Eglington, Tommy (Thomas Joseph)

by Lawrence William White

Eglington, Tommy (Thomas Joseph) (1923–2004), soccer player, was born 15 January 1923 at 14 Norfolk Market, Great Britain (latterly Parnell) Street, Dublin, son of Christopher Eglington, butcher, and his wife Margaret (née McHugh). In his childhood the family moved to 7 Hazel Road in the newly developed Dublin suburb of Donnycarney. Educated at Scoil Mhuire CBS, Marino, he excelled at Gaelic games, and helped form a soccer team, Grace Park, that won both the schoolboy league and cup. He played junior soccer with Munster Victoria and with Distillery (of Drumcondra), and scored the first goal in the latter club's 2–1 final victory over Drogheda United in the FAI Junior Cup (1942). In 1942/3 he played on the Distillery intermediate team in the Leinster Senior League and the Leinster Senior Cup. Joining Shamrock Rovers near the end of the 1942/3 season, he immediately entered the club's senior team, appearing in the last two games of the League of Ireland season, and helping Rovers win the all-Ireland Inter-City Cup. In each of his three full seasons with Shamrock Rovers the club finished in the middle of the league table, but was more successful in knock-out competitions, winning two FAI Cups (1944 and 1945), and losing the 1946 final to Drumcondra. Other honours included the President's Cup (of the Leinster Football Association) in each of the three seasons, one Dublin City Cup (1944/5), and a second Inter-City Cup (1945/6). In his last season with Rovers (1945/6), Eglington, from his outside left position, scored eleven league goals, the club leader, and joint second in the league. Throughout these years with Rovers, Eglington also pursued his family's trade by working in a butcher's shop in Killester.

The stalwart of the Shamrock Rovers defence was wing back Peter Farrell (qv), with whose career Eglington's would be tightly intertwined; 'the inseparable twins of Irish football' (Byrne, 61), for seventeen years (1943–60) they teamed together almost continually at club and international levels. They both began their international careers in Ireland's first two post-war matches: a 1–3 away defeat to Portugal (16 June 1946), and a 1–0 upset of Spain in Madrid (23 June 1946). One month later (July 1946), Eglington and Farrell were transferred for a joint fee of £10,000 to Everton, one of the top clubs in English football, and champions in the last pre-war Football League season (1938/9). Despite the tantalising prospect of careers as full-time professional footballers with a top-flight club, the two young Dubliners dithered for a fortnight before agreeing to the transfer, owing to their reluctance, as Eglington recalled, to endure the hardships of post-war Britain: 'there was a lot of deprivation in England and coming from Dublin, where there was plenty of food available, we didn't fancy the idea of having to go on rations' (quoted in Byrne, 63). Eglington and Farrell were the first two League of Ireland players to transfer to English league football in the post-war period; their acquisition was described as 'one of the finest strokes of business Everton ever pulled off' (Ross and Smailes, 71).

Playing eleven seasons with Everton (1946–57), Eglington was one of the outstanding forwards of his day in English football. Small and lithe – one source lists his height at 5 ft 6.5 in. (1.69 m) and weight at 10 stone (63.42 kg) – he tormented opposing defenders with explosive speed, intricate ball control, bewildering capacity to change pace, and powerful shooting. He was renowned for precisely directed crosses from the left wing delivered at speed. '"Eggo" on the burst' was a thrilling sight to behold; in the words of his testimonial match programme, he 'was travelling faster than sound before rockets were thought of' (quoted in Upton et al, 341). A fitness zealot, devoted to physical training, he remained remarkably free of injuries throughout his career, and rarely missed a match. His enduring partnership with Farrell captured the public imagination in both Britain and Ireland; more heavy-set than Eglington in physique, Farrell played on either side of the formation, but usually at left back in his early club and international careers, thereby playing in tandem with Eglington, their styles blending to devastating effect. They constituted the nucleus of a sizeable Irish presence at Goodison Park, comprising over half of Everton's first team in the mid 1950s, and including three other internationals (Jimmy O'Neill, Don Donovan, and Tommy Clinton).

Despite their individual and coupled prowess, the Farrell/Eglington era was not a particularly successful one for Everton. The club won no major honours, and suffered relegation by finishing last in Division One in 1950/51; competing the next three seasons in Division Two, they won promotion back to the top flight as runners-up to Leicester City on goal average in 1953/4. Everton's best Division One season during Eglington's tenure was his first (1946/7), when they finished 10th; their best thereafter was 1954/5, the first season after promotion, when they finished 11th. Eglington holds the Everton record for matches played in Division Two at 118, one more than Farrell. The club enjoyed three extended FA Cup runs, reaching the semi-final twice (1950, 1953), and the quarter-final once (1956), losing the thrilling 1953 semi-final by 3–4 to Bolton Wanderers after trailing 0–4 at halftime.

While primarily a creator of chances for teammates, Eglington also boasted a strong and deadly accurate shot. In 428 matches with Everton (394 league, 34 FA Cup), he scored 82 goals (76 league, 6 FA Cup). 'Probably the best goalscoring winger of his era' (Upton et al, 151), he remains one of Everton's leading post-second-world-war goal-scorers. His most prolific season was 1952/3, when he was Everton's leading scorer with 16 goals (14 league, 2 FA Cup), nearly a third coming in a single match, when he scored five times in a 7–1 thrashing of Doncaster Rovers (27 September 1952). His highest season's tally in Division One games was nine in 1954/5.

Capped 24 times by the Republic of Ireland (1946–55), Eglington appeared in 20 friendlies and four World Cup matches. After making his World Cup debut in a 1–3 away defeat v. Sweden (2 June 1949; his ninth cap), he was left out of the international side for the following seventeen months, thereby missing the remaining three matches of Ireland's World Cup qualifying campaign, and the historic friendly v. England in his home ground of Goodison Park (21 September 1949), a 2–0 Ireland victory in which Farrell scored (England's first ever home defeat by a non-British side). Eglington had previously played v. England at Goodison for Northern Ireland (5 November 1947), when his cross set up a memorable equaliser by Peter Doherty (qv) (who was knocked senseless on colliding with the England keeper) in a 2–2 draw. Eglington won six Northern Ireland caps (1946–8), all in consecutive matches in the British home championships, appearing in all three matches in the 1947/8 series

Returning for his tenth Republic of Ireland cap in a 2–2 home draw v. Norway (26 November 1950), he appeared in the Ireland team that lost 0–1 to Argentina (13 May 1951), Ireland's first international against a South American opponent. He played in the impressive 3–2 home victory v. West Germany (17 October 1951) – the Germans' first post-war overseas international – combining with Farrell to set up the winning goal by Dessie Glynn in the 85th minute. Eglington scored two international goals, both in 4–0 home victories in 1953, against Austria (25 March) and Luxembourg (28 October). The latter, a World Cup qualifier, was the first of Eglington's two matches as Ireland captain, the second being a World Cup qualifier in Paris – the first Ireland away match to be broadcast live on Radio Éireann – won by France 1–0 on a controversial goal (25 November 1953). Eglington ended his international career one cap shy of the twenty-five that merited the award of a silver statuette by the FAI; in time he was so awarded, on the basis that his six Northern Ireland caps put him over the standard. At the time of his last selection (against Spain, 27 November 1955), he was the fourth most frequently capped player for the Republic of Ireland, behind only Jackie Carey (qv), Farrell, and Con Martin.

Leaving Everton in June 1957, Eglington crossed the Mersey and played four seasons with Tranmere Rovers (1957–61). He was instrumental in persuading Farrell to join him, several months after his own signing, as the club's player-manager. Though in the twilight of their careers, they combined to provide Tranmere with 'three years of quality one-touch football' (Upton et al, 32), attracting the largest average crowds (approaching 12,000) in the club's history. In the 1957/8 season finale, before a record Prenton Park attendance for a league match (19,605), Eglington scored Tranmere's first goal on a penalty; their 2–1 victory secured 11th place in Division Three North, and qualification for the newly constituted nationwide Division Three. Still fit and reliable, Eglington missed only three league or FA Cup matches in his first two seasons at Tranmere, and none in 1958/9, when Tranmere finished 7th in Division Three. In a home match v. Bournemouth (21 February 1959) he scored his 100th career goal in his 500th Football League match. Despite his hat trick in a 5–1 home victory v. Accrington Stanley in the opening match of 1959/60, Tranmere fared poorly in his last two seasons. After narrowly avoiding relegation in 1959/60 (Eglington missing nine league matches), they continued to struggle throughout 1960/61 (Farrell being sacked in December 1960); finishing 21st, they were relegated to Division Four. Eglington, in his last season in English football, played in 49 of the club's 52 league, FA Cup, and League Cup matches. In four Tranmere seasons, he appeared in 181 matches (171 league, 8 FA Cup, 2 League Cup), scoring 40 goals (36 league, 3 FA Cup, 1 League Cup). Always a crowd favourite, and a model professional, he received a testimonial v. an Ireland All Star XI (1 May 1961), was accorded a civic reception by the mayor of Birkenhead, and had a Merseyside street named after him (Eglington Avenue, Whiston, Prescot).

Eglington played two more seasons of senior football, with Cork Hibernians in the League of Ireland (1961–3), appearing in the 1963 FAI Cup final, a 0–2 defeat to Shelbourne. Included in four League of Ireland selections for inter-league matches, he scored a goal in a 2–5 away defeat to an English league selection that was the embryo of England's World Cup championship side of 1966.

Having established a butcher's shop in Dollymount, Dublin, while playing with Tranmere, on retiring from football he operated the business for many years, residing at 35 Foxfield Road, Raheny. An accomplished golfer, he was a member of the senior cup team of St Anne's, and sometime club president and captain. (In the latter capacity in 1970, he led a coterie of members who chaired the club pro, Paddy Skerritt, off the 18th green at Portmarnock after his three-stroke victory in the prestigious Alcan International tournament.) Eglington was inducted into the Shamrock Rovers Hall of Fame (1994), and into Gwladys Street's Hall of Fame (for Everton players) (1999). After several years of ill health, he died 18 February 2004 in a Raheny nursing home, survived by his wife Doris, two sons and one daughter. The funeral was from the Roman catholic church of Our Lady, Mother of Divine Grace, Raheny.