Mick Meagan

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Mick Meagan
Personnel
Surname Michael Kevin Meagan
birthday May 29, 1934
place of birth Dublin ,  Ireland
position Outrunner / defender (left)
Juniors
Years station
Johnville Juniors
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1952-1964 Everton FC 165 (1)
1964-1968 Huddersfield Town 119 (1)
1968-1969 Halifax Town 23 (0)
1969-1973 Drogheda United
1973-1974 Bray Wanderers
1974-1976 Shamrock Rovers
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1957 Ireland B 1 (0)
1961-1969 Ireland 17 (0)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1969-1971 Ireland
1969-1973 Drogheda United
1974-1976 Shamrock Rovers
1 Only league games are given.

Michael Kevin "Mick" Meagan (born May 29, 1934 in Dublin ) is a former Irish football player and coach . He was mostly used on the left side as an outside runner or defender and his greatest success was winning the English championship in 1963 with Everton FC . He later worked as a coach for the Irish national team, among others, and was the first in this role in 1969 to be allowed to independently carry out the cadre nomination (instead of the previous selection committee).

Athletic career

Club career

“Chick”, as Meagan was called, learned to play football in his Irish homeland as a half-striker on both the left and right side. After a youth team game against a Liverpool team he was discovered by Harold Pickering in 1952, which in turn him in his role as scout of Everton FC for a trial by Merseyside invited. It took the Irish a month before he convinced Everton of his qualities and from then on moved up to the squad of the reserve team. The first team was relegated to the second division in 1951 and although the club had a large Irish faction with Peter Farrell , Tommy Eglington , Jimmy O'Neill and Don Donovan , in which Meagan felt very at home, he waited a very long time for his sporting Breakthrough. He could not prevail against the regular players under coach Cliff Britton and teammates of the same age as Albert Dunlop , George Kirby , Jimmy Harris and Brian Harris also had to struggle with this problem . Everton returned to excellence in 1954 and he finally made his home debut against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the first game of the 1957/58 season - by now Ian Buchan had succeeded Britton. The well-known Billy Wright was one of Meagan's opponents. In the end, he played 41 games in one year and benefited from the fact that, due to his lack of speed , he had been withdrawn from the half- forward to the outside runner position, where his game intelligence was more effective (he was considered an ideal partner for one- two ). Also in this season he scored his first and only goal for the "Toffees" against Sunderland AFC .

In October 1958 his compatriot Johnny Carey was the new Everton coach and although Meagan were often preferred to Brian Harris or Jimmy Gabriel in his position , he always came up with a double-digit number per year. When Harry Catterick followed Carey in April 1961, Carey mostly used him as a full-back - often on the left, although his stronger foot was the right one. He celebrated his greatest success in the 1962/63 season when he won the English championship with Everton . He acted first as a substitute for Alex Parker as a right-back and then for George Thomson on the left and contributed significantly to winning the title with 32 league appearances. A year later he left Liverpool in the direction of the second division Huddersfield Town . He was part of a swap deal with Ray Wilson , who hired in reverse at Everton.

Meagan spent four years in Huddersfield before moving to Halifax Town for one season . The active coach Alan Ball encouraged Meagan to switch to the coaching profession and so he worked as a player- coach after his return to Ireland in 1969 . In parallel to his commitment to Drogheda United , which lasted until 1973 , he also worked as an Irish national coach until 1971. From 1974 he was active for the Shamrock Rovers until 1976 , before he ended both his active career and his coaching activities in 1976, for which he says he never felt real passion.

After retiring from professional football, Meagan worked in a mental hospital.

Irish national team

In 1969, Meagan became the senior coach of Ireland , at a time when he was still active after making his debut against Scotland at Hampden Park in 1961 . The team was at the time of his "inauguration" in the qualifying phase for the 1970 World Cup in Mexico and had lost the first three games in a row. In his coaching debut on the occasion of a friendly against Scotland (1: 1), he made his 17th and last international match before his competitive debut ended with a 3-0 defeat against Czechoslovakia (after a hat trick by Jozef Adamec ). A short time later, at least the 1-1 draw at home against Denmark ensured that Ireland did not go completely without points in the qualifying round. After two bankruptcies in friendly matches against Poland and Germany , qualification for the European Championship in 1972 began with a respectable win in a 1-1 draw against Sweden , but then it was four defeats in a row, most recently a 4-1 at home against Austria . After less than two years, Meagan was released from the duties and thus ended his twelve-game era without a win. Overall, he suffered particularly from the fact that he often had to do without important top performers, since international matches were held on Sundays - just one day after club games. Meagan used a total of 30 different actors. Ten of them made their debut, including Steve Heighway from Liverpool FC .

Title / Awards

Web links

Individual references / footnotes

  1. ^ Ivan Ponting: Everton Player by Player . Hamlyn, London 1998, ISBN 0-600-59581-1 , pp. 26 .
  2. ↑ Interview with Mick Meagan by Rob Sawyer (Toffeeweb.com)
  3. ↑ Mick Meagan's profile on soccer-ireland.com
personal data
SURNAME Meagan, Mick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meagan, Michael Kevin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish soccer player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin