Action needed on standing at UK stadiums: safety chief
“I wasn’t giving it much thought, but I went on to fight in the Mid-Ulster Championships and Ulster Championships.
“I was doing it for three or four years and when I went over to Celtic Jock Stein wanted to build me up and to put on weight. He had me drinking Guinness and I ended up moving up from welterweight to middleweight and that’s when I won a Mid-Ulster title.”
At the same time as he was enjoying success on the Gaelic football pitch and in the boxing ring, the sport that would see McElhinney forge a professional career was just starting.
He joined Dungiven United as a 14-year-old shortly after their formation and will come home to join some of his old team-mates at their 50th anniversary dinner in a few weeks time.
He turned out for Limavady United and Derry City who were playing junior football then after being thrown out of the Irish League, often playing two football games on a Saturday and another two Gaelic matches on a Sunday.
Even later, when the football took a break in the summer the boots weren’t hung up as he played Gaelic for Gortin in Tyrone and Craigbane in Derry.
Before that he’d played much further afield.
“I was back and forward to America playing Gaelic,” said McElhinney, who is now self-employed in the building trade as a telehandler driver.
“I played for the Sligo team in New York, the Cavan team in Philadelphia and was in Chicago too.
“There were times when I would go over for the weekend, play a match and come home again. If Derry had been put out of the Ulster Championship early I would have spent the summer there. Marty Murphy, who is from Banagher, took me over and he is still in New York.
“I played football for Philadelphia Fury too.”
His wide variety of sporting adventures — not to mention his ability — meant McElhinney became a well-known name. It was no surprise then that clubs started to come calling and when Celtic got in touch it looked like his big opportunity had come.
The Glasgow giants’ attempts to replace a club legend proved to be a positive and a negative for him because while the chance came, it also did for many others.
“Sean Fallon was from Sligo, he was Jock Stein’s assistant and he took a lot of Irish lads to Celtic,” said Gerry.
“I would have been over during the summer holidays and even when I worked at Desmonds — I was a cutter in the shirt factory — I got time off to go. The boss Charlie McLaughlin was a football fan and he loved the fact that I was going over there.
“I played something like 30 reserve games and some of the European Cup winning team from 1967 were still there coming to the tail-end of their careers.
“It was hard as a centre-half because they had so many at the time.
“They were looking for someone to replace Billy McNeill. How do you do that?”
It was when he was picked up by another legendary Scottish manager that things took a turn for McElhinney, but only after a trial at Bristol City, which while successful, failed to result in a move because the club had overspent on contracts for other players.
“When I came back from Celtic I wrote to a few Irish League clubs and Gibby McKenzie, who was manager of Distillery, rang our house. My mum said that some Scottish man had been on the phone and I wondered if it was someone from Celtic looking me back,” he said.
“I’ll never forget it. Distillery had no ground, they were bottom of the league and other than the die-hards they didn’t have a big fanbase.
“Bertie Neill took over as manager and he got me a trial at Bristol City, but they’d no money and they couldn’t sign me.
“I was a bit down in the dumps after that and I actually went back to the United States, but Distillery asked me back and in pre-season in 1980 we played a friendly against Drogheda United.
“There was a scout from Bolton Wanderers at the game and they asked me over.
“I played in a match against Bury Reserves and did well enough in a 0-0 draw for them to sign me on a two-year contract.”
Naturally playing in England attracted the attention of Northern Ireland boss Bingham.
McElhinney’s involvement on the international stage is, however, a somewhat unusual tale.
He was part of the squad that qualified for the 1982 World Cup in Spain, but didn’t make the cut for the finals. He wouldn’t make his debut until that clash with the West Germans over a year later and what nobody knew that 12 months and six caps later he would pull on the green shirt for the last time and was no longer on the scene when the team went to Mexico in 1986.
“Billy Bingham lived in Southport and I was playing in Bolton, so he was close by and I think he watched me a few times,” said McElhinney.
“I remember the night we beat Israel to qualify for the World Cup, but in the build-up to Spain I broke my toe and couldn’t kick a ball for a while, so I missed out.
“I didn’t really think about it. It was just ‘what happens happens’ and I’m still pretty much the same. Three years earlier I’d never have thought I’d have got to where I was, so I thought that was a success.
“I’d a short international career, but I played against West Germany and all the great players they had at the time, I was up against Tony Woodcock when I played against England at Wembley, faced Mark Hughes and Ian Rush for Wales and Graeme Souness for Scotland so I have good memories.
“I remember playing in a defeat in Finland and then my last match was a win against Romania at Windsor. They had Hagi in the team. He was only young then, but you could see the class that he had.
“I moved to Plymouth Argyle then. I had a great time there and they were a great club, but I think I was a bit out of the way and faded out of the international scene because of that.
“When I was at Bolton there were so many matches in the north-west that it was easy for Billy Bingham to keep an eye on players there. It was a bit more difficult in Plymouth.
“I think that’s why I faded out of the scene. I don’t know what else I can put it down to.”
McElhinney finished his career at Peterborough United, where he moved into coaching.
He will watch Northern Ireland take on the Germans on Monday night, but his own active involvement in football ended a decade ago when he left his role with Derby County Academy.
“It was a good experience at Derby, but having to tell parents that their son wasn’t going to make it, I just didn’t like shattering their dreams when all they wanted to do was play for their club,” he said.
Those kids who don’t make it may not realise it at the time, but they always hit the heights in another sport. Just ask Gerry McElhinney. THE most senior stadium safety expert in England and Wales believes it is only a matter of time before a fan is “seriously injured or even killed” because of confusion around rules on standing.
Football grounds in England’s top two divisions have had to be all-seater ever since the 1989 Hillsborough disaster that saw 96 Liverpool fans die in a crush during an FA Cup semi-final.
But the law against prolonged standing at Premier League and Championship games has never been universally applied, as large numbers of fans have simply ignored it.
This has led to repeated calls over the last two decades to scrap the all-seater rule, with many supporters pointing out that if something is safe in Leagues One and Two, Scottish football, other sports and even other events at English football grounds, it should be safe in England’s top two football divisions, too.
Many stadium safety experts now agree with this view, which is why the then Sports Minister Tracey Crouch was eventually forced to order a review of the legislation last year.
Fans have continued to hurt themselves in falls in standing areas, often caused by surges pushing them over the back of the seats in front of them.
And this was the subject of a panel discussion during the Sports Grounds Safety Authority’s annual conference at Spurs’ new stadium on Wednesday, which featured the SGSA’s head inspector Ken Scott.
The session was titled ‘Is the all-seater policy out of date?’ and it started with the compere asking the room of 300 safety experts if they thought it the rules were fine as they are: none did.
But Scott then surprised several present by saying: “Something needs to be done before someone gets seriously injured or even killed.”
This comment was tweeted by Jon Darch, a safe-standing campaigner, but Scott replied to say the point he was making was “not a call for legislative change but...a statement in relation to some current fan behaviours”.
It’s thought clubs are either being advised to follow the examples of Spurs and Wolves, by installing seats with safety barriers to make standing safer or simply close sections of the ground where there is persistent standing.
When asked to clarify his comment, Scott said: “In the panel discussion at the conference, it was acknowledged that standing has led to injuries of fans and that stronger action may be needed to ensure a safe and enjoyable environment for all fans.”
❝ I played against a lot of great players like Tony Woodcock, Ian Rush, and Gheorghe Hagi at Windsor