Pat Byrne


Patrick Joseph Byrne is an Irish former football player and manager.

Playing career

Club

A central midfielder, Byrne's playing career started with Bohemians, his debut coming against St Patrick's Athletic on 25 August 1974 in a LFA President's Cup Final. He made 162 appearances in all competitions for Bohemians and won 2 League of Ireland titles and 1 FAI Cup before he moved to the US in 1978, for a year with the Philadelphia Fury of the North American Soccer League. At the Fury he played alongside fellow Irishmen Fran O'Brien and Eddie Byrne, appearing in eighteen matches plus one play-off game and scoring three goals. Byrne's teammates also included Alan Ball, Peter Osgood and Johnny Giles, while he played against the likes of Rodney Marsh, Carlos Alberto, Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia and Bobby Moore.
He returned to Europe in 1979, playing for Leicester City in England until 1981, then Heart of Midlothian in Scotland until 1983. While playing for Hearts he was based in Dublin, and would regularly commute to Scotland for weekend fixtures. When this became too much of a burden, he was granted a free transfer and joined League of Ireland side Shamrock Rovers, where he won four league titles in a row and the FAI Cup three times between 1984 and 1987. He was the club's Player of the Year in 1984–85 and also picked up the SWAI Personality of the Year award for that season. He made seven appearances for Rovers in European competition.

International

In April 1983, Byrne played for the League of Ireland XI U21s against their Italian League counterparts who included Roberto Mancini and Gianluca Vialli in their team.. During this time with Shamrock Rovers he also won eight full international caps for the Republic of Ireland, three inter-league caps, scoring once, and played in two 1988 Summer Olympics qualifiers.

Management career

Byrne retired from playing at the end of the 1987–88 season when he was appointed as player-manager of Shelbourne. By 1992, he had guided the club to their first League of Ireland title in thirty years and the following year, he guided them to their first FAI Cup success in thirty years, when they beat Dundalk 1–0 in the final at Lansdowne Road. In the Cup Winners' Cup that autumn, Byrne brought Shelbourne their first European victory since 1964 when they knocked out Ukrainian club Karpaty Lviv 3–2 on aggregate. He was sacked along with his assistant Jim McLaughlin shortly afterwards, and was succeeded by Eoin Hand.
Byrne became player-manager of St James's Gate in February 1994 before he came back to Shamrock Rovers to manage the club for the 1996–97 season. He later managed Kilkenny City to promotion to the Premier Division.
In September 2006, he became an official Shamrock Rovers Legend.

Honours

As a player