Tommy Kinsella

A Rover’s Return

by Colm Keane

Football memories can originate from the unlikeliest of sources. Even after illustrious careers and professional club allegiances, the strangest of recollections come flooding back to the minds of soccer legends.

This week I had the pleasure of speaking to one of the League of Ireland’s true ‘greats’, Tommy Kinsella – formerly of Drumcondra, Shamrock Rovers and Arsenal – whose lifelong recollection is of an event in Bray’s Carlisle Grounds that took place almost forty years ago.

The story involves a young ‘Pooch’ Davis (later to become a Wanderers’ legend), and the event surrounds a game at the Carlisle Grounds involving St Joseph’s Boys Under 12s – a team managed by a 17 year-old Tommy Kinsella.

“I remember ‘Pooch’ playing in that game and he got sent off. He was only eleven and he was crying. I remember saying, ’Don’t be worrying about it. You’re a good player. This is only the start’. I’ll always remember that.

“To see a lad as young as that so heart broken was something else. And for a referee to send a child off was beyond belief. I had to put my arm around him and bring him off the pitch. The moment will always stick in my mind”, Tommy recalled.

Tommy Kinsella – who was born and bred in Blackrock and who currently – went on to play for Drumcondra in the late 1950s, and eventually winning a transfer to Arsenal and ending up playing at outside left for the legendary Shamrock Rovers ‘six in a row’ FAI Cup winning side of the 1960s.

“It all began at St Joseph’s Boys”, Tommy told me. “My father died when I was thirteen. He was buried on my thirteenth birthday. There were eight of us in the family, so I had to work in the corner shop down in Booterstown Avenue.

“At the time I was playing with St Joseph’s Boys and was asked by Drumcondra to play on Saturdays. The problem was that my half-day was on Wednesdays and I worked all day Saturday.

“I remember, one day, Fr Frank McCabe (founder of St Joe’s) came along and I told him the story. He went off in his ‘Beetle’ up to the shop. He came back after fifteen or twenty minutes and said; ‘Your half day is now on a Saturday; you’re working all day Wednesday’. So he put me on the road to a soccer career”. Tommy Kinsella was eventually transferred from Drumcondra to Arsenal, during the 1960/61 season, and ended up spending two years at the London club. He played mostly for the reserves, although he scored for the Arsenal first team at Dalymount Park during a match celebrating the new lights.

“George Swindon was the manager at the time. He brought me over. He promised me, one day, that I would be in the first team the following Saturday. But they sacked him the Wednesday night before the match, and Billy Wright took over.

“It was the wrong time to be there. Arsenal were brutal at the time, and all you’d see was the Beverly Sisters (one of whom was married to Billy Wright) up in the stand. The club were finishing middle of the table and they won nothing. So I came home”.

Tommy returned to Ireland, signing for Coleraine, where he played until the mid-1960s. “I played against England with the Irish League. I won an Ulster Cup medal. I also won an IFA Cup medal and a Gold Cup medal. It was great. I really enjoyed it”, Tommy recalled.

In 1967, Tommy moved south, joining the legendary Shamrock Rovers team of the 1960s. With Rovers, he won two FAI Cup medals and was part of the famous ‘six in a row’ side that won the FAI Cup from 1964 to 1969.

“We had some great players. Mick Leech was a natural goalpoacher. Frank O’Neill was outside right. And we had Bobby Gilbert, who was a real gentleman and a smashing player. I played outside left.

“My best memory with Rovers is the day we drew with Glasgow Celtic. It was 1967, and Celtic had just won the European Cup. We played them at Dalymount Park and I scored.

“We were 2 – 1 down and for some reason I got the ball deep. I was asthmatic and I could hardly breathe. Frank O’Neill said ‘Keep going’, so I ran forward. Next thing I saw Tommy Gemmell coming across to me. So I hit the ball from about 25 yards and it went into the top corner of the net. That was ‘Goal of the Season’ that year and a great day for me”.

Tommy Kinsella eventually moved to Dundalk, back to Drumcondra, then to Dalkey United and Workman’s Club, finally retiring to Ballybrack where he now lives.

“I don’t go to football any more”, he told me. “I went to Coleraine last year for the first time in 28 years and they treated me like a king. I have loads of memories and loads of friends and I’ll always be grateful for that”.

Colm Keane

Award-winning broadcaster and writer, author of A Cut Above The Rest (Townhouse, 1999), as well as Tales of the Wanderers (Colado, 1998; this article is included in that volume) and More Tales of the Wanderers (Colado, 2000), together with other volumes based on his work for RTÉ Radio.
First published in Seagull Scene, the Bray Wanderers match programme.