Headmaster Frank Stapleton

Frank Stapleton

Born and grow­ing up in Dub­lin, Frank Stapleton star­ted out his long and dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sional play­ing career with Arsenal as an appren­tice after ini­tially being turned down by Manchester United. While with The Gun­ners, Stapleton helped the North Lon­don club win the unfor­get­table 1979 FA Cup Final when the bat­ter­ing ram striker man­aged to score one of the goals in the nar­row 3–2 win against Dave Sexton´s Manchester United.

Con­stantly improv­ing his foot­balling skills, Frank Stapleton went on to make 75 goals in 225 league matches for Arsenal before he moved on to Manchester United for trans­fer fee of £900,000 in August 1981. A self­less team player, Stapleton made 365 appear­ances for Manchester United and won two FA Cup win­ners medals with The Reds before he left Old Traf­ford in 1987. After a short spell with Ajax Ams­ter­dam, the reli­able front­man went on to give ster­ling ser­vice to Derby County, Black­burn Rovers, Alder­shot, Hud­der­sfield Town and Brad­ford City. After being sacked as player-manager at Brad­ford in 1994, he had a brief stay at Brighton and Hove Albion before he decided to make his retire­ment from the game of foot­ball in 1995. An inter­na­tional for the Repub­lic of Ire­land, the pop­u­lar player col­lec­ted an impress­ive a total of 71 senior caps for his nat­ive coun­try between 1976 and 1990. Show­ing his true green col­ours, the pro­lific marks­man was so com­mit­ted to the coun­try of his birth that he actu­ally insisted on an inter­na­tional release clause in all his club con­tracts. Argu­ably the best header of a ball ever to pull on the fam­ous green shirt, Frank Stapleton was also known for his stra­tegic think­ing and accur­ate passing.

Frank Stapleton was Ron Atkinson’s first major sign­ing at Manchester United.

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