camondunphy

SPECIAL CITY'S REBELLIOUS STREAK RESONATES WITH US

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meath man who served as an MP in the House of Commons and ran on the Irish Nationalist Party ticket?

TP O'Connor was MP from 1885 until 1929 for a district of Liverpool which had a huge Irish population.

So are we surprised to know there are so many Irish fans of that club?

What you may not know is that Everton, rather than Liverpool, was the first English club to sign an Irishman and later the first English club to have an Irish supporters club, based in Dublin.

But by the early 1970s allegiances were switching from blue to red at least in Ireland.

Steve Heighway, a colleague with me at Ireland in that era, was a big reason for that, Liverpool becoming serial winners of English and European trophies from 1974 onwards, Heighway a key figure on those winning teams.

On to the 1980s and the trophies kept coming. They won six league titles in that decade, as well as two European Cups.

And along the way there were Irish stars on their team-sheet: Heighway, Ronnie Whelan, Steve Staunton, Mick Robinson, Jim Beglin, Mark Lawrenson, Ray Houghton and John Aldridge. Those were great Liverpool teams and great Irish and Liverpool players.