Wilson will relish Shels’ rise back to the big time
FROM all over Dublin, Redsmen, young and not so young, will travel to Tolka Park tonight. Some will walk, some will drive and some will come by the No 1 bus, from the heartland of Ringsend where it all began for Shelbourne 125 years ago.
The oldest League of Ireland professional club is back where it belongs, at the high table, playing the top teams — there are none better than champions Dundalk.
And Joe Wilson is pleased as he felt ‘Dublin lost something without Shels in the top division’.
Wilson won’t be there tonight to cheer on Ian Morris’s team but he was certainly there when the first great Shelbourne team graced the Irish stage.
Between 1960 and 1963, Shels won the FAI Cup twice, lost another final, won the League and played the likes of Sporting Lisbon and Barcelona among 13 European games.
And Wilson, a tricky left winger, was immersed in the magic.
‘Joe Boy’ from Crumlin wasn’t the tallest of players but he thrived in the spotlight.
Wilson scored the decisive second goal against Cork Hibs in the 1960 FAI Cup final, with his head, and was taken down for the penalty which saw Shels lead Barcelona 1-0 at the Nou Camp in the 1963-64 Cup Winners’ Cup.
He was an integral player in the team known as ‘Doyle’s Ducklings’ after Gerry Doyle, the Shelbourne manager who believed if you were good enough, you were old enough.
Wilson was young, but he was good and Doyle threw him in.
Great days, eh? Wilson, a gregarious octogenarian, has his unique take on it all. ‘We used to train in Irishtown Stadium where there was one light high up on a pole. There was only so much you could see and some lads would edge into the shadows and disappear when we went off on long runs.
‘We never saw a ball between matches. The club had just one and our kitman used to take it home and watch it for Sunday. We had to pay for our own boots and there were no such things as tracksuits.’
As for the wages, players got paid £3 a week, with a bonus of £1 for a draw and £2 for a win. It wasn’t a king’s ransom.
In contrast, the off-season summer tournaments which Wilson always enjoyed with his great friend John Giles, guaranteed you a fiver.
Wilson left Shelbourne for Derry City, in slightly strained circumstances as he wasn’t consulted, rather told the club had accepted a fee, and he was gone.
But boy did he flourish at the Brandywell where he won the Irish Cup in 1964 — he scored in that final too — and was on the first Derry team to win the Irish League in 1965.
He also played for the Irish League XI in 1964 against an English League XI prepping for the 1996 World Cup.
‘Ah Derry, they knew how to look after players. When I arrived, there was a pair of boots and a tracksuit waiting for me.’
A natural storyteller, Wilson recalled a time when Derry played a Cup midweek replay in Ballymena. He got a half-day off work and drove north, into the heart of Unionist country.
‘The crowds were enormous and I knew I’d never get to the ground in time for the game.
‘I pulled in, approached a policeman and told him my circumstances.
‘He told me not to worry and fetched his squad car and drove me to the ground at a fierce lick.’
When the game was over, Wilson was driven back and his car was exactly where he left it, untouched.
When his Derry days ended, Wilson had a final spell with Shelbourne, where he acted as fitness coach before the 1973 FAI Cup final against Cork Hibs.
Doyle was still manager and he went against Wilson’s views that a number of players were not fully fit for selection. One of those who started came off inside 20 minutes. When Shels lost the replay, Wilson took his leave. Gone, but never forgotten.
As Redsmen of a certain age turn the Tolka turnstiles tonight, some may say to the younger generation, ‘I saw Joe Wilson play.’
And Joe Wilson, 81 years young, will appreciate that.