Noel Cantwell: Noel Cantwell, who has died in Peterborough after a brief illness, will be recalled as one of the more charismatic personalities in Irish sport at a time when it filled an important role in offsetting the relative deprivations of life in the 1950s and early 1960s.
A dual international player in football and cricket, he was seen as a larger than life athlete whose imposing physique and innate sense of co-ordination would have made him a success in any sporting discipline he chose to pursue.
He made the first of his 36 appearances for the Republic of Ireland football team, 22 of them as captain, against Luxembourg in 1953. Although primarily a defender, he once topped the list of Ireland's most prolific scorers with 14 goals to his credit, and later coached the team for a short period.
At club level, he captained Manchester United to victory over Leicester City in the 1963 FA Cup final and led them to the old First Division championship the following year. There followed a brief but largely undistinguished managerial career, before drifting out of football altogether to concentrate on his business as a publican in Peterborough.
In cricket, he represented Ireland on five occasions, against New Zealand (twice), Scotland, Lancashire and, famously, on one occasion against the West Indies in Belfast where he claimed to have faced some of the fastest bowlers in the world without specialist cricket footwear.
Even less plausible in his subsequent career as an after-dinner speaker was his statement that the tourists, more concerned with stories of the attractions of professional football, decided against giving him too hard a time at the crease.
With the family home situated on Mardyke Walk, adjacent to the storied sports ground in Cork, it was almost inevitable that he would find his way into local folklore. He started out in football with Western Rovers, a junior club in the neighbourhood before finding his way into senior competition with the old Cork Athletic club in bizarre circumstances.
An older brother, Frank, played with Athletic and when one of the selected team failed to turn up for a League of Ireland game, he was instructed to sprint home and ask Noel to fill the vacancy. It is a measure of the younger man's ability that within a year of that unexpected summons to arms, he was playing professionally in England with West Ham United.
Soon his reputation as a skilled but hard-tackling defender expanded, and he did his cause no harm at all when facing the legendary Stanley Matthews in an exhibition game on a wet, uninviting evening at the Mardyke in the mid-1950s. Confronted by the great man and not knowing quite what to do, he closed his eyes and put him on the floor with a big tackle.
When Matthews finally regained his composure, he pointed to the spectators standing in the rain and said: "Son, who do you think those people came to watch - me or you?"
A couple of minutes later, the answer arrived in the shape of another heavy hit and the pair, later to become close friends, gave each other mutual respect thereafter.
Cantwell went on to become one of the rallying points in the national team for the next 12 years, joining with Charlie Hurley, another exceptional player of Cork origin, to produce many fine performances in the Ireland shirt.
He was a member of the West Ham team which won the Second Division championship in the 1957/58 season, a success which eventually opened the way to a move to Manchester United in 1960.
The fee of £29,5000 was record for a full back, but for Matt Busby and United, it represented a shrewd investment in the challenge of rebuilding the club from the ruins of the 1958 Munich air disaster.
Victory in the 1963 Cup final was interpreted as a significant landmark in that process and was greeted with ecstatic scenes when Cantwell collected the trophy. Catching the mood of the occasion, he threw the prized silverware in the air, only to be swiftly rebuked by a blazered FA official.
"Mr Captain," he told Cantwell, "You may not toss the FA Cup in the air." The player regarded him momentarily with a cold eye before delivering the withering answer: "Mr Chief Steward, I just have."
Bright and articulate, Cantwell emerged as the successor to Jimmy Hill as chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association at a time when they were restricted by a weekly wage ceiling of just £22 and in that role was one of the most influential personalities in British football.
He was seen by many as a potential successor to Matt Busby as manager of Manchester United.
But then, with everything seemingly in place for a long and successful career at Old Trafford, he upped and left abruptly to accept a similar appointment with Coventry.
It was an ill-advised move which coloured his subsequent managerial appointments, including spells with the American club Boston Teamen and finally, Peterborough United.
Passionate in his desire for success for the Republic of Ireland in international football, he was one of those who campaigned for the introduction of a new system whereby the team would be selected by a coach-manager, rather than the unworkable five-man committee which operated for so long.
It led eventually to the appointment of Mick Meagan as team manager in 1969 and the start of a long revolution which would, in time, establish the national team among the best in Europe.
In that, as in so much else, he is deserving of prominent mention in any history of Irish football.
Noel Cantwell, born February 10th, 1932; died September 8th, 2005.