Stylish Charlie Hurley played like he was 'centre-stage at the London Palladium'

When England hosted Ireland in a World Cup qualifier at Wembley on May 6th, 1957, Charlie Hurley paid in at the gate. A promising centre-half with Millwall in the old Third Division South, he was reckoned by many to be on the verge of an international breakthrough, so he wanted to check out first-hand what the standard was like. An injury had forced him to turn down a call-up to the Irish squad two years earlier but, following a 5-1 defeat in London that afternoon, he was immediately brought in for the return match at Dalymount Park 11 days later.

“That made my father the happiest man in the world,” said Hurley in Sean Ryan’s ‘The Boys in Green’. “He always said I’d wear the green jersey. For four weeks from the time I was picked he never did a day’s work. He worked in Fords and the factory was full of Irish. He sat in a corner talking to them all about his son – and the fact that I had a good game gave him the two weeks after. He was king for a month.” 

It’s not difficult to imagine the pride his father must have felt. The Hurleys had left their home in Devonshire Street exactly 20 years previously. Like thousands more Corkonians in the depressed 1930s, they sailed to England in search of a better life. Charlie Hurley wasn’t even one when they sailed from Penrose Quay. Now, a few months short of his 21st birthday, he was being invited back to bulwark the Irish defence in a game against the country where his family now made their home.

With fellow Corkonians Pat Saward (then of Aston Villa), and Noel Cantwell (West Ham) also in the starting XI, Hurley’s debut was auspicious. He completely obliterated the threat from legendary English centre-forward Tommy Taylor, who’d scored a hat-trick in the Wembley fixture.