Terry Conroy

Gerard Anthony Francis Conroy (born 2 October 1946) is an Irish former professional footballer.

His father and brothers were in the printing trade, and his brother Ollie, a talented footballer, rejected the opportunity to turn professional at Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1950 in order to remain employed in Dublin as a machine minder and play football part-time in the League of Ireland.

Three more of his brothers also played in the League of Ireland, and both Ollie and Michael played in the Shelbourne team that won the FAI Cup in 1960.

Conroy began his career with Home Farm, where he won four Irish youth caps.

He played for the Home Farm under-13s at the age of ten, at a time when Home Farm were considered the best youth team in the country.

The club held the registration of much of the country's top young players, and future Ireland international Billy Newman played in the same age group as Conroy, though Conroy was determined to go beyond playing in the League of Ireland and was determined to play as a professional in the English Football League.

However he was frequently told that he was Too Short to be taken on as an apprentice by an English club.

However a late growth spurt saw him grow an extra six inches to reach the height of 5ft 10in at age 17.

By this time he also began playing for the Home Farm senior team in the League of Ireland B Division.

In 1964, Conroy was offered a contract at Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers.

However he instead moved to Northern Irish club Glentoran, where he believed that he would have a better chance of being spotted by an English club.

He received a signing-on fee of £600.

As the club were based in Belfast he had to spend the night at manager Billy Neill's house after midweek games as he would miss the last train back to Dublin, and would have to instead catch the train the following morning to make it back to his regular job as a printer.

Raised in Cabra, Dublin, he began his career at Home Farm, before spending two years with Glentoran from 1965 to 1967.

He played for the Glentoran 'Seconds' (reserve team) in the final of the Steel & Sons Cup on 25 December 1965, which ended in a 1–0 victory over Larne.

He scored on his first team debut two days later, a 3–2 win over Bangor.

In total he scored eight goals in the 1965–66 season, as the "Glens" finished third in the Irish League, two points behind champions Linfield.

With Glentoran he won the Steel & Sons Cup and Irish Cup in 1966, and helped the club to win the Irish League title in 1966–67.

He went on to score both goals for Glentoran in the Irish Cup final on 23 April 1966, a 2–0 win over Linfield at The Oval.

He went on to score 25 goals in the 1966–67 campaign, as Glentoran won the league by a one-point margin.

He also played in Europe, as the Irish Cup win also qualified Glentoran to a place in the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1966–67, and he helped the club to a 1–1 draw at home with eventual runners-up Rangers before they suffered a 4–0 loss at Ibrox Stadium.

He received a league winner's medal despite leaving the club before the end of the season.

Conroy had played for Home Farm in a friendly match against Stoke City at the age of 17 and impressed City manager Tony Waddington, who continued to track Conroy's progress via his local scout George Eastham, Sr. However Fulham initially agreed a fee with Glentoran, but Waddington took the same train as Conroy after he left negotiations at Craven Cottage and successfully talked Conroy into signing with Stoke.

This approach was actually an illegal approach according to FA rules.

A winger and forward, he scored 74 goals in 372 league and cup appearances in a 14-year career in the English Football League from 1967 to 1981.

He was sold to English First Division club Stoke City in March 1967 for a fee of £15,000, and went to on to help Stoke to win the League Cup in 1972.

In total he spent 12 years with Stoke, scoring 67 goals in 333 league and cup appearances.

He was a popular figure with Stoke fans due to his creative flair and dribbling ability, as well as his distinctive pale skin, bright ginger hair and sideburns.

He also scored two goals and won 27 caps for the Republic of Ireland in a seven-year international career from 1969 to 1977.

He moved to Hong Kong to play for Bulova in 1979, and returned to England the following year to join Crewe Alexandra in the Fourth Division.

He signed with Irish club Waterford in September 1981, moving on to Limerick United in November 1982, where he ended his career.

He later ran his own insurance business and worked for Stoke City and the Football Association of Ireland.

He is married and has three daughters.

Gerard Anthony Francis Conroy was born in Dublin to John (Jack) and Esther Conroy, and was one of ten siblings: Alphonsus (Ollie), Laurence (Lar), John (Donny), Rita, Peter, Michael, Vincent, Paul, and Marie.

Christened as Gerard, he soon became known by the name Terry as he could not pronounce 'Gerard' as a young child.

His mother held two jobs: as a factory worker and an office cleaner.

The family lived in the suburb of Cabra, and had very limited finances.

Being one of the younger children he was indulged, and took advantage of his lack of household chores to spend the majority of his time playing football in the street.

However he was arrested by a plain-clothed policeman and sentenced to probation in Children's Court for playing football in the street.

He later credited his ball control skills to the many years he spent playing football with large numbers of other children in the tight streets of Cabra.