(The following article was first published in the match programme of Shelbourne FC on Friday, 8th, September, 2006, for the game v Longford Town, which Shels won 2-0 to remain in top spot on the FAI National League Premier Division).

On St Patrick’s Day 1923 at Dalymount Park, when Shelbourne FC appeared in their first FAI Cup Final, they lined out as follows: Paddy Walsh, Paddy Kavanagh, James Connolly, Dan Delaney, Val Harris, Mick Foley, Eddie Brierley, Stephen Doyle, Hugh Harvey, Ralph Ardiff, Sammy Wilson. This team included many fine players and interesting personalities. Walsh, Kavanagh, Harris, Foley and Ardiff had all played in Irish League or IFA Cup games before the FAI in Dublin had been formed. While Val Harris and Mick ‘Boxer’ Foley were the outstanding and best-remembered personalities of the team, some of the others are worthy of further examination.

A very brave footballer
We often hear a player described as a ‘brave footballer’, but very few could produce a record of proven bravery such as our outside-right of the day, Edward Brierley (Shelbourne records show him as Eddie, but most other items refer to him as ‘Ned’ Brierley). As a former member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Ned has been the subject of extensive research by Tom Burke, Chairman of The Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association, in 2000, to whom I am grateful for permission to use the following.

When Ned was born in 1896, his family lived in Turner’s Cottages on the Shelbourne Road, Ballsbridge (very close to the spot where Shelbourne Football Club had been originally formed and named). The site of Turner’s Cottages is now best-known as the place where the UCD Veterinary College had been built, and has been very much in the news as one of the main sites in the proposed massive multi-million euro development, to include Jury’s Ballsbridge Hotel, being planned by developer Sean Dunne.

Earlier, the site had also included the smelting and engineering works of the Turner company which produced the wonderful hothouses and glasshouses for the Botanic Gardens in Dublin and many other places in Ireland and Britain, some of which have been restored in recent years and are now considered pieces of artwork, although produced originally by tradesmen or artisans.

As that type of cottage housing would have been very much in demand at the time, it is most likely that some member of the Brierley family had to be associated with the Turner company to gain housing there. After leaving school, Ned Brierley worked for the Pembroke Urban District Council, which later became part of Dublin Corporation.

At the age of 18, on the outbreak of war in 1914, Ned volunteered for the British Army, joining the Royal Dublin Fusiliers (RDF). Although many people may then or later have expressed disagreement with young Irishmen joining ‘His Majesty’s’ forces, young Irishmen joined in very large numbers (my own father William ‘Billy’ Sands included).

One of the biggest recruitment offices for the British Army then was located in Brunswick (now Pearse) Street, almost opposite the Queen’s Theatre, sandwiched between Larry Cervi’s (the first fish and chip shop in Dublin), and Hopkin’s Menswear, and ironically almost beside the family home of Patrick Pearse.

Most of those men then enrolling would have been brought or sent for induction and initial training to Beggar’s Bush Barracks, on the Haddington Road corner of Shelbourne Road (almost the exact spot on which our team was given the name of Shelbourne FC, as local legend has it).

But, Private Brierley was no ordinary soldier. He received no less than three awards for bravery while serving in the RDF with the 16th (Irish) Division. His first came in September 1916 during the Battle of Ginchy toward the end of the Battle of the Somme. His second award came in August 1917, for bravery near the Belgian town of Ypres at Frezenberg Ridge, at the beginning of the battle of Passchendaele. Ned’s third bravery award came in October 1918 during the final Allied assault on the German forces. During most of his service Ned wrote up his personal diary, which has become very useful for researchers of the period.

An item that Ned wrote about was the ‘Brown Line’, this being part of a defence in France against German attacks in March 1918. Far from successful, this ‘defence’ caused more than 1,000 men of The Royal Dublin Fusiliers to be killed, wounded by shell or gas, or taken prisoner.

Ned Brierley survived the killing fields of France and Flanders and returned to Dublin, where he resumed his job with Pembroke District Council. Amongst other activities he returned to playing football and in 1922 he signed for Shelbourne FC. And in this 1923 FAI Cup Final, Ned Brierley lined-out at outside-right for Shels.

In an amazing turn-about, this very talented and highly fancied Shelbourne team lost 1-0 to an unknown team, Alton United from Belfast. Ned later played with St Mary’s United AFC from Ballsbridge in the Leinster Senior League. With them he had some success in the Edmund Johnson Cup and the Metropolitan Cup.

Ned Brierley died in November 1955 aged 59 from a heart attack while at work with Dublin Corporation. He had been one of seven children. His marriage in 1924 produced eight children, many of whom are very well-known and respected in the Ringsend-Irishtown area of Dublin.

On 1st June 2005, the national newspapers carried a death notice for another Edward (Ned) Brierley. It was the son of our former player of the same name. The senior Edward (Ned or Eddie) Brierley, is listed in the Shelbourne FC Facts and Figures booklet as having played in 19 League games, scoring 5 goals, and 4 FAI Cup games, one of which was the 1923 Cup Final.

ANOTHER PERSONALITY, OF A DIFFERENT SORT
Centre-forward Hugh J (Jimmy) Harvey later achieved fame on the stage of variety theatres in Dublin, particularly the Queen’s Theatre in Dublin’s Pearse Street. Brought by my parents to the Queens on many occasions, I clearly remember in the 1940s, the ‘dynamic duo’, of Danny Cummins and Jimmy Harvey on the stage in their top hats and tails, with walking sticks, in the spotlight, dancing and singing through their routine with songs such as, ‘Shine on Harvest Moon’, ‘Moonlight Bay’, and others.

We knew Danny and his family from the Townsend Street area, were all Shelbourne people, but we didn’t know for many years after that the ‘Jimmy’ Harvey on the stage was the ‘Hugh’ Harvey who had played for Shels. His son Gerry Harvey, in his then position as head of An Post, oversaw the introduction of the National Lottery to Ireland. Gerry’s son, or Hugh’s grandson, David Harvey, now MD of a national radio and TV media company, was best known as the presenter of ‘Crimeline’ on RTE TV.

Disappointing as that result in the 1923 FAI Cup Final had been for all the players, officials and supporters of Shelbourne FC, Hugh must have felt it even more so, as he had missed a penalty for Shels in that game, when the score was still at nil-all.

Above: Shelbourne FC, FAI Cup Final team of 1923. Edward ‘Ned’ Brierley is in the front row, first left. Hugh ‘Jimmy’ Harvey is centre, front row (mascot is not named). The great Val Harris, Shelbourne captain and later club manager, is first player to the left in the back row.