Here's some big names who played in the LOI

**CollegeTillIDie** · 19/03/2006, 9:35 AM

Gordon Banks ( St. Patrick's Athletic)
England World Cup Winning goalkeeper in 1966

Terry McDermott (Cork City)
Former Liverpool European Cup winner and England international played for Cork City in their debut season of LOI membership 1984/85.

Bobby Charlton (Waterford)
Former ManUre and England World Cup winning great from 1966.

George Best (Cork Celtic)
Probably the best player ever to emerge from either part of Ireland.

Jimmy Johnstone ( Shelbourne)
Former Celtic and Scotland great recently deceased

Uwe Seeler (Cork Celtic)
German forward who played for West Germany in the 1966 World Cup Final

John "Dixie" Deans ( Shelbourne)
Played for the last few years of the 9-in-a-row Celtic Scottish League winners.

Feel free to add some more

**hoopy** · 19/03/2006, 9:51 AM

Pat Byrne, Liam Buckley, Alan Campbell, John Coady, Peter Eccles.......

**Gareth** · 19/03/2006, 11:28 AM

Ian Rush (one game for Shels

)

Some socttish lad played for Home Farm for 45 minutes. Archibald?

**pineapple stu** · 19/03/2006, 11:49 AM

Steve, I think.

**Student Mullet** · 19/03/2006, 12:04 PM

Efan Ekoku

**DmanDmythDledge** · 19/03/2006, 12:20 PM

I'm not trying to complain but is it any big deal that a few big name players were paid high amounts just to feature in the odd game or two. I know that this helped increase crowds, but did it help achieve anything in the long run. I think we would be better off focusing on the players that have made a success of their careers after using the Eircom League as a springboard to launch their career.

**Dodge** · 19/03/2006, 12:28 PM

Friendlies don't count Gareth

**pineapple stu** · 19/03/2006, 12:29 PM

Jimmy-Lee Billy-Bob Matthews Maher at UCD is a fairly big name.

**CollegeTillIDie** · 19/03/2006, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by dmandmythdledge

I'm not trying to complain but is it any big deal that a few big name players were paid high amounts just to feature in the odd game or two. I know that this helped increase crowds, but did it help achieve anything in the long run. I think we would be better off focusing on the players that have made a success of their careers after using the Eircom League as a springboard to launch their career.

Well if you want to try to attract barstoolers to the League, there's no reason why that cannot be incorporated into this thread. So get the ball rolling then...

**Mr A** · 19/03/2006, 12:45 PM

Paul McGrath played for Pats.....

**dcfcsteve** · 19/03/2006, 12:45 PM

Can't believe you've missed the obvious Roy Keane and Paul McGrath !

There's 2 broad categories of 'big name' who've played in the LOI. Sadly most are in the first, which is the journey-men players at the twilight stages of their career. Brazilian legend Socrates played a few games for Garforth town in the English tiddly-winks non-league division earlier this season. That doesn't mean a thing. Garforth, and the division they play in, are both still very weak.

The second broad category is local boys who are starting out in their careers. The overseas scouting systems will always miss out on the occassional good talent, and unless they leave football all together they'll naturally end up in the EL ate some point early in their career. McGrath and Keano are 2 classic examples of this. Kevin Doyle could prove to be another one. This group bring much more credibility to our league than the ageing seniors looking for their last pieces of gold before their legs finally give-in on them. People love the whole bragging rights of 'oh I remember watching Roy Keane when he was playing for Cobh at 18yrs old. I could tell then he'd go on to be something special'. Sadly though, very few additional people would be atracted to our game in the hope of 'unearthing' tomorrow's big talents.

**DmanDmythDledge** · 19/03/2006, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

Well if you want to try to attract barstoolers to the League, there's no reason why that cannot be incorporated into this thread. So get the ball rolling then...

First of all CTID I don't even know what you said means. The point I was trying to make was that the Eircom League has plenty of good players that can make a success of themselves in England, or other leagues. I noticed Efan Ekoku's name was mentioned. I don't see how he could be considered a better player than Jason Byrne, Kevin Doyle, even Eamon Zayed maybe. Hopefully in 15/20 years time, we will be mentioning names such as O'Callaghan, Doyle, Byrne, Hoolahan etc as been the best players to have played in the league, rather than big-time charlies who were looking for one last pay cheque.

Edit: Well they weren't all big-time charlies, but you get my point.