Glentoran Football Club is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our former player and manager Tommy Cassidy at the age of 73.
Tommy joined Glentoran as a youth player and between 1969 and 1970 made 14 first team appearances, scoring 8 goals. He was a member of Peter McParland’s league winning squad of 1969-70 before departing for Newcastle United as a 19-year old.
Tommy played 239 times for Newcastle between 1970 and 1980, helping them reach the finals of the FA Cup in 1974 and the League Cup two years later. He scored 28 goals for the Magpies, then spent three years at Burnley, before spending the final two seasons of his playing career with Cypriot side APOEL.
In a lengthy international career, Tommy won 24 caps and was part of the Northern Ireland squad at the 1982 World Cup, featuring in the famous 1-0 win over hosts Spain in Valencia. He also played his part in winning the British Home Championship in 1980.
Tommy (fourth left back row) in one of our final visits to Grosvenor Park in 1970 with the league winning team.
Tommy returned to the Glens as manager in the summer of 1994 with the incredible brief of making sure we avoided the relegation that was to be introduced at the end of that first season. This he did with a last gasp away victory over Champions Crusaders in April 1995. In that season he also led us to our first trophy after 2 barren years with a win on penalties over that same Crusaders side.
His second season was his zenith as Glentoran manager with our first Irish Cup win in 6 years courtesy of a wonder strike v Glenavon by the player who more than anyone else will be associated with the Cassidy era – Glenn Little.
Current Glens Manager Declan Devine was Tommy’s first signing for the club when as a 20-year-old keeper he joined from Omagh Town in the summer of 1994. Declan paid his own tribute to www.glentoran.com:
“ I will always appreciate Tommy as the manager who gave me the opportunity to come to Glentoran, and to see his level of professionalism and leadership is something that has stayed with me ever since.
He was ahead of his time in terms of how he prepared and spoke with players.
He was truly a wonderful football man and even better person. Football has lost one of its best.”
Tommy's Irish Cup winning team including Declan Devine and our current Head of Player Development, Andy Mathieson
Tommy’s cup winning skipper was our long serving centre half John Devine, John also shared his words of tribute with this website on hearing the sad news:
“I loved playing for Tommy and he will always be the manager who made me captain of Glentoran.
Tommy had been in full time football for over 20 years, so he worked hard to bring those sort of disciplines to Glentoran. I was enjoying my football as I’d been a regular for around 7 years at that time. After he’d been in the job a few months then at one training session he came to me and said, ‘listen John I want you to be captain, You’re going to play every week and I know what you’ll bring to the job.’ Then he told me exactly what he wanted from his captain. Obviously, I was delighted to take on the job and I think we were a successful team.
It was a very exciting time to be a Glens player as Tommy rebuilt us after a difficult couple of years. I know there was always a joke about him always needing 2 new players but look at the players he brought to us. As well as Glenn Little there were the likes of Rory Hamill, Chris Walker, Pete Batey and Wayne Russell who all won a lot with us even after Tommy left. Then he brought players like Nicky, Leeper, Stuart Elliott and Andy Kirk through, all local lads who went on to have great careers for years under managers who came after Tommy.
I’ll always have very fond memories of Tommy. He deserves a lot of credit for his achievements at Glentoran.”
Deepest condolences to Tommy’s family and friend at this very sad time and thanks Tommy for that very exciting 3 and a half years as our manager.
Tommy and skipper John Devine with the Irish Cup in 1996