Player Profile: Paul McGrath

Paul McGrath

Lon­don born Paul McGrath ini­ti­ated his foot­balling career at St Patrick’s Ath­letic before the mid­fielder was brought to Manchester United where he was con­ver­ted into one of the finest cent­ral defend­ers in the the league by man­ager Ron Atkin­son. While at the club, he amassed 163 league appear­ances and gained an FA Cup medal in 1985.

By then Paul McGrath´s high pro­file pro­fes­sional career was at its abso­lute peak and he was expec­ted by most foot­ball pun­dits to fol­low in the foot­steps of great Manchester United play­ers of the past such as Bill Foulkes and David Sadler. But Foulkes and Sadler never stayed out drink­ing until the early hours like McGrath did. Tra­gic­ally, the increas­ingly frus­trated foot­baller turned to alco­hol and sed­at­ives to cope with the pres­sures around him and he would hold his breath dur­ing matches to avoid smelling of drink. After fall­ing out with Manchester United supremo Alex Fer­guson in the sum­mer of 1989, the centre half was sub­sequently dis­patched to Aston Villa where he received a new lease of life and he was deservedly voted the PFA Play­ers’ Player of the Year in 1993. A firm favour­ite with the home sup­port­ers, the com­mand­ing stop­per helped The Vil­lains win the Foot­ball League Cup before he decided to join newly pro­moted Eng­lish Premier League side Derby County in the autumn of 1996. Des­pite his dazzling skills, he failed to settle down at Base­ball Ground and he moved on to Shef­field United the fol­low­ing year after spend­ing just one sea­son with The Rams. Capped 83 times by his nat­ive coun­try, Paul McGrath made his full inter­na­tional debut for the Repub­lic of Ire­land in a close 2–1 defeat against Italy at Dalymount Park in Feb­ru­ary 1985 and he was a mem­ber of the now legendary Irish side which rose to prom­in­ence under shrewd man­ager Jackie Charlton. But unfor­tu­nately, his per­sonal prob­lems upset the sweet roll of suc­cess and his drink­ing habits forced him to announce his retire­ment from the game of foot­ball in 1998. Paul McGrath Club Career: St Patrick’s Ath­letic, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Derby, Shef­field United.

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