O’Rourke, Peter

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Fullname: Peter O’Rourke
Born: 22 Sep 1874
Died: 10 Jan 1956
Birthplace: Newmilns
Signed: 9 Feb 1895 (trial); 21 Feb 1895 (full)
Left: May 1897 (Burnley)
Position: Half-back
Debut: Celtic 4-4 Third Lanark, League, 23 Feb 1895
Internationals: none

Biog

Half-back Peter O’Rourke was brought to Celtic in February 1895 primarily as cover for the great James Kelly, although Peter O’Rourke also ended up playing alongside him as well in matches.

A Scottish Junior international Newmilns-born O’Rourke signed for the Bhoys from Mossend Celtic after earlier having trials with Hibs. His debut came on 23 February 1895 in a 4-4 league draw against Third Lanark at Celtic Park. He helped Celtic to the Glasgow Charity Cup title at the end of the season.

He played six times for Celtic in the title winning season of 1895-96, losing his place after a 5-0 defeat to Hearts, however Celtic had won the prior 4 games which included a 4-2 win over Rangers the match before the Hearts game. That victory over Rangers, in retrospect, was vital as Celtic won the league by 4pts over Rangers, so if Rangers had won, things could have turned out very differently.

His only other league match that season after that run was the final league match of the season with Celtic in a 2-1 win over Third Lanark.

He was retained in the first team to play in the local Glasgow League (played after the Scottish League matches had ended), and then helped Celtic to win a Glasgow Charity Cup medal at 1st Cathkin in May 1895 in a 2-1 win over Queen’s Park.

He didn’t play for Celtic again in the major tournaments, but did play again for Celtic in the 1896-97 season in the Glasgow League competition.

Peter played nine times for Celtic in the league before moving on down south to Burnley in May 1897.

Post-Celtic
He won a Division 2 Champions medal with the Turf Moor club (Burnley) the following season after his departure from Burnley. In all he appeared 18 times, scoring once, for them before joining City in July 1899. He spent one season there appearing in 32 of the 34 Football League games at right half before returning to Scotland to play for Third Lanark.

He moved back down south to Chesterfield (39 games, 1 goal) and then to Bradford City (43 games, 1 goal).

In 1905 he was appointed Bradford City manager, and guided them to promotion in 1907/08 to the top tier. He managed Bradford to the FA Cup title in 1911 as well as finishing fifth in Division One for their highest ever finish. He resigned in June 1921 after a very long spell as manager for any club.

Later spells followed at Pontypridd, Dundee United and Bradford PA before returning to City in May 1928. He led them to the Division 3 North title in 1928/29 but resigned after they just avoided relegation in May 1930. Another brief spell followed as manager of Walsall before his career ended as Llanelli coach in July 1933.

He moved back to live in the Bradford area where he passed away in 1956.

Playing Career

Honours with Celtic

• 1895

Pictures

• Player Pics

Articles

I was given a newspaper-clip of the article below by Bernard O’Neill the son of Ex-Celt Hugh. I have made this transcription of it for clarity. The clip is in Match Pictures. There was nothing to indicate what publication it was from, but it was written by ex-Celtic player Peter O’Rourke.

One can understand why the late Hugh O’Neill had treasured it. O’Rourke, an ex-Celtic player and football legend in England, had singled Hugh out for praise for his performance against Rangers – in the same breath as paying tribute to his old friend, the late Jimmy Hay for whom the flag was flying at half-mast at Celtic Park that day. While O’Rourke is highly critical of the rest of the Celtic team he exonerates Hugh and John Divers as being the only two Celts on show who have a football future.

The comments by O’Rourke confirm that he was looking back on “the other Saturday” as Celtic’s 1-2 defeat by Rangers on Saturday April 6, 1940; as Jimmy Hay, a.k.a. The General, Died: 4 April 1940.

Hugh O’Neill also kept a newspaper report by Sunday Mail of that game (see above), which tells of how Rangers were given a penalty for no reason other than the “histrionics” of the Ranger’s centre Alex Venters. Plus ça change!

• Match 6 Apr 1940 Celtic 1-2 Rangers

WHAT’S WRONG WITH CELTIC

The Team Is Just Not Good Enough

By PETER O’ROURKE

WHAT has been called the major mystery of the football season, the decline and fall of Glasgow Celtic, is no mystery at all if you have eyes to see.

The team is just not good enough.

But to be able to see this you must not have lived too long on one side of Glasgow – better, indeed, if you’ve never lived in Glasgow at all – and you must be able to look on the Celtic of to-day without thinking of the Celtic of the past at the same time.

I tried to do all this the other Saturday when I went to see them play Rangers. And it was difficult. For when I asked why the flag was at half-mast I was told it “was for Jimmy Hay,” and Jimmy Hay was a friend of mine, and a very great footballer and – this is important to the argument – part of the pattern of Celtic supremacy in the past. And so, inevitably, one began to mix past with present, which is wrong.

Celtic today should be judged entirely on their merit or demerit; no special leniency should be shown to them on account of their record. So I put Hay and others of the past out of mind for a little and set myself sternly to watch.

And soon I discerned what I believe to be the truth; the Celtic are now so ordinary an aggregation of footballers that they would be nearer the bottom than top of any Regional League if they happened to play in England instead of Scotland.

I tried to get my neighbour to see it too. “What’s wrong with Celtic these days? They’re not playing badly”—and indeed they weren’t after, after ordinary football fashion.

He made sensible answer. “They’ve lost their spirit,” he said. “Sometimes I think they dinna try. Why should they – wi’ fitba’ as it is to-day.”

“They seem to be trying hard enough now,” I said, catching him by the arm and pointing to some particularly vigorous play.

“Oh, aye, they’re trying hard enough the day – just because they’re playing Rangers. They have to try to beat Rangers. They’re abune themselves.”

That I believe now to be true. They were abune themselves. They played better football than their normally limited capacity would allow.

We come back to the tradition of the club which I had hoped to dismiss from my calculations.

A Poor Side
Celtic normally are a poor side, no better than a score we have in England; Celtic against Rangers are a better one, because they are Celtic plus a feeling of fight or rivalry, or whatever you care to call it.

Rangers are much the stronger side of the two, but I don’t think such a lot of them either. They’re no more Rangers of my early days than Celtic are.

Of that Celtic side I liked best O’Neill a back I had never seen before, and Divers. I see football hope for them. For the others —-!

The time is not normal and managers everywhere have to do the best they can with the men they have got, else I’d advise Celtic to find a new goalkeeper, outside left, outside right, centre half.

If the mood of change were insistent in me I might even say: “Go to Stoke or the Wolves for another centre; each of these sides has a better man in the reserves than you have in the field.

Or if you, the Celtic, felt that you could never do that put Divers in the centre forward position.

I don’t care whether Divers knows it or not, but that is his true position. And if and when I put that young man there, I’d give him personally a bit of advice. I’d say, “Take care to keep your temper in the field.

If he were disposed to listen, I’d tell him a tale of a great footballer who was undoubtedly the best centre-forward the Celtic ever had – Jimmy Quinn, no less.

I’d tell him that Quinn had the reputation, and most unfair it was, of being rough, and of a day when I tackled him and his club-mates about it in London, when they had just returned from a tour of the Continent.

Quinn’s “Medals”
“Is he really rough, Jimmy?” said I to Jimmy McMenemy, who was near by.

“Rough? Quinn show the gentleman your medals!”

Without a word Quinn pulled up his trouser-legs and showed me the bruises which covered his legs through which showed white scars of old battles.

“I took them all,” he said “and I gave nothing in return. It’s a’ in the game.”

Divers, I have said, was the best member of the forward line this Saturday – but he was no Quinn.

Nor was he a Sandy McMahon either, which is to say he that he can be bettered at inside left as well.

I hope I don’t sound hard on Divers. The truth is that the comparison is a compliment!

There was never a better inside left than Sandy. He was never guilty of the fault of the moderns of ballooning the ball when he passed it.

Sandy’s skill tied the ball to the floor. And now, since Divers seems to have become a kind of link between the present and the past, I permit myself a wee joke, and write there were divers other kings in Celtic’s happier days.

There is no Dan McArthur or Davie Adams in goal nowadays, no back like Welford or Dan Doyle – certainly no Dan Doyle.

What a player. What a philosopher he was! He lost two pubs and went to work for a Rangers engineer called Tom Robertson.

Celtic, alas, have no Barney Battles today – what a name for a fechter! – they have no Jimmy Hay.

Nobody could tell whether Jimmy was better at back or half-back. He was simply the born player.

Then there was Campbell, who played outside left to McMahon. Was there ever a better wing anywhere? I doubt it.

My complaint now is that Celtic are —- so ordinary that Rangers can afford to take them cheaply. It hurt me to see that on this last sobering Saturday. How else would they daur to put Brown, Scotland’s left half for years, at inside right?

In doing this Rangers showed a new contempt for the Celtic defence. Brown isn’t supposed to be a forward; he is a half-back.

But Rangers, and here’s the hurt of it, were justified of the transition.

Celtic’s ineptitude made the seeming risk no risk at all.

He managed Bradford City #5: Peter O’Rourke

By Width of a Post on June 28, 2013
http://widthofapost.com/2013/06/28/he-managed-bradford-city-5-peter-orourke/

Claretandamberscarf

By Ian Hemmens

After last season’s momentous achievements, Phil Parkinson is now assured of a place in City’s history. But in this series of Bradford City managers, I’d like to put forward the man I still consider the No 1 and the man everyone else has to look up to – Peter O’Rourke.

Peter came to the club from Chesterfield after a moderately decent career which included Celtic and Burnley amongst others. A decent ball playing centre half, when that position was more of a midfield schemer type, he was a deep thinker about the game and was a member of the club from its very beginning in 1903.

By 1906 he was still playing and also coaching the reserves. Later that season, and after a calamitous run of form, the ambitious directors turned to Peter as a caretaker after dispensing with Robert Campbell’s services. Such was his success, which included an impressive 5-0 FA Cup win over 1st Division Wolves, O’Rourke was offered the job full time.

He set about building a squad to win promotion by using his extensive knowledge of Scottish Junior Football, as well as picking up promising players. Several youngsters came south and the names of McDonald, Logan, Devine, Torrance etc all entered into City folklore.

The Paraders won promotion to the big time and after, a struggle, O’Rourke strengthened the squad yet again by bringing the likes of Jimmy Speirs, Frank Thompson and Dickie Bond to the club. Only eight years after formation, City were amazingly an established 1st Division club. As we all know, in 1911 the club reached its pinnacle by winning the FA Cup and finishing 5th in the league. They actually led the league at Christmas, but in those days the Cup was the prize trophy.

After this, O’Rourke faithfully kept with his players and gradually replaced them as they aged. George Robinson and Bob Campbell making way for the likes of Torrance and Boocock. With youngsters ready to push through, all plans were halted by the carnage of World War One. Players made the ultimate sacrifice and others had their careers stolen from them. Boocock and Oscar Fox would surely have gained England caps but for the War.

With the club in a mess financially and playing wise, another rebuild was necessary. But personal tragedy struck when O’Rourke’s son Francis died in Newfoundland after an illness. It affected him badly enough to resign his position in 1921 to his assistant.

After frankly pottering around in several jobs in the 20s, without doing much, O’Rourke answered the call of City again in their time of need during the financial crisis of 1928. A few astute signings and City swept to the Division 3 North title scoring a record 128 goals in the process.

Peter then established the club in the second tier and was pushing for a return to the First Division; when a combination of finances and bad board decisions ripped the heart from his squad, losing stars like Sam Barkas, Charlie Bicknell and Harold Peel.

Peter O’Rourke decided to retire from the game but still lived on Burlington Terrace, next to Valley Parade, until his death in 1956.

A huge chunk of the club’s early history, and much of its reputation and standing was down to O’Rourke. He was a progressive manager, letting players train with the ball when the idea of the time was to starve players of it so they would want it more on matchday. He and trainer Charlie Harper were very forward-thinking and both hugely popular with players and fans alike.

A massive presence to follow and truly a Bradford City ‘Great’ – Mr Peter O’Rourke.