There could be any number of reasons why Mickey Walsh was invited to make the short drive from his beach-side home in Porto yesterday afternoon to the Ireland team hotel to meet officials and the playing staff. Walsh, after all, is a matchmaker of some renown who had a hand in assembling the team that guided Leicester City to the Premier League in 2016, and he also pointed Martin O’Neill in the direction of becoming Ireland manager. A wise old head with a bulging contacts book and a bit of street savvy is just what Ireland need at the moment. Walsh also played for Ireland in the era before Jack Charlton, and was a prolific goalscorer during a golden era for Porto in the 1980s, so the likes of Troy Parrott and Leicester’s Tom Cannon should listen. There is also a twinkle in Walsh’s eye as he readily shares a treasure trove of stories.
His arrival in Porto in the early 1980s is as good a place to start as any. Walsh had seen how his friend Kevin Keegan had thrived on the continent after moving from Liverpool to Hamburg, and along with his Ireland teammate Liam Brady decided to test himself away from the comfort zone. Walsh was no way as successful or famous as Brady, but he had established a name for himself back in England, having won the Match of the Day goal of the season award in 1975 during a prolific spell at Blackpool, which was followed by moves to Everton and QPR. At the west London club he fell out with the manager Tommy Docherty, and around the same time as Brady moved from Arsenal to Juventus, Walsh switched to Porto.
“I came out to have a look at the stadium first and it was an amphitheatre,” Walsh says. “QPR had been relegated, while Porto were playing European football, and the money was incredible in comparison to what I was on. And I was already one of the best paid players in the UK at the time because I had been transferred for a lot of money that year, relatively speaking.
“There were no sideshows to distract me. I started really well and scored a few goals. When you do that your teammates accept you a bit better. They knew I could do the job and I went from strength to strength.”
Training mornings and afternoons, as well as a rigidly controlled diet, also boosted Walsh. He quickly learned Portuguese and threw himself into the local community. There was one reminder of London life when Thin Lizzy came to Porto for a gig in March 1982 and Walsh was reunited for an evening with his friend Phil Lynott, a QPR fan he had got to know in the players’ lounge at Loftus Road. After the gig, the band came to Walsh’s beach house for bacon sandwiches at 3am, and Lynott demanded the Ireland shirt that Walsh had long promised him.
“Phil said I’ll send you my albums and I said ‘Why would you do that? I’ve got them all’,” he says. “We had a few more drinks and we kept in touch, but he sadly passed away shortly after. Later I met his mother Philomena at a do in his honour in London, and she was so, so happy to hear that story.”
They were great times for Walsh. He was scoring freely for Porto and he helped them to league and cup titles after a long barren spell — as well as reaching the final of the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, where they were beaten by Juventus. His home life was also about to take a dramatic turn. Mickey and his wife Christine had been trying to have children for years, and when they moved to London, Christine was having IVF treatment at Hammersmith Hospital under the pioneering doctor Robert Winston. The Walshs hit the jackpot, with the first non-identical quadruplets ever born — the result of four different eggs being fertilised. “There were 30 people at the birth,” says Walsh, “including four for each baby and one to look after me, in case I collapsed, but I am not squeamish.” Walsh turns 70 later this year, and has big birthday plans for the four’s 40th, which follows shortly afterwards.
There is a knowing chuckle when the subject of his Ireland career is raised. Walsh’s father Stephen hailed from Castlebar — a town he still has close links with — and one of his cousins played for Mayo. The famous Mayo curse seemed to follow Mickey on his Ireland odyssey. Ireland were robbed of qualification for the 1982 World Cup in Spain by some very dodgy decisions by the Portuguese referee Raul Nazare, who made crucial decisions in Belgium’s favour — including disallowing a perfectly legitimate goal scored by Frank Stapleton. After the final whistle Walsh was so incensed he called Nazare a “ladroa” — a thief. Brady asked his teammate what it meant, and he chipped in with the same accusation.
“I mentioned it to the press as well when I got back here and they ran with it, but I was told by the club ‘You’ve made your point, now shut up’ because we might get this referee when we’re playing Benfica,” Walsh says. “They wanted me to let bygones be bygones, but it didn’t affect them, did it?” He managed to maintain good relations with the Portuguese FA and, after his retirement, he set up a base for Portugal in Dublin before the 1996 European Championships, and he also organised a friendly against Ireland at Lansdowne Road.
There were difficulties getting paid from both sides, because the FAI paymaster in chief Joe Delaney had just left the organisation. This time he was happy to let bygones be bygones and, after Brian Kerr departed as Ireland manager in 2005, he almost persuaded his friend and golfing partner O’Neill to go for the job. It didn’t happen then, because O’Neill’s wife Geraldine was unwell at the time, but it would years later. By that stage Walsh had moved from the area of sports hospitality into being a football agent. Through his friendship with former Porto manager Jose Mourinho, he helped his brother Steve get a job at Chelsea as chief scout.
Steve had some notable successes at Stamford Bridge, and then went to work with Sam Allardyce at Newcastle. Next it was Steve’s turn to do the introductions, because he put Mickey in touch with another coach at Newcastle — Nigel Pearson. That was the start of a long relationship that eventually led to Pearson going to Leicester with Steve and his assistant Craig Shakespeare, in addition to a number of other clubs in between.
“Nige said, ‘You are doing the deal for Shakey; your brother; the doctor, the physio’,” Walsh says. “It wasn’t one deal — it was about five deals in every move. Nigel was great for me. You can imagine that 10 years of being an agent, when it was just starting to go a bit silly.”
Steve scouted the likes of N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez before their arrivals at Leicester, and then went to Everton as director of football, which was another big-money move. Mickey suffered a mild stroke a few years ago, from which he has made an excellent recovery. While he has since officially retired, there is always the opportunity for him to be of national service, again.
