CHERISHED MEMORIES

FRANCIE Callan who is pictured here with two great Dundalk supporters, Mary McElligott and Jean Fox recently celebrated his 85th birthday which was marked by the club with a special feature on the player on their website.

Over his career with Dundalk, Francie, played a total of 264 times for the club, and scoring 96 goals.

But although Francie won two League titles with Dundalk, and must be regarded as one of the best forwards ever to hail from the town, it is often forgotten that he had a successful career in England with Doncaster Rovers.

His early football career saw him play with a number teams at schoolboy level, Bendigo, St Malachy’s and in the local Junior League with St Joseph’s and Arsenal.

With all of them he made his mark as a goalscorer and inevitably he came to the attention of Dundalk. After a spell with the reserves he made his debut on March 20th, 1955 against Transport at Harold’s Cross and his first senior Oriel Park outing came the following weekend against Bohemians.

Under player-coach English coach, Walter Rickett the following season, Francie enjoyed a dream start, scoring in three of the first four Shield games, and ended up as leading league (10) and all-game (16) goal scorer.

He repeated this feat the following year, 1956-57, and was heading in the same direction at the beginning of 1957-58 when Peter Doherty, manager of Doncaster Rovers, paid Dundalk £3,000 for the player.

Doncaster were then in Second Division and he hadn’t the best of luck starting his career in England for having left Dundalk on a Thursday to arrive for a Saturday match, Francie’s flight had to be diverted from Manchester to London, which meant that he didn’t arrive in Doncaster until late Friday, which didn’t give him sufficient time to prepare.

He joined an Irish colony at Doncaster from apart from manager, Peter Doherty the Irish included Paddy Gavin, an ex Dundalk player, and a number of NI players, with Garry Gregg who later joined Manchester United, the best known.

He made his debut, scoring twice in a 2-2 draw against Bill Shankly managed Huddersfield and played against some top names in the game, including Jimmy Greaves, Johnny Haynes and Reg Matthews.

He remembers one day playing against Fulham at Craven Cottage when Jimmy Hill, who later went on to present ‘Match of the Day’ on BBC, scored all five Fulham goals, but it was Haynes who impressed Francie the most.

“He kept dropping balls like saucers in front of Hill, it was an exceptionally performance”, Francie recalled some years later.

It didn’t help Francie’s time at Doncaster that the manager who signed him, Peter Doherty resigned before the end of his first season in very controversial circumstances.

This all took place when one of the directors at the club refused to retract a statement or apologise to Doherty after the director alleged that “one had to be a Catholic or Irish to get into the Rovers team”.

Doherty was a staunch Catholic, but he refuted the allegation and resigned, joining Bristol City, who ironically in that season avoided relegation, while Doncaster went down.

Over two seasons he made 28 League appearances with Doncaster, scoring 6 league goals, and recalled with some delight the best goal of his career in a 2-1 4th round FA Cup win over Tranmere Rovers.

Afterwards, he linked up again for a couple of seasons with Walter Rickett, who was then the manager at Southern League outfit Ramsgate Athletic where he was a big success, scoring plenty of goals in his first season.

He was home on holidays in Dundalk when he was approached by Joe McGrath to sign for the club and with a job in Tommy McArdles coachbuilders secured, Francie returned to Oriel Park for the 1961-62 season, joining a forward line that included Jimmy Hasty, Willie Coleman, Victor Meldrum and Liam Munroe.

Picking up where he had left off four years previously, he scored twice in his first match back, a 5-0 City Cup first-round win over Sligo Rovers at Oriel Park, and a few days later he was on the scoresheet again in the second round tie against St Patrick’s Athletic.

Francie’s 20 season goals were sufficient to earn him the leading marksman award for the third time.

The acquisition of Dermot Cross saw Francie occupy the inside-left role for the 62-63 championship-winning season and his understanding with Cross and Hasty was one of the critical factors throughout the season.

Contributing six goals to the first title-winning success in 30 years, none was as important as his equalising goal in the dying minutes of the final game of the campaign against Bohemians at Dalymount Park.

The draw was sufficient to give Dundalk a one-point winning margin.

Of the 1963 title-winning team, only Francie and Patsy McKeown were still at Oriel Park for the 1966-67 treble year which saw the Lilywhites deliver another league title as well as the Shield and Top Four Cup.

He moved to Portadown at the beginning of the 1967-68 season but returned to the League of Ireland by December to finish the season and his playing career with Drumcondra, contributing three goals in 15 appearances.

In 2010 Francie was inducted into Dundalk’s Fame’ ‘Hall of