Patrick O'Connell - La Liga winning manager

I was reading the book Green Devils and it mentioned Patrick O'Connell, who was the first Irish captain of Man United. Then, almost as a throwaway line, it said that he won La Liga managing Real Betis and he was also in charge of Barcelona! I'd be curious if anyone has any more info on him, he sounds like a fascinating character, I'll have to admit I hadn't heard of him before now.

remember hearing about him quite alot a few years ago and as far as i know there is a book written about him and his time in Spain.

Will see if i can locate the info for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick...ish_footballer)

I first read about him in Jimmy Burns' book "Barca"

His grand daughter was writing a book about him, as she contacted me about some research I had done on him.

This was a couple of years ago, no sign of a book yet.

http://www.irlandeses.org/0803burns1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick...sh_footballer)

Sounds like a bit of a gangster, no wonder he's gone under the radar

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Originally Posted by Dodge

I first read about him in Jimmy Burns' book "Barca"

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Yeah, that's the only place I've come across him. I don't recall that it had all that much information on him. I expect anything interesting has already made it onto the wikipedia page.

check out the first link in my post above. Pretty detailed reading on the guy.

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

Sounds like a bit of a gangster, no wonder he's gone under the radar

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jaysus, can't see where you'd get that

Surely somebody should be writing a book on this fella there's not many Irish managers who have won La Liga.
Someone should get his story down on print this is as interesting as the Brother Walfrid story at Celtic.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dodge

jaysus, can't see where you'd get that

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Not sure if your being sarcastic?

Thanks for all the info, after looking at the wikipedia entry, surprising he isn't at least as well known as Liam Whelan or Johnny Carey.

interesting article about the Ireland team of that era here too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland...2%E2%80%931950)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DeLorean

Sounds like a bit of a gangster, no wonder he's gone under the radar

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Looks like one in page two of the article by Burns. Shades of Buggsy Moran with that big hat.

Bit of an update...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-norther...426450?SThisFB

https://www.facebook.com/POConnellme...type=1&theater

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/...a9&oe=54C7F58B

Note to Mods, two other threads on him, you might like to link, years old. One in World Football and the other in 'Off Topic'.