SHARP EYE FOR A GUNNER
In his 44 years acting as an Arsenal scout, Bill Darby sent over the cream of Irish football and even persuaded Liam Brady to return to the London club after he was almost thrown out
‘I WENT TO ENGLAND TO SEE IF I COULD GET WORK AND I WENT TO CHELSEA FIRST’
THE eyes that sourced more raw material for the Republic of Ireland team than any others may not be as sharp as they used to be, but Bill Darby paints vivid pictures with words. Lots of words. Over the course of a 90-minute chat, he hardly draws breath as he recalls the players he ‘sent over’ to Arsenal during 44 years as the club’s acclaimed Irish scout.
The yarns fly thick and fast, of Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton and Dave O’Leary, and of Keith Fahey, Anthony Stokes and Stephen Bradley.
There are stories of players who slipped through the net, Paul McGrath and Andy Reid, and of one player he held in the highest regard, Kwame Ampadu – ‘better than Brady’, according to Darby.
What makes Bill’s breakneck pace remarkable is his age; he’s almost 92. He attended his first FAI Cup final in 1939 and still chuckles at how his beloved Shelbourne beat Sligo Rovers after a replay.
‘Sligo had Dixie Dean, while Shels were made of cast-offs. It should have been no contest but Shels won the replay when Sacky Glen hit a ball from the half-way line. Sacky was in the building trade and the nicest bloke you’d ever met,’ he says.
In all of his stories, there is a recurring theme of people and of place.
Ned Brady, Liam’s father, used to take cattle to Britain by boat; Joe Haverty’s wife had to go to the garden centre every Sunday afternoon; Niall Quinn’s mother is ‘a lovely lady from Clonmel.’
Darby sits in a large chair in the front room of his home in Whitworth Road. For company, he has Missy, his beloved Labrador.
Out in the hall is an assortment of Russian hats, his trademark apparel for standing around pitches in all weathers.
There is a large TV but he prefers the radio these days to stay up with the play; he still follows football, and Arsenal, avidly.
He felt they were hard done by the referee in the FA Cup earlier this month but predicted they’d be stronger against Chelsea in the League Cup a few days later, which they were.
While he remains red and white to the core, had things taken a different turn almost 50 years ago, he might have found himself scouting for the blue of Stamford Bridge.
‘I managed Longford and was a good while with Drogheda and people were saying to me “you have a knowledge, go test yourself”.
‘So, I did. I went over to England to see could I find work as a scout and the first club I went to was Chelsea. Dave Sexton was manager. I met him and he said, “we have someone in Ireland, thanks.”
‘I said fine and went down to Tottenham. I saw no one there. It was in summertime and they were hammering at the stands.
‘The next day I went to Arsenal and asked for a look around the ground. This fellow showed me around the whole place − the marble halls everything. Gordon Clark was the chief scout then and this fellow said I should write to him, which I did.
‘Clark said he’d come to Dublin to meet me which he did. I said there was plenty of young talent here. And he said, “we’ll give you a go.”’
What unfolded over the next four decades was extraordinary. With Joe Haverty, the former Arsenal and Ireland winger, as his driver, Darby delivered Arsenal a starspangled set of uncut jewels.
Many of them became refined, others were left uncut, but not one was made of glass. By the fireplace, in a plastic Arsenal shopping bag, is a brown envelope. Inside are some of his prized possessions.
There is a full-page from the Evening Herald in 1975, on the Arsenal Irish, and a black and white photo of four shaggy young Dubs – Brady, Stapleton, O’Leary and Johnny Murphy. Three of them became legends of Arsenal, and Ireland, but Murphy got homesick and returned to Greystones, played rugby and was capped for Ireland. Could he have made it? ‘Johnny was a smashing player. He had a ferocious shot and would have made the first team because he was so strong,’ insists Darby. Murphy wasn’t the first to feel the tug of home; for Brady’s career was almost over before it began after he bunked off from Highbury without permission.
‘Bertie Mee rang me one day and said “young Brady hasn’t come back. Can you sort it out?”.
‘I rang his sister and asked her to tell Liam that he was needed at Arsenal. The next thing, Liam rang and said, “I’m not going to apologise to anyone”.
‘I said “Liam I don’t know what you’ve done but I was told to get you on the next plane back” and I did. He could have been thrown out.’
Between them, Brady (307 games), O’Leary (722) and Stapleton (300) − ‘the best header of a ball I sent over’ – made over 1,300 appearances for the Gunners. They also shared 221 caps for Ireland and all captained their country.
Of the three, though, Darby knew Brady was special.
‘At 11, he was playing with lads who were 13 and Bunny Fullam was supposed to be bringing him to Coventry,’ he adds.
‘So I went around to the house in Whitehall and had a great chat with the mother. Liam came in and dropped the gear on the floor. I gave out to him for that. I also said “I’d like to bring you to Arsenal”.
‘He went over, had a trial where he did nothing in the first half but in the second half he started to play and he was outstanding. They decided they’d sign him and had him tied up, even though he couldn’t go over because he was so young.’
Darby’s eye for talent was no fluke, even if not everyone agreed with him.
He felt Pierse O’Leary was a better player than big brother Dave
and took John Devine (‘a great lad’), ‘under my wing’. One player he had no doubts over was Niall Quinn.
‘There was a trial match at Whitehall and Steve Burtenshaw, the chief Arsenal scout, was over. All the Irish scouts were there and one of them said to me “Give Bill Darby the Iron Cross for signing Niall Quinn”.
‘I said, “the laugh will be on the other side of your face when you see how well he does”.
Like Quinn, Pat Scully, Stokes and Fahey all went on to play for Ireland at senior level but Ampadu missed out, much to Darby’s dismay.
‘Kwame was a terrific player, a better player than Brady, he had great skill. When Kwame was up against Cork lads in the schoolboy finals, he’d tip the ball around them and he’d be gone past them in a flash.
‘Shels tried to sign him. I said you needn’t bother, he’s going to Arsenal. Kwame’s an academy coach at Arsenal now, and his son (Ethan) is at Chelsea and has made the Wales international squad.’
Through all the lost weekends spotting potential talent, Darby never learned to drive.
His great friend Haverty was his regular driver for years, even though ‘once we crossed the Liffey, Joe hadn’t a clue where we were’.
He didn’t get rich from his parttime work but the chief reward, apart from being invited by Arsenal to eight FA Cup finals − the first in 1971 where Charlie George scored the winner − was to see the players he scouted for the club make the grade.
‘Once a player was signed I got something, and when he made the first team you got more, and the same again if he played as an international.’
These days, he rarely sees the players whose careers he helped kick start. If or when they do drop by for a chat, though, the welcome in Whitworth Road will be a warm one.