Best ever XI?

After reading KildareFans post in the highlights thread, it brought back memories of many great players playing for County, so in your own opinions who were the players who stood out for you? Whether it was for their undeniable talents, the fact that they always gave 110% in the county shirt or maybe you just had a soft spot for them. Please leave some in this thread!

GK: Danny O'Leary - Was only there for a while when I supported the club anyway, but he was the best player I can seem to remember playing between the sticks for us, a gentleman too. Not a position we were extremely spoilt with in my years anyway. (wasnt there for Wayne Russell)

LB: Darren Stapleton / Keith O'Brien - Stapo was our best player IMO when he played for us, nearly too good for us I thought. Surging runs down the left wing, scored goals, solid in the tackle, no suprise to see him go to Rovers. Keith on the other hand was also a very good full back I thought, was the first player who stood out for me in a county jersey anyway. Didn't stand out as much as Stapo but we did have a much better squad back then.

RB: Ger O'Brien - Fantastic player for us, still going strong too which is great to see. Got capped for the Irish U.23 squad too if I remember correctly? Captained us at one stage also.

CB: Ray Kenny - Think he was captain for the 2004 season anyway, my first season as a fan. Solid as a rock normally in centre back.

CB: Philly Byrne - Is he our most capped player? Certainly up there, remained loyal to us for a long time and who can blame him for leaving in the end. Another ex-captain.

LM: Cathal Brady - I'm going to give this to Dotsy, thought he was a great player and arguably our best over the past few seasons, stayed with the club till the last since he joined us a few seasons ago and despite him being unlucky with injuries lately was always better to have him than not.

RM: Shay Zellor - IMO, the biggest county legend of all time, dont know what it was about him but he was just fantastic despite not being the most talented player we ever had. His goal v Bohs obviously helps:)

CM: Stephen Cooling - This is a position where I can't think of anyone who stands out above all the rest, but for pure ability I'll give this to Cooling who was a great ball player and could take a mean free kick.

CM: Ray Scully / Alan Byrne - I gave the other CM spot for pure ability, but this one goes to these lads for the opposite, the fact they never gave up and always gave their all. Something I didn't like about Scully for some reason, maybe his spells with many rival clubs? So I'd be tempted to pip Alan Byrne in there ahead of him.

ST: Philly Gorman - 1st ever goalscorer for the club, a local too, hailing from Brownstown. Had 2 stints with the club (was it 3 even?), and never stopped scoring, was a shame to see him go to Shels when he did, would have been fitting for him to score our last ever goal too. Ex-captain.

ST: Philly Hughes - Throughout a great career in the LoI, at one stage him being one of the most feared strikers in the country possibly, he had 3 spells with Kildare County in each of which he was a goal scorer and a leader, fair enough he may no longer be the Philly Hughes of old but still scored a goal or two this season. Managed the side in our last ever game too, fair play.


Other shouts go out to Barry O'Connor and Martin Reilly who were great goalscorers and people too, Barry having stayed on in assistant manager role to John Ryan and I've seen Martin at games since he was forced into retirement.

Robbie Shields, Dave Scully, James Igwilo, who were all just personal favourites of mine. 3 players with fantastic ability and were all top notch whenever I talked to them off the pitch, even have jerseys with "Igwilo" and "Shields" on the back :cool:

I'm sure I have left out plenty of players above and hopefully all county fans will have their own different opinions!

Ok, here is my attempt

GK - Wayne Russell. In my opinion, the best player who ever played for us. I said in another post that Dermot Keely going to Derry probably cost us promotion in 2003 but actually him taking Russell with him was just as big a factor even though Danny O'Leary was an able replacement. Could have been worth 10-15 points to us over the course of a season but unfortunately he injured his knee on his Derry debut and never played again. Honourable mentions: Danny O'Leary, Gareth Byrne, Austin O'Neill

RB - Ger O'Brien. A really top class full back who was our player of the year in 2005. Fulfilled his potential with Shamrock Rovers and developed into one of the best full backs into the league.

CB - Philly Byrne made more appearances than anybody else for the club and never gave anything less than 100%, deserved to be in a better Kildare team than he was.

CB - Damian Brennan. He was more of a right full for us but he developed into a top class centre half with Longford and Shels, he scored a great goal one day in a 3-2 over Galway.

Honourable mentions: Alan Byrne, Ray Kenny, Alan Keely.

LB - Darren Stapleton - Turned out to be a brilliant signing by John Ryan after just coming back from Reading. He loved to get forward and I really expected him to have the same kind of impact that Ger O'Brien had at Shamrock Rovers but it never worked out for him.

Honourable mentions: James O'Callaghan, Robbie Clarke, Barry Clancy

RW - Shay Zeller. If he never played another game for the club, he would have to be int this team for the winner against Bohs but he was much more than that for us. Lightening quick with a great eye for a goal and it was a real pity when he had to give up the game because of a back injury.

Honourable mentions: Cathal Brady, Alan McNevin

CM - Ben Whelehan. Flitted between centre half and centre mid for us. Nicknamed "The Terminator" by fans at the time because he was hard as nails. Another who went onto better things after leaving the club.

CM - Stephen Cooling. Hit double figures from midfield in 2006 and was the definition of a set piece specialist, any free within 30 yards was a goalscoring threat with him around.

Honourable mentions: Ray Scully, Gareth Cooney, Peter Rogers, Cathal O'Connor, Marc Kenny, Shane Harte

LW - Alan Kelly - Was brilliant for us in our first season in the league. He actually scored our first league goal against Waterford. Had a classy left foot and was another who was always a goal threat.
Honourable mentions: James Igwilo

CF - Philly Gorman. Club legend and the team never seemed the same when wasn't with the club. Scored more goals than anybody else including the first ever, he definitely was a local boy come good.

CF - Philly Hughes. 3 seperate spells at the club with plenty of goals in them all. Was still scoring for the club right up to the end.

Honourable mentions: Barry O'Connor, John Ryan, Martin Reilly, Ciaran Kilduff, Padraig Amond, Ger Robinson.

GK Wayne Russell
RB Damian Brennan
CB Ben Whelehan
CB Ray Kenny
LF Mark Hutchison
RM Shay Zellor
CM Marc Kenny
CM Cathal O'Connor
LM Shane Harte
CF Martin Reilly
CF Philip Hughes

What was your best moment/performance ever? Am I imagining it or did ye knock Bohs out of the cup once?

Commiserations for what's happened to ye. It looked when ye started out that ye had great potential, but never really happened. Great club though, any fans I spoke to were sound. Fans of small clubs (I include all LoI clubs in that) are a better class of person anyway. Fair play to ye for keeping things going as long as you did.

No your not imagining it at all. We really did beat Bohs at Dalymount.
At the time we all thought we were imagining it.:)
Shay Zellor scored the only goal late in the first half to put us into the quarterfinals.
It happened around Friday 20th August 2004 or there abouts ;)

see here

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Originally Posted by Kildareman

It happened around Friday 20th August 1004 or there abouts ;)

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Jesus I didn't think Shay Zellor was that old? :eek:

OK so there might be some puzzled faces when they see some players on my team, but I have a strange understanding of the word "best". Also this is only based from Hannigan on

GK - Darren Kelly, I honestly think that without this guy in goals for us in the second half of the season we would have let in well over 200 goals, the man got a great ovation from the Waterford crowd a few weeks back and he looks a very solid keeper with great reflexes

RB - Ger O'Brien, without a doubt one of the best players ever at the club, himself and Reilly are the only players ever to play every game of the season for the club and there was a good reason for this. He was rarely beaten and he did get forward and score a few great goals

LB - Darren Stapleton, this one was a hard choice as Robbie Clarke was another great defender for the club, but I think just for his bursting run that lead to a great diving header goal from Gorman I had to give it to Stapo

CB - Liam Tiernan, at first I wasn't too sure about him, I thought Lawerence was a much stronger defender but in the last few weeks Tiernan really did shine pulling off some great tackles and goal line clearences

I'll finish it off tomorrow because I am really shattered

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Originally Posted by De Town

Jesus I didn't think Shay Zellor was that old? :eek:

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Fixed;)

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Originally Posted by christo

OK so there might be some puzzled faces when they see some players on my team, but I have a strange understanding of the word "best". Also this is only based from Hannigan on

GK - Darren Kelly, I honestly think that without this guy in goals for us in the second half of the season we would have let in well over 200 goals, the man got a great ovation from the Waterford crowd a few weeks back and he looks a very solid keeper with great reflexes

RB - Ger O'Brien, without a doubt one of the best players ever at the club, himself and Reilly are the only players ever to play every game of the season for the club and there was a good reason for this. He was rarely beaten and he did get forward and score a few great goals

LB - Darren Stapleton, this one was a hard choice as Robbie Clarke was another great defender for the club, but I think just for his bursting run that lead to a great diving header goal from Gorman I had to give it to Stapo

CB - Liam Tiernan, at first I wasn't too sure about him, I thought Lawerence was a much stronger defender but in the last few weeks Tiernan really did shine pulling off some great tackles and goal line clearences

I'll finish it off tomorrow because I am really shattered

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Right well it took me a while to get back to it so here it goes

CB - Philip Byrne, most capped player for the club and was always solid even for such a young age

RW - Shay Zellor, from what I saw of him he was dedicated beyond belief, as mentioned before he might not have been the skillful player but his never give up play made up for that, plus he scored that glorious goal v bohs

CM - Stephen Cooling, was another great player that John Ryan brought in. Very good on the ball scored some great goals from open play and from set pieces

CM - David Jackson, like Zellor he may not have been as technically good as Cooling, but I thought he ran his socks off most matches and he did score a screamer against Limerick. When playing as a ACM he had very good movement, I mean how many players can break shelbournes backline 3 times in a match, if only he put away 1 of those 3 chances though

LM - Cathal Brady, I thought long and hard about this and I think in the time I followed the club we were never really blessed with a good left winger. I chose dotsy because despite being in my eyes a right winger he played on the left the odd time and he saw the club out.

CF - Martin Reilly, our highest ever goal scorer in a single season and the second player to be capped in every match for a season alongside Ger, was a great player

CF - Ger Robinson, was a tough call to make for this one but I think Ger has to get it for his initial stint in the club when he scored something like 9 goals in 9 appearences, granted he had a poor full season with us but I think we looked back on it and the other forwards that season scored about 2 goals from open play when they played alongside Kilduff

Other players that deserve a mention are:

Danny O'Leary - for obvious reasons
Colin Cassidy - Was always a great shot stopper and I think if there was an experienced keeper in the club alongside him to teach him about postioning and when to rush out he could have been a great keeper for the club
Aussie O'Neill - Always liked him as a keeper and I even have his jersey hanging up in me bedroom
Paul Donnelly - Played despite being told he shouldn't play football anymore, was the only player performing well in the first half of the first leg in Mervue last year
Robbie Clarke - was a solid defender
Ray Kenny - again obvious reasons
Alan McNevin - I always liked him despite having a lot of injury problems (I think) for the year I saw him play
Philip Gorman - Obviously a crowd favourite and there were times we didn't look like scoring without him, you could say he was our Robbie Keane
Baba Isaaka - May not have been the best full back per se, but the crowd loved him, he was very strong in the air and he looked composed on the ball. Always put in a good performance as a DCM
Gar Cooney - I always thought he was a good player and I remember his brace down in Limerick at the last game of the season where he doubled his goal tally and nearly became club topscorer for the season
Padraig Amond - I will always look at his goal he scored against Kilkenny as one of the best team goals ever to be scored by us, and his is probably the player who went on to the biggest thing from this club
Trevor Bowers - Scored the last ever goal for the club
Andy Cousins - I thought he had potential to be a good player
Colin Fortune - had a good head on him and his introduction at halftime against Mervue really changed the match
Alan McDermott was always a favourite of mine as well
Darren McKenna - on his day he could case a lot of trouble for other defenses and seemed to win a lot of frees
David Scully was another favourite of mine, mainly for the contreversy that he could bring to a game
Dean Lawrence - Looks like he can be a very good defender in the league
David O'Connel - same as Dean and very unlucky after the injury against Wexford in that friendly

and finally

Dean Barrett - Purely for his Diego Forlan hair the first time he was at the club and then his hat-trick against Mervue for his second stint

GK: Russell - simply class
RB: O'Brien - see above
CB: Kenny - think we had him in his prime
CB: Whelehan - great player, won everything
LB: Stapleton - so good going forward, playing in the Blue Square league now
LM: Igwilo - never realized his potential, but man was he good on his day
RM: Zellor - always gave his all, bloody quick too
CM: Kenny - a different class when he was up for it
CM: Cooling - great eye for goal
ST: Gorman - legend
ST: Hughes - always gonna get goals

Subs:
O'Leary
O'Connor
McNevin
Harte
Daisy

Manager: Keely
Asst: Gill

Oh forgot to mention John Ryan, he may not have got the results but he did bring Cooling, Brady, Stapleton and Amond to the club and they've got in a lot of peoples best XI, also he was at the club for 6 of the 7 years the club was around

Would love to know where all these lads are now football wise.