Shay Keogh
Shamrock Rovers legend who won three League titles and two FAI Cups, writes Sean Ryan
SHAY KEOGH, a commanding centre back in the famous Shamrock Rovers team of the 1950s, died last Monday after battling Alzheimer’s in recent years. He was part of a golden generation of Hoops players who were dubbed ‘Coad’s Colts’ in honour of player-manager Paddy Coad, who signed them as young players and blended them into a winning combination.
Keogh was equally good at hurling and Gaelic football, as he attended Crumlin CBS and played for the Dublin Schools hurling team which beat Belfast in Croke Park, lining out at midfield.
No stranger to big games, he also played in the Paddy Thunder Cup final, a curtain-raiser to the FAI Cup final in Dalymount Park.
Playing centre back for St Joseph’s of Terenure, he helped them beat Stella Maris 3-1 before an attendance of 33,000.
Experiences like these stood to Shay as, in his subsequent career, he always had the ability to raise his game on the big occasion, whether it be a cup final, a European Cup tie, an international or an inter-league game against the best of the English or Scottish leagues.
His ability didn’t go unnoticed at under-age level, being capped against a physically imposing England as a schoolboy in a thrilling 2-3 defeat in Dalymount, and at youth level against the same opposition at Goodison Park, when England won 2-1.
Following the latter game, he was invited to Rovers’ ground in Glenmalure Park for “a chat”. The welcoming committee comprised Rovers’ secretary Tom Scully, trainer Billy Lord and manager Coad. When he was asked if he would like to sign for Rovers, Shay couldn’t wait. As he recalled: “I rushed through the thing and signed the forms. Then Scully gave me an envelope, I put it in my pocket, went out and got on the 48 bus to Kelly’s Corner. It was only when I was on the bus that I got up enough nerve to open the envelope, and there was a £20 note in it. I remember thinking my mother won’t believe that someone would give me £20 to play football.”
Wages were £3 a week and £1 a point and, after only four reserve games, Shay was given his first team debut, away to Waterford. Rovers won 4-1, and he never looked back. In his second season, 1953-54, Rovers won the League, the first of three League titles in his time there. “Every time we went out we were fancied to win,” was how he remembered those days. “We were very dominant for the 10 years I was there.”
His collection of medals gives some indication of that dominance. Apart from the three League medals, he also won two FAI Cups, three Shields, five Leinster Senior Cups, five Dublin City Cups and two Top Four Cup medals.
In 1955, he had the honour of captaining Rovers to an FAI Cup win. Paddy Coad was the captain, but he missed out through injury, a fact that only emerged when the players arrived at Dalymount, so Shay proved a very able deputy at the age of 20, and was presented with the cup after the 1-0 win over arch-rivals Drumcondra.
Shay formed a much-admired half-back line alongside Ronnie Nolan and Liam Hennessy that day, and they were still together when the Hoops became the first League of Ireland team to play in the European Cup in 1957. The part-timers were up against it as they were drawn with Manchester United, losing 2-9 on aggregate.
Two years later, against French champions Nice, they fared better but lost out by a goal (aggregate 3-4) thanks to a phenomenal goalkeeping display by Lamia, who denied Rovers the goal that would have seen them through in the 1-1 second-leg draw in Dalymount.
Earlier that year, Shay had produced another of his bigmatch specials when he held the vaunted Dennis Viollet scoreless before 45,000 in Dalymount and the League of Ireland held the English League to a 0-0 draw.
His heroics in 1959 made Rovers’ decision to drop him — and ace forward Tommy Hamilton — for the FAI Cup final the previous year all the more incredible. Manager Coad informed Hamilton that “selection has been taken out of my hands” — a not unfamiliar theme during the reign of the Cunningham family — and it resulted in a shock 1-0 win for Dundalk.
Shay was able to put that disappointment behind him as he finished 1958 on a high, first captaining Ireland’s B side to a 3-2 win over Iceland in Reykjavik, and then winning a full cap in a 2-2 draw with Poland in Dalymount Park.
A knee injury forced him out of the game after short spells at Dundalk and St Patrick’s Athletic, where he got his first taste of management. He later assisted Liam Tuohy at Rovers, but declined to take over after Liam’s departure. By then he had taken up golf, playing out of Newlands, alongside former teammates Ronnie Nolan and Eamonn Darcy, and achieving a nine handicap. He was also one of the early chairmen of the players’ union, the PFAI.
Shay, who was retired from HB Dairies, is survived by his wife Terri, children Anna, Jane, Adam, Emma and James, and 11 grandchildren.