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Mickey Hamill – The darling of the Falls
On a warm summer’s day in July 1943, schoolboy Ronnie Braithwaite was playing happily along the River Lagan, between Belfast and Lisburn, enjoying his summer holidays.
Suddenly, he made a terrible discovery.
As he stared into the dark waters of the Lagan Canal, once a key trade route between Belfast and Lough Neagh, he saw what he thought was a man floating – lifeless – in the water.
After summoning help, the body was retrieved and the search began to find the identity of the poor drowned soul.
At the inquest later that day, confirmation of the man’s identity sent the green and white half of Belfast into a state of deep shock and mourning, for it was confirmed that the deceased was Belfast Celtic’s favourite son, ‘The Darling of the Falls’, Mickey Hamill.
Aged just 54, it was a desperate end for a man who had lit up the football world, gracing some of the games biggest teams in a career which spanned three decades, four countries and two continents.
In his Irish News obituary later that week, ‘Ben Madigan’ – the pen name of the Irish News football reporter who covered Belfast Celtic – described his childhood friend as; ‘One of the few players who stepped out of minor football into Grade A class’.
Born in Leeson Street in 1889, Hamill began his football career as a teenager with a trio of junior clubs, St Paul’s Swifts, The Red Hand and the long gone Belfast Rangers.
Soon, the talent scouts at Belfast Celtic spotted his prowess on the pitch and in 1908 they brought him onto the club staff.
In that season, Hamill starred at inside forward against Glasgow Celtic in a friendly encounter for Belfast Celtic, with the great Jimmy Quinn fondly remembered as being in opposition for the Glasgow Hoops.
After watching Hamill play, Willie Maley, the towering manager of the Scottish side, asked Mickey to guest in a friendly in Dublin the next day, which he did, and Maley dangled the prospect of a professional contract in Glasgow in front of Hamill, who politely declined, preferring to stay at home.
However, according to ‘Ben Madigan’, Willie Maley ‘never lost sight of him’ and constantly enquired about his availability for a transfer.
After a couple of seasons in the first team, it was another one of football’s giants that finally forced Belfast Celtic’s hand in moving the player on.
Maley’s Celtic were back in Belfast in 1910 for a Christmas friendly on the Donegal Road and immediately after the game, Manchester United parted with the large fee of £175 for Hamill’s services.
Another sweetener was inserted as part of the deal and at Easter 1911, Manchester United and Bradford City, who would win the FA Cup that year, clashed at Celtic Park in Belfast, with the gate receipts staying with the host club.
A reported 2,000 Celtic fans waved Hamill off from the Great Northern Railway station in Belfast as he steamed off to wear the red jersey of United.
On arrival, it was a culture shock for the player, whose Scottish trainer, Geordie Livingstone immediately informed him he was ‘too slow’ for the English game.
A punishing and monotonous regime of short sprints was dispensed, which drove Mickey crazy and almost drove him back to Belfast.
However, he persisted as instructed and it paid off. In the next two seasons, Hamill played almost 60 games for the Red Devils, starring in front of crowds at the newly constructed Old Trafford stadium.
Around this time, Hamill received his first cap for Ireland in his new position of Centre Half.
In 1914, he Captained his country to their first ever Home Championship victory, beating England 3-0 at Middlesborough’s Ayrsome Part and drawing 1-0 with the Scots at home in Belfast.
In a later match against Scotland, in 1919, Mickey would infuriate home fans at Hampden by bellowing ‘Celtic’s ball’ each time the game was stopped for a throw in or corner.
Later, he would refuse to play for Ireland, complaining bitterly about the treatment of Catholic players chosen, or in many cases not chosen, to wear the green.
Soon, his time at Manchester United would end. In his second season, a row broke out over a benefit match Mickey claimed was to be arranged for him.
He walked out on United and returned home to Belfast Celtic, where a loophole known as the ‘open door’, meant Celtic got their greatest asset on a free transfer.
This led to a legal row, as no agreement existed over football transfers between England and Ireland. Shortly afterwards, the two associations agreed to close the ‘open door’, settling on a transfer agreement between England and Ireland.
Back to business in Belfast, Mickey went on to lead Belfast Celtic to their first league championship win since 1901, in the 1914-15 season. This was also the first season the Belfast Celts adopted the Hooped jerseys of their Glasgow cousins.
The keen eye of Willie Maley once again drifted from Glasgow towards Belfast and he sent for Mickey to help his quest for the title in 1916, where he also helped Celtic secure the Charity Cup.
Back in Belfast, in the midst of the world war and the wake of the Easter rising, the Irish League limped on without Belfast Celtic, who refused to enter a senior team in a time of warfare.
In the intermediate league, Mickey Hamill captained the side to the championship, as other junior teams complained bitterly that they could not cope against clubs who had a player of the calibre of Hamill and his recently recruited partner Jimmy Ferris.
It was at this time, as the guns of Flander’s battlefields prepared to fall silent, that Belfast Celtic had its greatest triumph up until that time.
Celtic had already clocked up league victories by this stage, as well as collecting a number of other cups, but their key prize had always eluded them.
At the meeting which established the club in 1891, James Keenan, the Chairman, suggested the name ‘Belfast Celtic ‘should be adopted; “After our Glasgow friends and that our aim should be to imitate them in their style of play, win the Irish Cup, and follow their example, especially in the cause of Charity.”
So in the founding statement of the team, the winning of the Irish Cup was paramount – and this was the one honour that had eluded the team ever since, with three previous finals seeing three defeats for the Stripes.
That was to change in 1918, when a replay against Linfield saw a 2-0 victory deliver the Cup to Paradise for the first time.
Mickey Hamill was described as being ‘particularly majestic in defence’, despite dealing with a ‘huge gash’ in his leg, while Norman Stewart took the laurels, scoring a brace of goals.
Another league title followed in 1920, but the onset of the Anglo-Irish war cast dark clouds over Belfast.
Celtic’s Chairman, Dan McCann, was the target for an assassination attempt from the RUC murder gang led by District Inspector Nixon and threats were made to other officials, as well as Celtic fans travelling to games.
The decision was made to withdraw the club from football, along with Dublin clubs Bohemians and Shelbourne.
Celtic’s players were scattered across various leagues, with Hamill’s partner Jimmy Ferris finding himself at Chelsea, while Mickey himself was back in Manchester, but this time in the blue half of the city.
£2000 had secured his services and in the next four years at Maine Road, Hamill would run out 128 times and was even picked for England to play in a league representative match against Scotland as part of the post war victory celebrations.
In 1924, the wandering Hamill made his most intrepid move, going transatlantic to the USA to compete in the newly formed American Soccer League for Massachusetts club Fall River Marksmen.
He moved again, helping the brilliantly titled Boston Wonder Workers to a second place league finish in 1926, before finishing off at the New York Giants soccer club.
He left an indelible mark on the football community stateside, so much so that he was invited to the White House in Washington to meet the President of the United States, along with other sporting icons at the time, such as Baseball legend Babe Ruth.
A special medal was also minted in his honour by the US Soccer Association, which remains in the possession of the Hamill family.
Despite all the American adulation, Belfast called and in 1927, Mickey and his family returned to the old sod. It was expected that he would slip happily into retirement after a wanderlust career at the age of 37, but Belfast Celtic had other ideas.
A club delegation sought him out and he was once again persuaded to join the green and white.
Celtic’s Directors knew Mickey was ‘box office’ and even staged a weekend series of testimonial events for his benefit, the biggest of which was a boxing tournament.
When the ticket receipts rolled in, Hamill found himself £1,000 richer!
Author Mark Kennedy notes that; “Although older and slower, Mickey still played with poise and control…his long deliberate passes were like manna for the wingers.”
Three consecutive league titles followed, as well as several friendly encounters with the ‘Glasgow friends’, before Mickey finally hung up his boots, aged 40 years old.
Now a father with a young family, Mickey had gone into business on his return from the USA, like many footballers, in the drinks trade, opening the Centre Half Bar on the Falls Road, a popular hangout for both players and fans.
The official Belfast Celtic match programme, The Celt, often carried adverts for the establishment, with one poem extolling that ‘Once you’ve paid a visit, you’ll come back and have a jar and spend a pleasant hour or two in Mickey Hamill’s bar.’
Mickey continued to take a keen interest in Belfast Celtic. He also managed local rivals Distillery in 1934 and represented Derry City at the Irish Football Association in the mid-1930’s.
At the inquest into his death, it was revealed that Hamill had been on his way to work in Lisburn, where he’d taken a wartime occupation as a sheet metal worker, when he was last seen.
Dr Johnston, who had examined Hamill’s body, insisted to the court that he had lain in the river for several days, but this was disputed by a friend, William Barr of Dromore, who said Mickey had been at his home for dinner two nights before.
Hamill’s brother in law, Patrick McKenna, told Deputy Coroner Dr. DC Lennie that Mickey; “Had no worries of any kind and was a popular man!”
Lennie returned an open verdict on the death and the mystery of his last hours remains unsolved.
In the wake of his death, the Irish News carried front page headlines on the Allies pounding Crete as part of their Mediterranean offensive and reports that Benito Mussolini had resigned in Italy and was possibly under arrest.
And there among the stories of the shifting sands of world slaughter sat the sad tale of Mickey Hamill’s funeral from St Peter’s Cathedral in Belfast.
The first line of the report said; “One of the greatest manifestations of public sympathy seen in Belfast for years was witnessed yesterday for the funeral of Mr Michael ‘Mickey’ Hamill.”
No less than 180 personalities, dignitaries, politicians, sportsmen, businessmen and clergy who attended the funeral are listed as attending.
13 priests officiated his funeral mass and amongst the names listed sits ‘J Davey’, the Belfast Celtic scribe and Hamill’s school friend, ‘Ben Madigan’, whose Irish News column on the morning after the funeral began with; “To none more than myself did the news at the weekend of the death of Mickey Hamill come as a more stunning blow!”
In 1989, a full 46 years after his death, a television documentary on the history of Belfast Celtic marked Mickey as the club’s greatest ever player.
Veteran journalist Malcolm Brodie, long regarded as the doyen of Irish soccer journalism, related that he had written a series on great Irish footballers years before for the Belfast Telegraph where he interviewed those players from that era.
Their choice as their most impressive peer – and as Ireland’s greatest ever player – was unanimously Mickey Hamill.
Brodie, a Scotsman not known for overstatement, dubbed Hamill; ‘The George Best of the 20’s’.
Jackie Mahood, a team mate from that era, who formed a famous and deadly ‘Two Mahood’ forward partnership with his brother Stanley, later described Mickey as being; “So graceful he was like one of them trotting ponies”.
Mahood remembered that Hamill’s physical fitness and physique was unreal, with a stomach like; “Four tennis balls and…whipchord muscle all over!”
Another scibe believed that; “As a half-back, Hamill was peerless and tireless!”
Seventy years on from his tragic death, those who never had the pleasure of gazing on him at work at the Paradises of both Glasgow and Belfast, are in no position to argue.
What is certain, in all the old haunts Mickey called his own, no matter where in the world he settled, his ghost lingers on.
There’s an old saying in the green and white half of Belfast, that ‘When we had nothing, we had Belfast Celtic – and then we have everything.”
To the destitute poor of the Pound Loney and Falls Road districts of the city, Hamill meant everything to them.
Mickey was their idol – ‘The Darling of the Falls’
Annette McWilliams
Was Mickey Hamill Belfast Celtic’s Greatest Player?
by Fra Coogan
source: http://www.belfastceltic.org/archive/hamill.html
This story is about one of Belfast Celtic’s greatest ever players – Mickey Hamill. My interested was aroused when I received a letter from Mr Pat Cassidy who lives in Causeway Street, Portrush. Mickey was born in Leeson Street down the Falls Road, the second youngest of a family of six, John, Pat, Joe and two sisters, Susan and Minnie.
Mickey attended school at Barrack Street and Harding Street and it was mostly Gaelic games he played. I intend to tell you about his time spent with the two great Manchester sides and his seeming inability to stay any length of time in one place; he definitely had a touch of wanderlust in him. Mickey’s first teams were St Paul’s, Swifts and Belfast Rangers and it looked at one time as if he was going to sign for Distillery but Celtic jumped in and soon he was a regular ‘seconds’ team player.
On a Good Friday in 1909 he got a run out in the senior side against Bohemians at inside right and made the spot his own. Christmas 1910 saw him give an exhibition in a holiday game against Glasgow Celtic after which a Man Utd representative stepped in and signed him. On December 31, United paid Celtic £175 for his signature and a clause was added that ‘United’ agree to play at Celtic Park in the Easter period of 1911.
Pat Cassidy states that Mickey could not fit into the big city and had trouble acquiring lodgings. Pat claims the nuns in Belfast and Manchester placed him with temporary rooms with his great grandparents in St. Patrick’s parish in North Manchester.
Mickey became attached to the Ball family and Bartle Ball, the head of the house, claimed Mickey became like a brother to his grandmother Catherine Ball and her six brothers and sisters. Pat says he believed Mickey returned to Belfast to avoid conscription in 1914 but returned in 1920 to play for Manchester City.
Mickey settled happily again with the Ball family and a large photograph of Mickey wearing his International Cap stayed in the house for many years. Mickey was remembered with great affection and Pat says that his mother, the daughter of Catherine Ball, always spoke of Mickey Hamill as the “George Best of his day”.
This information was given to Pat Cassidy by his great aunt Dorothea Ball who died a few years ago in her nineties. Dorothea and her husband Harry were contemporaries of Mickey Hamill and knew him extremely well and Pat would dearly love to find out more about Mickey Hamill who was like a member of his own family.
My own knowledge is practically nil and when his name comes up in footballing company no one seems to know much more than his association with The Centre Half Bar at the corner of Paton Street and the fact that he was rated Celtic’s greatest ever player. That’s a huge statement when you consider the likes of Mc Alinden as F.A. Cup medal winner with Portsmouth, Charlie Tully, Bertie Fulton and a million more. I get the impression Mickey was a loner and despite the reputation he bears I think that seven ‘Caps’ is not a lot. He also had trouble making the Man United side where trainer Geordie Livingstone told him he was yards too slow for the Englishman’s faster paced type of game. He made him do 25-yard sprints until it seems Mickey got sick and tired of training.
One of Celtic’s all time great wingers Stanley Mahood said he had never seen a finer or fitter athlete. Spectator’s used to gaze in awe as he skipped on to the pitch like a trotting pony, his stomach was like four tennis balls and the rest pure muscle and whipcord. After the war he played a season for Glasgow Celtic and won a League and Cup medal.
He then signed for Man City for £2,000 a won a Cup finalist medal. His time at Maine Road was happy and the media had him billed as the ‘World’s Greatest’ centre half, a huge accolade for an Irishman in England.
The wanderlust streak once again brought him back to his beloved Belfast Celtic but Home Rule was on the boil and the sectarian strife ruled the city. In 1925 he married a woman named Genevieve and the couple immediately left for America where he played for Forth River, Massachusetts. In no time he became an icon in the same mould as baseball legend Babe Ruth and was even invited to the White House to meet the then President together with other sporting legends such as Babe Ruth himself. However he was soon back in Belfast, the year was 1926 and he retired in 1930 but had a short stint as manager of Distillery in August 1934.
A few knick-knacks on his career included leading Belfast Celtic to their first Irish Cup triumph against Linfield at Grosvenor Park on April 4th 1918. He played for Ireland against Scotland in victory International at Ibrox Park on March 22 1919 and amused the crowd with his yells of ‘Celtic’s ball’ at throw ins. However the scribes in Glasgow described his playing ability as “just quietly effective”. The only way I can give an opinion on Hamill’s ability is that my late father always said Hamill was the best player he ever saw – that will do me.
On a sad ending, Mickey Hamill’s body was taken from the river Lagan at Lisburn on 23 July 1943. I don’t think any verdict was ever reached on this accident. As I said, Mickey Hamill lived a nomadic quiet existence and all I can add is you don’t get to play for teams like Belfast and Glasgow Celtic, Manchester United and Manchester City or your country, unless you are one hell of a player.
No matter what anyone thinks, Mickey Hamill is ranked among the all time greats and that’s how he is remembered – a legend.
