大象传媒

EDDIE DAVIS

Well, I was a professional footballer playing in England for Wolverhampton Wanderers and Southend United. When the Second World War broke out, the Football Association suspended all football. Me, coming from Ireland, I had to go back home. The local boys who were playing for those clubs were all called into the services. I came home, I was out of a job, and my career was shattered.
In the meantime, unknown to me, Harland and Wolff, the shipbuilding company from Belfast, had opened up the Derry dockyard as a repair yard. This gentleman knocked at the door and I answered it myself and he introduced himself. He told me that when he鈥檇 been in the barber鈥檚 shop, the conversation had been all about football and the barber had mentioned my name and that I was home with my career up in the air. We decided that I would go down and have a word in his office the following morning. We talked over different approaches to me taking the job. I asked him what the reason was for him asking me to work in the dockyard and he said his main reason was that he was under the impression that this war was only going to last six months. He told me that he would have to...was asked to get a football team together because the majority of the international footballers and athletes would be coming back from the front and they would have to be rehabilitated and he, himself being a footballer, knew what was required. So, he asked me if I would kindly take the job and also build a football team. You see I wasn't the only international player sent home to sit out the war. There were lots of superb Irish players and all our team mates in the services so there was no shortage of talent around to form an A class team.
The way that it was worked was, I said to the manager, 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 ask these fellows to play every week. The best thing would be to offer them jobs鈥�. 鈥淲ell鈥�, he said, 鈥渢he only way we can work it to get them in ... we have to get electricians to work during the war. On these ships, it鈥檚 all electrical work that鈥檚 got to be done and an electrician always loves a helper and we鈥檒l make these boys up as electrician鈥檚 helpers. We鈥檒l get them all union cards and we鈥檒l have them all employed鈥�. The lads were delighted. They said 鈥淲e鈥檝e never done electrical work before鈥�. I said to them, 鈥淭here鈥檚 no time like the present to learn鈥�.
We had a first class team. We won some, we lost some but we were always on the forefront. They called it The United Football League. We had to call it something so that was the nice name we gave it and the lads, they were all very good footballers. You had Hugh Kelly, the goalkeeper there, who was over with Wolverhampton, as well. You had Frankie Higgins, who played for Belfast Celtic, who was a wonderful footballer. You had Gerry Lynn, who was a Limerick boy and, of course, the manager himself, played a bit of football in Belfast. You had Tom Bowler, who was a brother of Gerry Bowler, who played international football. You had John McDermott, Jim Condren and Willie Elliot. These fellows were all named footballers. Locally, they were all very good and one particular chap there was called Jim Little. They were all of that standard that didn鈥檛 let themselves down. We had a regular game every weekend with the army, the navy or the air force. The war did last for a long time and the football team lasted as long as the war lasted.

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