EVEN IF YOU completely ignore his career in football, Felix Healy has led a very interesting life.

The Dalai Lama, Martin McGuinness, Kenny Dalglish, The Troubles, the 1982 World Cup, the Undertones, Martin O’Neill and Eusebio are just some of the people and subjects that come up over the course of an hour-long conversation.

During childhood, Healy could see Derry City’s Brandywell stadium from his bedroom window. When he was very young, his mother would take him to the big gates of the ground, which opened about 15 minutes before full-time, to watch the climactic moments of matches.

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As he grew older, Healy started attending games of his own accord. He was at Windsor Park in 1964 when Derry won the IFA Cup. A year later, the Candystripes prevailed in the Irish Football League for the first and only time. To this day, he can still rhyme off the names of Jimmy McGeough, Jim Crossan and the rest of that famous team.

Healy, who could play as both a midfielder and a forward, went on to captain a Derry schools side, but by the time he was coming of age as a footballer, the Candystripes were no longer competing in the Irish league.

Security concerns relating to the Troubles had a major impact on the club in the early 1970s. Initially, with the Brandywell adjudged to be an unsafe area, they played ‘home’ fixtures 30 miles away in Coleraine, a majority unionist town. However, with most supporters unwilling to travel to their temporary base, it quickly became apparent that this plan was financially unsustainable and they were forced to withdraw from the league.

The Candystripes spent 13 years in the relative wilderness of junior football, before becoming part of the League of Ireland’s newly formed First Division ahead of the 1985-86 season.

And just like his boyhood club, as well as essentially everyone living in Derry at the time, Healy’s life was significantly impacted by the Troubles.

The teenage footballer was “on the march” on 30 January 1972, ‘Bloody Sunday,’  when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest against internment without trial. The mass shooting in the Bogside area of Derry resulted in the deaths of 14 people. Healy had been supposed to play a game that day in the Derry District League, but chose to partake in the march instead.

A silent crowd form a cordon 10 or more deep, lining both sides of the 250 yards of road leading from St Mary’s Church, Creggan Hill to the cemetery, to watch the funeral procession of those who died on “Bloody Sunday.”

Source: PA

“Everyone who grew up by the Brandywell knew who was involved and who wasn’t,” he says.

“At the time, when I was working, there were many dodgy situations, a lot of stuff that everyone went through. It wasn’t very nice, but it became the norm. I’ve said it before, it was incredibly stupid on all sides. 

“You’re talking about a time where there were British army foot patrols. If you were walking along the path up to the house, you’d get off the path, because some soldiers would give you a whack with a baton. There were one or two groups of people in the IRA that we didn’t want to bump into either.

“I’ve a strong interest in politics, but violence — as has been proved — doesn’t solve anything.

“My grandfather was a nationalist politician in Derry. My grandfather on my father’s side was a leading trade unionist.

“So politically, I would be savvy enough with regards the violence end of it, and it achieved nothing.”

Healy also got to know an individual who would soon become a key figure in the North — Martin McGuinness, the Irish republican Sinn Féin politician and future deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland — who he worked with as a youngster in the same meat company.

“I wouldn’t say we were close friends, but we knew one another. I didn’t agree with what they did — I’ll say no more.”

Even when Healy started playing for Sligo Rovers in the mid-1970s, the shadow of the Troubles was inescapable.

“We would go from Derry to Dublin. On the way back, you were stopped at an army checkpoint at Aughnacloy.

“Sometimes, you were sitting three or four cars back from the checkpoint, but you could be there for three or four hours — that was commonplace.

“Martin McGuinness’ brother Paul used to play for Sligo Rovers. We came from Cork one time. Around 4.30am, we arrived outside Derry. It was an army checkpoint. I think there was about seven or eight of us on the bus and we were all arrested and taken to an army camp called Piggery Ridge. But it comes with the territory — that was the time we lived in.”

Healy worked in the same meat company as Martin McGuinness.

Source: Jeff Spicer

In that era in particular, finding forms of escape as a teenager seemed essential. As a youngster, Healy was obsessed with football, though he admits this feeling diminished to an extent as he grew older.

“I was lucky enough, I played in the first-ever Northern Ireland primary school cup final in 1966,” he remembers. “We lost to Mersy Street, whose star player at the time was [future Northern Ireland and Man United player] Sammy McIlroy.

“The following year, I also played in the final and we won the trophy. The Long Tower parish is actually the Brandywell parish — the church overlooks the Brandywell.

“Jim McLaughlin, Johnny Crossan, Liam Coyle — all the Brandywell football loyalty, they all went to the Long Tower school. I captained the team. We won the cup in Coleraine. I went to St Columb’s College, which overlooked the Brandywell as well. At 13 or 14, I left. I never felt the same about football after that. It’s just one of those things. To me, football is a game I played as a kid.

“Right throughout my career, I was singing. I was singing when I played for Sligo in ’75. I was still singing when I was managing Derry in 1997.

“We won the league in 1997 when I was the manager. I went and did a gig before I joined the party.

“If you’d asked me would I rather be singing than playing football, probably yeah.

“Back in the early days, it was all covers. The band I was in, we were doing a lot of Eagles stuff. I think the people of Derry knew who The Eagles were before the rest of the UK.”

One of the bands that supported Healy’s group were The Undertones, who would go on to record the famous hit ‘Teenage Kicks’ and become a seminal act in the burgeoning punk movement. Did Healy always envisage Feargal Sharkey and co making it big?

“Not the first couple of times I heard them. I know the boys: Damian [O’Neill], John [O’Neill] and Micky Bradley, the bass player — he works in Radio Foyle up here.

“To be fair to them, over an 18-month period, as a band, they got their act together playing-wise. But at that point [when they supported us], they were kids and they were learning.”

On his own music career, Healy adds: “I was always the front guy in bands. And I wish I could have been the keyboard player or drummer. Even to this day, I do a lot of gigs on my own. I was doing three or four gigs a week until this [coronavirus crisis] surfaced.”

Source: UnionSquareMusic/YouTube

And while his music career may have meant more to him than football, Healy certainly had no shortage of talent when it came to sport. He started out with short stints at Sligo, Distillery and Finn Harps.

He says of his spell with the Ballybofey side: “It was full of laughs and a great education — a lot of Derry guys there, a lot of travel, with some great players.

“I played against Everton one week and all of a sudden, I find myself sitting in a hotel in England and I’ve just signed for Port Vale. I’m saying: ‘What the fuck have I done?’ I was only there two weeks and Leicester City wanted to sign me and pay 50 grand. Three months later, it was Christmas time, which was a nightmare. To be fair to Port Vale, they gave me four weeks off.”

Healy played regularly in his two years with Port Vale, who were in the English fourth tier at the time. An unfortunate and deeply sad set of circumstances, including the breakdown of his marriage and the tragic death of his 21-year-old brother, prompted a return home in 1980.

“There were a lot of family reasons for it, my brother died in a car accident the day before I was due to be transferred to Bolton Wanderers.

“My mother at that time wasn’t well. My son, who was two years of age, wasn’t great, and he was living back in Derry.

“It was one of those where I was the eldest of 10 kids. My brother’s death was an awful thing to go through obviously — he was next to me.

“When my brother died in ’79, it was just a culmination [of tragic events]. I decided to come home and it was the right thing to do.”

Healy would go on to enjoy a seven-year spell with Coleraine, winning two Ulster Cups during that period, as well as twice being a runner-up in the Irish Cup final.

“Obviously, with Derry City not being involved at that time, there was a lot of Derry fellas [playing for Coleraine].

“The minibus was owned by the football club, but it stayed in Derry.”

A young Michael O’Neill, who would go on to play for sides including Newcastle United, Hibernian and Coventry, in addition to managing Shamrock Rovers, Northern Ireland and Stoke, was part of the squad.

“Even as a kid, Michael was ambitious,” he recalls. “He always had aspirations to go to England. I remember, at an awards dinner at the end of the season one night, him asking me about one or two options that he had.

“If I was really ambitious, I would have stayed in England at 22 and never gone back. But not everybody’s the same — some people are more driven than others. I chose to do other things with my life and we’re not all the same, but he was certainly driven.”

Stoke City manager Michael O’Neill.

Source: Barrington Coombs

1982 was arguably Healy’s career peak. At club level, he was named both Northern Ireland Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year and Ulster Footballer of the Year.

On the back of these impressive performances, he was called up to the Northern Ireland national team.

He made his debut against Scotland in a British Home Championship match, before featuring amid a 3-0 defeat to Wales a month later. Billy Bingham also went to watch Healy play in the Irish Cup final, and his performances were ultimately good enough to convince the manager to include him in the squad for the 1982 World Cup. To this day, he remains the only footballer to play at the tournament while being on the books at a Northern Irish club.

“It was a strange time. All of a sudden, you were thrown into this cavalcade of football.

“You’re playing against some of the top players in Britain that you watch on TV.

“I was lucky enough to play against Kenny Dalglish when he was at Celtic, to play against Ian Rush and people of that ilk in the space of a couple of weeks.

Northern Ireland drew their opening match 0-0 with Yugoslavia. Healy then featured for the first and only time in the second game, a disappointing 0-0 draw with Honduras, coming on to replace future Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill.

“I was warming up for ages. It was one of those where I knew before the match started that I was going to go on. The longer it goes on, you’re saying to yourself and you’re saying to the manager, ‘get me on’.

“When you go on your first run and you try to breathe, it’s like taking a big deep breath in a sauna. It was incredible, the heat. It was like, 100 degrees. It was just horrendous. But it was the quickest time ever [being on the pitch].

“We spent 12 days in Brighton before we went to Valencia. It was warmer in Brighton. But you can do all the training you like, when the gun goes off and you’re on, particularly when you’re coming on as a sub against everybody else who’s had an hour or so, it takes a bit of time [to adapt].

“We always felt we had to beat Honduras to have any chance. After it finished 1-1, we thought we weren’t going to beat Spain and were probably going to go home. There was a lot of disappointment.

“After the match, I met Charlie Stuart, who was one of the doyens of the sports journalism world in the Republic of Ireland and he was originally from up north. We’re getting on the flight [to Madrid] afterwards, and Charlie says to me: ‘Imagine a wee fella from Derry playing in the World Cup.’”

Source: pamemundial/YouTube

The Honduras setback would be followed by arguably the greatest moment in Northern Ireland’s football history — a 1-0 victory over host nation Spain to see them through to the next stage.

But Healy understandably has mixed feelings about that unforgettable occasion. He was due to come off the bench as a substitute on the night, but a red card for Mal Donaghy resulted in a change of plans, with the Irish League star missing out in favour of a defensive reinforcement.

“Being there for the night of the win against Spain was bittersweet for me. I wanted so much to play. It was one of the few occasions that I couldn’t wait to get on the pitch. I was just about to go on and Mal got sent off and the whole thing changed. It was great that we won, but I didn’t play.

“Of course, you enjoy the moment. I always think about the match, it was like a Hollywood picture. The scenes on the pitch at the end and outside the dressing room, it was just full of cameras, Eusebio was there along with a lot of top people from around the world, who were working for TV.

“Going back to the hotel afterwards, an incredible night was had. I actually sang ‘Danny Boy’ for everybody. That caused a bit of a row, because all the TV guys wanted to knock off, but they were asked to stay on to film some of the celebrations.

Northern Ireland ultimately bowed out in the second group stage. A 2-2 draw with Austria was followed by a 4-1 loss against France. Had Bingham’s side won the latter game, they would have advanced to the semi-finals.

Although Healy had to be content with just one appearance, he evidently still made a positive impression.

“I could have gone to Luton Town after the World Cup in ’82, but Port Vale had my registration in England until 1993.

“Looking back on it now, it’s probably the one decision I do regret. I should have gone.

“I know West Brom came in for me when Ron Atkinson was manager, because he told me. He was working for ITV — he was based in the same hotel as us in Spain [during the World Cup]. Apparently, Port Vale had also promised Terry Venables at Crystal Palace that I was going there. But when you’re 22 or 23, time doesn’t go as quick as it goes now.