More than a safe p

TWO pictures this week of Richie Blackmore, the Birmingham born goalkeeper who made 292 appearances for Dundalk, winning every honour with the club, and who recently retired from his role with the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) attached to Dundalk GC.

In the main picture, Richie (back row, on left) is seen with the remainder of the Dundalk team in Oriel Park dressing room after they won the League Cup in the 1980-81 season beating Galway Rovers (later Galway United). Others in that picture (back row) from left, Synan Braddish (who later joined Liverpool), Dermot Keely, Willie Crawley, Leo Flanagan.

Middle row, Martin Lawlor, Vincent McKenna, John Archbold, Jerome Clarke, Mick Fairclough.

Front, Paddy Dunning, Tommy McConville.

The second picture shows Richie with Trevor Francis the first £1m. player in Britain when the English International played in Oriel Park with Birmingham City.

Richie recalled this week that the match was played in the early months of 1979 when severe weather conditions in Britain closed down all outdoor sports fixtures and Birmingham City, anxious for a game, travelled to Dundalk, for a hastily arranged fixture.

Richie had played with Francis at youth level in Birmingham and later when he rejoined City, in 1973 he again played with Francis.

‘When we met in Oriel Park that night we had a good chat about our times at Birmingham and City were grateful to get a game because of the lockdown in England’, Richie recalled.

It was shortly after that game that Francis left Birmingham for Nottingham Forest, then managed by Brian Clough who thus became the first manager in English football to pay £1m fee for a player.

Francis repaid that fee in full for that same season he scored the winning goal for Forest in the European Cup final in Malmo, and helped Forest retain the Cup the following year.

He made his debut for Birmingham at the age of 16 and went on to play 627 games in England, scoring 232 goals. He also won 52 caps for his country.

Richie himself who joined Dundalk for what he thought would be a short stay, went on to become one of the club’s greatest goalkeepers, making a total of 292 appearances, and winning, 13 major trophies, including 3 League titles, 3 FAI Cups, 2 League Cups and well as 2 Leinster Cups and the President’s Cup on three occasions.

He also won six caps with the League of Ireland and was the SWAI ‘ Goalkeeper of the Year’ in 1979-80 when he kept 21 clean sheets.

Richie recalled this week that having started his career at Bristol City he became a little disillusioned with the game, but eventually returned to play with Walsall where John Smith, Willie Penman, and his cousin, Jimmy Dainty, later colleagues at Dundalk, played.

After a spell at Birmingham where he played alongside Trevor Francis, he joined the exodus by many foreign players to the newly formed American League, joining New York Cosmos in 1972 helping the Cosmos as they became runaway winners of the Northern Division.

He was loaned out by Birmingham City at that time and he returned to the States for one more season lining out with the Denver Dynamos.

In the summer of 1974 he got a call from his cousin, Jimmy Dainty asking if he would join Dundalk on a short-term deal.

‘Jimmy was staying in Blackrock with Charlie McCann, who was a director of Dundalk, and mentioned my name to Charlie’ Richie remembered, and within days he got a call from another member of the Walsall team, John Smith who had taken over as manager of Dundalk.

‘It was only supposed to be a short-term deal as I was going back to America to play with Denver’ said Richie, but it transpired to be one of the longest short-term deals in history for Richie stayed 11 seasons at Oriel Park.

Legions of Dundalk fans proclaimed the Englishman as the ‘best ever’ to mind the nets at Oriel Park, for he was their choice for ‘Player of the Year’ on two occasions, keeping 26 clean sheets in one season, and in the 1974-75 season he kept 21 clean sheets over 33 games, beating the record of 16 held by Mick Smyth.

As an Englishman it was a great honour for Richie to represent the League of Ireland in Brazil in 1981 and the following year when the League travelled to New Zealand to play a number of games against the hosts who were on their way to their first World Cup finals.

Richie’s glory years with Dundalk were under the management of Jim McLaughlin and in addition to winning every domestic honour, he played in six memorable European campaigns with the club, including the night when only the width of a post kept Dundalk from reaching the Champions League qr-final when Celtic put them out.

Richie left Dundalk at the start of the 1985 season when manager Turlough O’Connor caused great controversy in the town when he signed Alan O’Neill as his number 1 ‘keeper, releasing Richie to join Galway United, where he stayed for two seasons, playing 64 times for the Westerners.

Now retired, Richie continues to live in town where he son, Simon is an integral part of the club’s backroom team, helping to secure Uefa licensing for the club.