates had previously lived in Ireland where his business ventures proved less profitable. In 1976 the Irish Trust Bank, which had been set up by Bates, collapsed.
Sadly last month we lost one of Chelsea’s greatest ever Irish players when John Dempsey died aged 78. Dempsey lined out alongside Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, Eddie McCreadie and Dave Webb in a Chelsea defence so tough that team-mate Peter Osgood nicknamed them “the four assassins”.
Dempsey was part of the Chelsea team that won the 1970 FA Cup Final in a replay against Leeds United at Old Trafford, a match watched on television by a record audience of 28 million.
But Dempsey’s legendary status was secured in 1971 when he opened the scoring with a delicate volley in the Cup Winners’ Cup Final against Real Madrid to help Chelsea to their first ever European trophy.
Almost inevitably Dempsey later had a spell in the League of Ireland as a player manager of Dundalk, and won 19 caps for Ireland.
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