EAMONN “CHICK” DEACY

They called a football stadium after him

Many of the stories I’ve featured here have been about some of the greatest footballers of all time. This story is about a man who never made it onto the world stage, but was nevertheless a fine footballer, an international who played for Ireland, and one of the West of Ireland’s most admired and loved sportsmen.
They changed the name of a Galway stadium from Terryland Park to Eamonn Deacy Park to honour him, and honour his memory.
Eamonn was essentially a humble Galwegian, a man of unusual modesty, who, as one of his teammates at Aston Villa said, “brought a smile to everybody’s face.”
I first met this unpretentious sporting hero at Villa’s training facility, Bodymoor Heath. I’d done a half-time exhibition of ball control skills at a West Bromwich match at The Hawthorns, and decided I’d call at Bodymoor Heath in the off chance that I’d meet the full back from Galway. It paid off. I met him.
I spent a very pleasant 45 minutes with him, and he introduced me to some of his Villa teammates. The club’s manager at the time was Ron Saunders. Eamonn conducted me on a whirlwind tour of the club’s impressive facilities. He was most convivial, really modest about his own rise to stardom, and had an unmistakeable twinkle of mischief in is eyes.
Galway City born, and the youngest of ten children, he was given the nickname “Chick” by his father, and loved it. Before settling for soccer, he had played rugby for St Joseph’s College, and Galwegians, but decided to switch from the oval ball game.
One of the legends about him and how he got to Aston Villa was that he wrote 22 successive letters to Ron Saunders asking that they give him a trial. By then he’d had spells with Sligo Rovers, Galway Rovers, and Limerick. Eventually Villa relented, gave him a trial, and Saunders signed him immediately.
Eamonn spent five years with Aston Villa, during which he played four times for Ireland in 1982. He was one of the Villa squad that won the old England First Division (now the Premiership) in 1980/81, when Saunders used only 14 players! The club went on to win the European Cup as well.
When he finished with Aston Villa, Eamonn turned down the chance of a lucrative contract with Derby County — he wanted to come home to Galway and end his playing days with Galway United in his native city. Which is what he did.
He worked at his brothers’ fruit and vegetable shop, one of the places at which my own family did a considerable amount of business. He turned out to be a genuine friend, the sort of person you could trust, and discuss confidential matters with, knowing that it would never go any further.
In due course I joined Galway United, primarily in the beginning just to train and keep fit. One night during a training game, at a certain stage the ball came at full speed towards Eamonn and myself. It was 50-50 as to which of us would reach it first. I got there a fraction of a second before Eamonn. I let the ball run across us, a perfect dummy, as I nipped around behind him, got control of the ball, and ran for my life, expecting any moment to be taken down, because he had quite a reputation as a hard, no nonsense tackler.
Fast forward now to the FAI Cup semi-final against Saint James’s Gate. By now I was the club’s assistant manager. Although carrying a long-term stomach injury, Eamonn was in the dressing room. I had an inkling before I went in that the players would be feeling nervous before such an important game. Sure enough, it showed on their faces.
Joey Malone, the Manager, asked me if there was anything I wanted to say. There was. To everyone’s amazement I produced a brand new frying pan, held it out in front of me, and spoke the few comments I had written on a card stuck to the bottom of the pan.
I ended up by waving the pan at the team and saying, “So remember, you need to go out there now and do the business, otherwise you’ll end up going from the frying pan into the fire!”
They all laughed, and immediately relaxed, as the worried looks disappeared off their faces. No one laughed louder or longer than Eamonn. And as long as he lived, he never let me forget that incident.
He came and opened the Aston Villa showcase for my museum project, for which he had provided items for display. He loved to play football, and he loved life. It was a massive shock when he died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 53 in 2012.
In August of the same year the Galway Football Association changed the name of the city’s football stadium from Terryland Park to Eamonn Deacy Park in honour of their native son. Slightly ironic, or maybe appropriate, was that Eamonn’s grandfather, Martin Joseph Morris, had once owned the Terryland grounds, and sold part of it to the Galway Football Association for £250!
What goes around comes around.

Eamonn on the left seated in blue and myself standing behind Eamonn in spall jacket with the 1991 FAI CUP WINNING SQUAD.