Frank O'Farrell

Francis O'Farrell (9 October 1927 – 6 March 2022) was an Irish football player and manager.

He played as a wing half for Cork United, West Ham United and Preston North End.

He made over 300 appearances in the Football League before joining Weymouth as player-manager.

He went on to manage Torquay United (three stints), Leicester City, Manchester United, Cardiff City, Iran and Al-Shaab.

He played Gaelic football and captained the school team to its first trophy win in 1941.

He also played the association code for local teams Nicholas Rovers, Clapton Celtic and at Western Rovers alongside the brother of Noel Cantwell, with whom he would later reunite as a teammate at West Ham United.

At the age of 16, he started working on the railways and wanted to be a train driver, like his father.

He worked as a fireman on the Dublin–Cork railway line.

A left half, O'Farrell started his playing career with League of Ireland club Cork United, replacing Tommy Moroney in the first team after his departure to West Ham United in 1947.

Playing as a semi-professional, he supplemented his earnings with his work on the railways, earning £3 a week for each.

In January 1948, after being spotted by West Ham scout Ben Ives, O'Farrell followed Moroney to the Upton Park club for a fee of £3,000.

O'Farrell himself received a £1,000 fee for the transfer.

He made over 50 appearances for the reserves before breaking into the first team.

His debut came on 28 September 1950 in a 2–0 defeat of Colchester United in the Essex Professional Cup.

His Football League debut followed in November 1950 in a 4–1 defeat away to Notts County.

He made 18 league appearances in his first season but became a regular in the 1951–52 and 1952–53 seasons.

He was one of a number of West Ham players that would meet at Cassettari's Café to discuss tactics.

He played for West Ham in seven seasons and made 213 appearances, scoring eight goals.

He played for the Republic of Ireland national team, making nine appearances between 1952 and 1959.

Born in Lower Dublin Hill in Blackpool, a suburb of Cork, O'Farrell lived on Friars Road, in the Turners Cross area of the city.

His grand-uncle was renowned road bowling player John "Buck" McGrath.

He was raised a Catholic and attended Christ the King.

O'Farrell won the first of nine full international caps for Ireland against Austria in Vienna on 7 May 1952, in a 6–0 defeat.

In his next international game, also against Austria, O'Farrell scored the first of his two international goals as Ireland won 4–0 at Dalymount Park, Dublin.

His next game saw his second and last international goal, as Ireland lost 5–3 to France in a qualifying game for the 1954 World Cup.

In November 1956, O'Farrell left for Preston North End in a straight swap deal involving Eddie Lewis.

Replacing Ray Evans in the team, he scored on his home debut, a 20-yard strike against Manchester City.

Playing alongside Tom Finney, he played 17 league matches before his first loss with the club.

He would then miss over a month of football after treatment for a nosebleed which caused him to lose around four pints of blood (he experienced a recurrence of the problem in the following season).

His first season with Preston brought a third-place finish and he was still with the Lancashire club when they finished runners-up to Wolverhampton Wanderers in Division One at the end of the 1957–58 season.

In the same season O'Farrell's former teammates at West Ham finished as Second Division champions, securing their promotion to the First Division, which he had strived to help achieve.

In all, O'Farrell made 129 appearances for Preston, scoring four goals.

He played infrequently over the next six years before making his ninth and last international appearance on 10 May 1959 in a 4–0 defeat by Czechoslovakia at Tehelne Pole Stadion in Bratislava.

He retired from professional football in 1961, close to 34 years of age, after a second operation to remove cartilage.

On 20 June 1961, O'Farrell became player-manager at Southern League team Weymouth.

He was paid £25 a week for the role, which was £5 more than he had been earning as a Football League player at Preston.

In 1961–62, he oversaw Weymouth's passage to the fourth round of the FA Cup, where they were beaten by his old club Preston North End.

After a runners-up spot in 1963–64, he led the club to their first Southern League championship in 1964–65, also reaching the final of the Southern League Cup that season.

In May 1965, he became manager of Torquay United, replacing Eric Webber.

He took the Gulls to promotion in his first season in charge and followed this with seventh- and fourth-place finishes in the Third Division in the following two seasons.