DON’T MISS: THE ALL-IRELAND WINNER WHO BECAME A HERO AT AJAX
The forgotten story of how All-Ireland football winner Jack Kirwan took Amsterdam by storm
ON A summer’s day in Middlesex on July 5, 1953, the Ajax Cricket Club were in the middle of a seven-day tour of England when they faced off against their counterparts from Eastcote, 17 miles west of London.
There was nothing really out of the ordinary for the visitors that Sunday afternoon, until a man approached one of the travelling party and struck up conversation.
‘Suddenly came an old, though still very vital Englishman walking towards me,’ Wim G. Staats wrote in a letter published in Ajax’s official soccer club magazine a month after the trip.
‘He was curious on how it was with the Amsterdam Ajax. After I had told him your prosperity, in regards to health as well as sportsmanship, I naturally asked him why he had so much interest in the Dutch football club. He introduced himself as Mr. John Kirwan and told me that in 1911 he had been the first English trainer of Ajax and that he had been fortunate in that same year to become first class (win promotion).’
Only Jack Kirwan was not English, it just helped his career prospects to play the role. By that point of his life he had spent close to 50 years living in the country, but the former outside left was a 17-times capped Ireland soccer international who was born in Co. Wicklow on February 9, 1878.
At the time Ireland was under British rule and, as Ajax Heritage Manager Carel Berenschot explains, that’s where they wanted to get a coach from.
It was Kirwan who got the job, the board cobbling together the initial one week’s wages while asking members to contribute thereafter. ‘Yes, Jack Kirwan was the first professional manager of Ajax, though manager was not the correct term yet,’ Berenschot says.
‘In 1910 Ajax decided to hire a trainer. The trainer would only train the players. The board of the club would as usual decide every week which player would be in the team. The first trainer had to be a British trainer since soccer was thought to be invented in Great Britain.’
Kirwan’s achievements in the Netherlands helped shape Ajax’s future – guiding the club to the Dutch top flight for the first time after going an entire season unbeaten.
‘I will always remember the kindness and treatment I received from the club and supporters,’ Kirwan said in a letter to the Ajax club magazine in 1953. ‘I wish them every success in the future. I will remember the night we returned to Amsterdam the night we became first class. What a grand reception the team had. Well, I have had all the football honours a footballer could have. From English cap and many more. But never had better reception than that night.’
Just as compelling is the path Kirwan took to get there, and the hardship he would endure when his soccer career was allowed to fade from memory.
LONG before his adventure in Amsterdam, Kirwan led an altogether more traditional sporting life on this island. After moving to Dublin as an infant with his parents, he went on to become a key member of the Young Ireland senior football side of the 1890s.
Comprised primarily of Guinness workers, the Wicklow native was involved in two All-Ireland finals for the Dubs during that decade.
Kirwan was a waif of a player – 5ft 7in and a little over 10 stone – but still managed to star for his side and boasted a winners’ medal from the 1894 replayed showpiece with Cork, which actually took place the following year on April 21 in Thurles.
The outcome wasn’t determined on the pitch, however, as the GAA awarded Dublin the victory after Cork fans invaded the pitch and attacked a number of the rival players minutes before the end.
On February 6, 1898, Limerick triumphed over Dublin and five months later the 20-year-old made a decision that would alter the course of his life.
Kirwan emigrated to Britain and focused his energies on soccer, forg- ing a reputation for himself at Tottenham Hotspur – via one season at Everton who paid £250 for him in 1898 following a bidding war with Blackburn Rovers – as one of the most technically gifted players of his generation.
‘In his opening season at White Hart Lane, Kirwan helped Spurs win the Southern League Championship and was one of the club’s star performers,’ it reads in The Spurs Alphabet: Complete Who’s Who of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
‘An out-and-out winger, he did not appear to have the physique to overcome the often robust challenges of the defenders of the day, but in fact had such an abundance of skill that defenders were rarely able to get close enough to tackle him.
‘Very fast, with a nimble knack of suddenly stopping, throwing his marker off balance and changing direction, he formed a devastating partnership with David Copeland.’
A modern day Damien Duff, perhaps with more than a hint of the technically supreme Wes Hoolahan. Still, the name Jack Kirwan has somehow remained largely unknown, likewise his achievements.
A teetotal, non-smoker who became the first Tottenham player to be capped for Ireland, his name is still etched in the English history books after helping the club win the FA Cup in 1901.
Spurs had yet to gain entry into the Football League at the time and remain the only non-league club to lift the trophy after a 3-1 replay win over Sheffield United at Bolton’s Burnden Park.
Kirwan received a £24 bonus as a result but would soon be earning
85 When Ajax found out about Jack Kirwan’s financial hardship during the 1950s, they promptly organised a fundraiser and raised 85 Guilders
The board was adamant they needed a British trainer, but the man they got was in fact a hero of Dublin GAA
more money elsewhere in London. After six seasons, 343 games and 90 goals for Spurs, Kirwan and partner in crime Copeland were poached in 1905 by a newly-formed club established in the west of the city by a partnership of millionaire businessmen.
Chelsea FC were making their mark and the capture of the star duo was met with ‘surprise and disappointment’, according to “The Spurs Alphabet”.
Kirwan wasn’t able to recreate the glory days of White Hart Lane, but did ensure his name would remain a central figure in Chelsea’s history. He was part of their first ever starting XI for a Football League fixture against Stockport on September 2, 1905, and scored in the 9-2 win over Glossop North End the following season which remains a club-record victory.
That is when the 27-year-old’s playing career began to decline. Eventually, following spells with Clyde in Scotland and Leyton Orient back in the south of England, Kirwan, aged 32, turned his hand to coaching. And so, Ajax came calling, with the AllIreland winner happy to play the role of cultured Englishman in order to land the job.
‘Kirwan came and it made the difference, Ajax managed to be promoted to the highest division,’ Berenschot adds, before revealing how their famous white-red-white strip came about.
‘Since the club Sparta from Rotterdam already used striped shirts, Ajax had to choose a new shirt. It was not Kirwan’s actual decision, but it was his success with the club that was responsible for the introduction of the red strip in the middle.’
Three years later, however, Ajax suffered relegation back to the second division and following the outbreak of World War I, Kirwan and his wife Edith returned to Britain with their two daughters, Eileen and Maureen. H IS travelling was far from over, a one-year spell with AS Livorno in Italy was followed by a final brief taste of life in Ireland during the 1924-25 season with Bohemians, where he assisted trainer Charlie Harris as the Gypsies finished second in the League of Ireland. Soon, though, he was back at his home in the town of Pinner, Middlesex, where he encountered financial strife.
Ajax became aware of his troubles and organised a benefit in his honour, sending 85 Guilders, a gesture which prompted Kirwan to write to the club and express his appreciation. ‘I can’t be grateful enough to Ajax and her members for the goodness to support me in my unfortunate time. When your great gift of f. 85 came in, I was absolutely without means and lived from day to day. I tried to find a position, but to date without success. ‘If [club secretary] Jan Grootmeijer hears s o met hi n g for a trainer then I hope that he will do his best for me as my situation is very bad and what my Dutch friends have done for me, I shall never forget. ‘Therefore once more thanks to all the members for their help. Something that has brought me great joy is the excellent game of Ajax in London. Without a flaw has this game been played and I have complimented Jack Reynolds on this performance.
‘We hope that the chant “Hup Ajax” may long blare over the fields for our First Classers.’
Ajax went on to become Kings of Europe in 1971, ’72, ’73 and then again in 1995, while Kirwan endured financial struggles before his death in Pinner, Middlesex in 1959.
Plenty of adventure and success was packed into those 80 years, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.