Manchester United´s Midfield Engine

Gerry Daly

Born and grow­ing up in Dub­lin, Gerry Daly star­ted out his foot­ball career with fam­ous school­boy academy Stella Maris Foot­ball Club before the lav­ishly gif­ted player decided to try his luck with League of Ire­land team Bohemi­ans. A for­ward think­ing mid­field play­maker, Daly was even­tu­ally brought to Old Traf­ford by Manchester United man­ager Tommy Docherty for an estim­ated fee of £20,000 in the sum­mer of 1973.

After mak­ing his league debut for Manchester United in a 3–0 defeat against Arsenal at High­bury on the open­ing day of the 1973–74 cam­paign, Gerry Daly went on to accu­mu­late over 100 league appear­ances for The Reds. A mid­fielder with nat­ural fit­ness and attack­ing instincts, the Dub­liner was an import­ant part of the young and excit­ing side that went on to clinch the Second Divi­sion Cham­pi­on­ship ahead of Aston Villa in 1974–75. After a bit­ter row with the con­tro­ver­sial Tommy Docherty, the way­ward player sub­sequently left Old Traf­ford for Derby County for a trans­fer fee of £175,000 in the spring of 1977. The Irish­man then had two sum­mer loan spells with New Eng­land Tea Men of the North Amer­ican Soc­cer League before the exper­i­enced cam­paigner decided to team up with First Divi­sion Cov­entry City for a fee of £300,000 at the start of the 1980–81 sea­son. Dur­ing his long and illus­tri­ous pro­fes­sional career, the much trav­elled Gerry Daly also gave ster­ling ser­vice to Birm­ing­ham City, Don­caster Rovers, Leicester City, Shrews­bury Town and Stoke City. The Repub­lic of Ire­land inter­na­tional col­lec­ted a total of 48 senior caps for his nat­ive coun­try after mak­ing his full debut in a friendly away to Nor­way in June 1973.

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