Great survivor of Irish game adding unlikely new chapter

From Charlton era to his new managerial role at Dundalk aged 67, life with King is never dull

It’s a snapshot in time that throws up memories. It goes back to the era when Irish football was at its peak, with a senior international team that was comfortable in the company of the best eight teams in the world. One of the photos accompanying this piece, of the Ireland bench during the game against England in the 1990 World Cup, has 19 people in its frame.

Some have left this life (Jack Charlton, Maurice Setters, Maurice Price and Alan McLoughlin) some are happily still with us (Charlie O’Leary) but the only face in that photo who is active in the game today is Noel King – then a coach to the Irish team at Italia ’90.

Today, King is manager of Dundalk, who face the potential ignominy of relegation. The Co Louth club will learn if their new boss, who links the two worlds that are 34 years apart, can be the great saviour as well as the great survivor.

Twenty years and two days after he last managed a team in the men’s League of Ireland, Noel King took charge of Dundalk last night at home to Bohemians.

It was a most unlikely appointment given his age (67), long absence from men’s club football (20 years), and the size of the task of keeping the 2019 Premier

Division champions in that league.

The appointment of King is likely to be either a masterstroke by Dundalk owner and King associate Brian Ainscough or a disaster.

The social media reaction in Dundalk to his appointment was not positive, including one post by the father of a current Dundalk player, the only printable part of which is “Dundalk employ him the game is gone”.

King does not inhabit that sphere so he brushed off those negative vibes in his media engagement in Dundalk earlier this week. But he will soon learn that the world of management he worked in 20 years ago is different to today’s.

As always with King, there will be no middle ground. Dundalk are in a fight for their footballing lives and they have picked a warrior from another era.

King was in the dugout in Oriel Park last night and over the next month he will do battle with managers from another generation – King is 28 years older than Stephen Bradley.

The archives show King is indeed a survivor. Of the graduating class of 18 coaches from the FAI’s inaugural UEFA pro licence course in 2009, King is the only one who is managing a team right now.

Timing was not always on his side. As a coach, King left Derry City just before their treble success. He was Shamrock Rovers manager just after their four-ina-row triumph while his successor at the Hoops, Ray Treacy, won a league title.

He had spells on the coaching staff with Bohemians and Shelbourne but never landed the manager’s job outright at either club. His main prize from coaching in the men’s game was a League Cup with Limerick in 1992.

King did deliver silverware in women’s club football, with Shelbourne’s backto-back titles (2021-2022) and took the Irish U-17 girls’ team to a historic World Cup finals.

It is odd timing that King’s last act in the men’s side of League of Ireland football was 20 years ago this very week: he stepped down as Finn Harps manager six games into the season, in April 2004.

He left because he struggled to juggle his commitments as manager of the Ireland women’s team and the travelling to Donegal from Dublin.

The League of Ireland scene in 2024 is vastly different to that era – though Harps still play out of a stadium that was outdated 20 years ago and even now have to play on Fridays at 6.0pm due to deficient floodlights.

King came into management when the same names bounced around on the merry-go-round; there was always regular work for the likes of Jim McLaughlin, Eamonn Gregg, Damien Richardson, Dermot Keely and Pat Byrne. And Noel King.

He was also ready to drop in as a firefighter when needed: when a title-chasing Bohemians hit a sticky spell around 1993, King was added to the coaching staff by the board – over the head of manager Gregg – to add some steel in a ‘bad cop’ role.

In 2001, he helped Shelbourne by filling in for a spell as interim manager when Keely took a break for health reasons.

There was another call to arms in 2003 from Harps when he was tasked with getting them out of the First Division, with mixed success – a six-game winning streak before missing out on promotion following a bad-tempered playoff loss to Derry City. He left early in the 2004 season.

It was in his years on the FAI staff that King really finessed the art of survival. He managed the senior women’s team from 2000-2010, doubling up as coach of the U-17s with the huge achievement of a runner-up spot at the Euros in 2010.

He then took those U-17s to a World Cup finals and almost got the senior side to the Euros in 2009, making the best of resources that were vastly inferior to the backing given to Eileen Gleeson’s set-up today.

The FAI moved things around in 2010, ushering Don Givens out of his men’s U-21 role and adding King to that ticket.

There was an immediate impact – a side which had gone seven games without a win under Givens beat Estonia 5-0 in King’s first game.

But despite highs like a thrilling 4-2 win away to Italy, with nine men, a feat so impressive that the onlooking Arrigo Sacchi came down to King to congratulate him on the victory, qualification at U-21 level eluded him.

King was a part of the FAI furniture to the extent that the board turned to their company man in 2013 to take interim charge of the senior side in the wake of Giovanni Trapattoni’s axing – a 3-0 loss in Germany and then a win at home to Kazakhstan.

King was proud of his work (a 3-0 loss in Germany compared favourably to the 6-1 home defeat to them under Trapattoni) and he remains the only one of Ireland’s four caretaker managers (Seán Thomas, Don Givens, King and John O’Shea) to earn a win.

For some, a bizarre and at times confrontational post-match interview with RTÉ’s Tony O’Donoghue was more memorable than the games.

King accused his questioner of “denigrating” his players which led to strong commentary from panellists Eamon Dunphy and John Giles after the win over Kazakhstan.

“He’s been shown to be out of his depth, way, way out of his depth,” Dunphy said on the panel after the game, while the more sober voice of Giles said King had been “immature” in his TV interview.

King had a voice which he was happy to use on his employers’ behalf.

In April 2017, when tensions were high around the time of a proposed strike by the senior Ireland women’s team, in protest at their conditions and overall treatment by the FAI, King was rolled out on Morning Ireland to make the FAI’s case.

Solicitor

He stuck to the FAI line and attacked Stuart Gilhooly, the solicitor attached to the PFAI who were representing the players, but his ill-tempered radio exchange and blunt defence of the FAI caused even more damage.

“Everyone is entitled to their opinion and Noel works for the FAI. It’s disappointing to hear from someone who has worked at the helm for so long,” Ireland player Karen Duggan said at the time.

Having left his U-21 post in 2018, he took on a newly-created role of player identification manager and then moved into women’s club football, guiding Shels to success but, again, with casualties and controversy.

In 2021, he caused hurt when, on live TV, he ungraciously taunted then Peamount United player Áine O’Gorman after they lost to Galway, allowing his Shels side to win the league at Peamount’s expense.

“How many did it finish, Áine?” King quipped, an added insult after an earlier comment of “I love Galway girls, always have done”.

King made clear in his interviews this week that he’s happy to ignore brickbats, pretend social media doesn’t exist, and take the punches. His aim is to deliver trophies and points, not win friends.

Whether his manners and ways make sense in 2024 remains to be seen.

“I can walk around Dublin with my head held high, I was happy to be the Ireland manager for a spell,” King said after his time as caretaker boss of the men’s senior team in 2013.

The coming weeks at Dundalk will define his legacy.

Whatever happens, it won’t be dull under Irish football’s great survivor.

‘King had a voice which he was happy to use on his employers’ behalf’

From scoring a title-clinching winner last week to lifting the League One trophy seven days ago, moments like these have been a long time coming for Conor Shaughnessy. Sitting in his kitchen at home on England’s south coast, the Galway man admits he’s only just coming back down to earth after a whirlwind fortnight.

Having been top of the league since January, Shaughnessy’s last-minute header against Barnsley earlier this month saw Portsmouth crowned champions and sealed their return to the Championship after a 12-year absence.

After leaving his home of Oughterard at 16 to cross the water in the hope of making his dream a reality, the gut-wrenching setbacks the 27-year-old has had to deal with during his time in England have made this month’s success all the more sweeter.

But it hasn’t always been like this. After being released by Reading aged 19 and left out in the cold, the former Ireland U-21 cap admits at one point he seriously considered packing his bags, returning home to Galway and calling a day on his dream.

“That was probably the toughest moment of my career. I hadn’t broken into Reading’s first team, which was the goal going over, and then it was a question of ‘what next?’,” said Shaughnessy, speaking to the Irish Independent ahead of Pompey’s final game of the season away to Lincoln City today (12.30).

“At one point I questioned whether it was the right time to pack it in, come home, maybe go back to university and call it a day. But luckily I had good people around me, my parents were massive in encouraging me to stick at it.

“I went on trial then at Leeds, got my foot in the door and kicked on from there. It was a fresh start, but being let go was definitely one of the most testing times of my career.

“Coming home was definitely a serious thought in my mind. You see it with so many young Irish players, [they] come over and it doesn’t work out. It’s very difficult to get back into it unless you get a little bit of luck. It’s a game of opinions and you really have to have someone to give you a chance. Luckily I found that at Leeds and got into firstteam football.

“There has been a lot of ups and downs here over the years but now it’s become home. I have met my partner and got two kids so it’s going very well. That goal [against Barnsley] was the best moment of my career, there is no better feeling. Growing up, coming from a small place in Galway, it’s literally what you dream of.”

It seems like a lifetime ago since the centre-half was faced with that career crossroads, and from his experience he thinks some clubs could do a lot better in supporting newly-released players.

“It was more like, ‘you’re on your own now’ to be honest. Your contract runs until the end of June, the season finishes around April/May, and you get told a couple of weeks before they’re not taking you on for the next year,” said Shaughnessy, who spent two seasons at Burton Albion before arriving at Fratton Park last summer.

“Then you’re kind of scrambling for somewhere with not much help. It’s definitely a ruthless game and a business for these clubs. I hope it’s a lot better for young players now, but back then I don’t think they looked after players as well as they could have.

Stronger

“It’s just, ‘we don’t think you’re good enough, go and find somewhere else’. That’s it really, you don’t hear anything from them after that. Thank God I came through it and am stronger because of it, but 90pc of stories probably end with [Irish players] coming home and packing it in. That’s a shame. It’s something that should be dealt with a lot better.”

After the Reading setback, Shaughnessy impressed enough at Leeds to earn an initial one-year contract in 2017 before signing a four-year deal at Elland Road the following year.

Although nine first-team appearances followed before he embarked on three loan spells, further frustration was to come as injury and some managerial changes limited his first-team opportunities at Leeds.

“The first couple of years at Leeds were brilliant, playing with the reserves and getting a chance with the first team,” continued Shaughnessy, who played his youth football with Mervue United and Salthill Devon.

“I was very unlucky with a bad [ankle] injury to be honest, I was out for six months. There were a couple of manager changes and then when I came back, I was playing catch-up really.

“After the first loan, it was made very difficult for me to get back in at Leeds. There were no opportunities given to me at all so again, it’s a ruthless business. I got out, it didn’t finish the way anyone wanted but it was just a case of getting somewhere where I could play regular football every week.”

Having crossed the water as a teenager, it took until the 2021/’22 season for the Galway man to register his first 30-plus match season as he settled in at League One Burton Albion. When it’s put to him that his career has proved a little stop-start up until recently, Shaughnessy doesn’t disagree.

“It’s a bit of a shame there’s been a delay in me getting a full run of a couple of seasons.

“The stop-start has been because of different reasons, a lot of them out of my control, a couple of injuries and a couple of times I have probably been mistreated by certain people,” he said.

“It’s a ruthless game. When I went out on the loans at Leeds, you were never really given a chance when you came back. As a younger player, that’s what you kind of expect, just to be given a fair crack at it. I feel like that was never the case.

“It was made very difficult [for me] to get out of the club. It’s a side of the game I don’t enjoy and a side people probably don’t see a lot of until you’re inside it. I’m glad to be away from all that and enjoying my football again.

“It has put a delay on me having these last few seasons, so I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity at Portsmouth. To play 40-plus games, it couldn’t have gone much better.”

Having played every minute of Portsmouth’s League One triumph since the second game of the season, this year has also been memorable off the pitch as Shaughnessy and his partner Lucy welcomed their second child last February, eventually.

“It was a stressful three weeks,” he laughs. “The due date was February 5 and we had Carlisle away on the 10th. When I saw that fixture, the furthest you could possibly go from Portsmouth, I thought ‘Jesus Christ, I need this baby to come early!’

“It was very tight at the top, so the manager didn’t really want to change the team. Someone drove my car up there so I was able to get straight home afterwards. Nothing happened that night, but 24 hours later we had the baby so it was good timing, she waited for me to come home!”

One target he also has sights on is an Ireland call-up. Having been capped all the way up to U-21 level, sharing the pitch with current internationals like Josh Cullen and fellow Galway man Ryan Manning, he admits the senior step up remains a dream.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to go on to senior level but the stop-start career from then until now has made it more difficult,” he said.

“But it’s still something I’m clinging on to and dreaming of. I need to be playing at the highest level possible. The standard of players in my position in the Irish team is incredible, but it’s something I’ll never give up on.”

As he prepares for Championship football next season, never giving up is a trait that has been central in Shaughnessy’s story.

“I questioned whether it was the right time to pack it in and come home” Conor Shaughnessy