B | Player Pics | A-Z of Players

Personal

Fullname: Paul Byrne
Height: 5.11
Weight: 13st
Born: 30 June 1972
Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
Signed: 26 May 1993
Left: 24 Aug 1995
Position: Midfielder
First game: St Johnstone 1-2 away 6 October 1993 league
Last game: Hearts 1-1 home 11 January 1995 league
First goal: Aberdeen 2-2 home 19 January 1994 league
Last goal: Rangers 1-1 away 4 January 1995 league
Internationals: Ireland (U21 & B)

Biog

Paul Byrne hailed from Inchicore in Ireland and was signed by Liam Brady in the Summer on 1993 having started his professional career playing for Oxford United alongside Ray Houghton. It was a disaster down south, and it wasn't until he moved to Bangor (N Ireland) that things turned around winning a domestic Cup (scoring in the final) and being the first player to ever win all four player of the year awards there. So seemed to be a good choice for Celtic to pick as the club was desperately in need of new talent.

He was deemed to be skilful, and some would class him as one of the better talents to have come out of the Brady years (not that was a long list).

It was a difficult environment for an already singed Paul Byrne. He broke into the first team just as manager Liam Brady was on the verge of resignation after a defeat in McDairmid Park in October 1993. This was a difficult one, as both he hoped to learn from Brady's footballing talent and that Brady was a bit of a hero to him & other Irish football fans. The more stern Frank Connor was then put in charge of the team and duly gave Byrne his place, a small run that brought some good relief during what was a dire time for the first team. It also give Byrne some confidence. Lou Macari next in his short reign was a disaster for Celtic as manager and Byrne must have wondered what was all going on.

Under Tommy Burns he was hoping for a fresh start, or as he was to put:

"I'm going to win things with Celtic, I will play for my country and I will prove that all the people that knocked me were wrong"

So he was a man on a personal mission but ended up not achieving any of his aims.

He had some great high moments, with the the finest in a Celtic shirt coming against Rangers. In October 1994 he brought Tommy Burns team level with Rangers with a cool left foot finish from a low Tom Boyd cross at Hampden, in a match that Celtic went on to lose 3-1. He also scored a screaming equaliser in the 1-1 draw in the New Year's derby game at Ibrox, taking a John Collins switch of play on the volley, with the outside of his boot, leaving Goram with no chance in the Rangers goal. It showed a talent but it was to be a short-lived event.

One thing that people remember said about him after the goals was that he was worth his weight in pies if nothing else, or as he put himself:

"When I joined Celtic I weighed around 14 and a half stone - hardly prime condition for a winger." (Paul Byrne, 1993)

Anyhow, the truth is that he became a little too reacquainted to the good side of life, carrying on from where he had left off beforehand. We'll leave the full details to the tabloids but it was no secret that he was not keeping the best diet & lifestyle for personal conditioning for a football career, and he was his own biggest enemy. At his previous clubs he had smoked, drank and gambled away his chances there. Taking in that Frank McAvennie was back at Celtic, a night out with the pair of them would have been possibly an interesting experience.

He was to fade out of the first team picture soon after due to loss of form, the questionable fitness, and an expectation of a better calibre of player arriving at the club as the Celtic takeover had occurred and new capital injections were expected. His last start was against Hearts in the 1-1 draw at Hampden in January 1995, a match which also saw the debut of Pierre van Hooijdonk, ironically the sort of player that Byrne could have thrived playing alongside (but wasn't given time to prove it).

He moved to Brighton on loan for a short spell of 8 games before returning to Celtic Park. He was then subsequently transferred to Southend for £80,000 having been signed by fellow Irishman and ex Liverpool hero Ronnie Whelan where he did well. His career in the top flight of football was really ending sooner than he could have imagined. Talent alone isn't sufficient, and application and commitment are necessary, something his critics would state he lacked.

He played out his career with various clubs back in Ireland and his career was declining ignominiously. It was sad to see.

He has kept ties with the club and actually has appeared for the club in Celtic veterans' club matches (5-a-sides etc). He has been able to live off the goals against Rangers, and for those goals we should remember him well. Sad that we can't remember him for a longer more prosperous career at the club. He may have outlived some managers at Celtic but he did little better than any of them did. It wasn't an easy time to be at Celtic, and with the problems that Byrne carried coming to the club it didn't help his case.

We hope him all the best for the future.

Playing Career

Club _______________			From ___________				To ___________		Fee ___________		League ___________			Scottish/FA Cup			League cup ___________			Other ___________
Southend			25-08-1995				31-05-1998		£80,000		71 (13)		6	2 (0)	0		6 (0)	2		4 (0)	0
Brighton			10-03-1995						Loan		8 (0)		1	0 (0)	0		0 (0)	0		0 (0)	0
Celtic			26-05-1993				24-08-1995		Signed		24 (4)		4	1 (0)	0		1 (1)	0		2 (0)	0
Bangor City			01-09-1991				26-05-1993		Free		No appearance data available
Oxford			04-07-1989				01-09-1991		Trainee		4 (2)		0	0 (0)	0		0 (0)	0		0 (0)	0
Totals									£80,000		107 (19)		11	3 (0)	0		7 (1)	2		6 (0)	0
									goals / game		0.08			0			0.25			0
											Apps		Goals	Apps	Goals		Apps	Goals		Apps	Goals

Honours with Celtic

none

Pictures

• Player Pics

KStreet

• Thread on Paul Byrne

Articles

Old Firm bounty a taste of Paradise for Byrne

By Alan Pattullo

The Scotman, 07 December 2002


"The thought of what I might achieve in this game bloody frightens me" a young Irishman once announced as he landed in Glasgow, flushed with excitement at the journey still before him. He once spoke of being worth £1million though in the end Celtic struggled to offload him for a tenth of that fee, Byrne joining Southend United under the charge of fellow Irishman Ronnie Whelan. This ended when they cancelled his contract, allowing Byrne to return home to Ireland.

"At the end of the day you leave Celtic and the only way is down," says Byrne now, in so cheery a manner that the drama he may hope to invest is lost. Now working for the Football Association of Ireland in Dublin and playing for Kilkenny City, his "umpteenth club", Byrne is happy to pick over the bones of his life in football, particularly when, with 12-year-old son Kurtis being targeted by Liverpool, another Byrne career might soon be starting. "I just tell him to follow what his mam says, not what his dad did," he says, offering a clue to who he blames for the unfulfilled potential you cannot avoid discussing.

He was spurred into leaving Celtic by a casual remark from Tommy Burns, who simply said he could not guarantee Byrne a first-team place. The impetuosity of youth dictated that Byrne simply upped sticks and left, refusing to entertain for a moment thoughts of staying somewhere where he was not wanted. This wasn’t the first mistake in his young, turbulent life, but it is the one which returns to haunt him most often. "I got it into my head that Tommy did not want me, so I wanted to leave as soon as I could," he says. "At the time I was playing well, and I went down to Southend and scored a few goals there. Birmingham offered £750,000 for me, but the chairman Victor Watson, who is dead now, God rest his soul, rejected it, thinking he could get £1million at the end of the season.

"Birmingham were up near the top of the First Division then, and now they are in the Premiership. God knows what might have happened."

Still, he balances such regret with an acknowledgement that he was perhaps fortunate to play as many times as he did for Celtic, under three different managers.

"I played under Liam Brady, Lou Macari and Tommy Burns, so I must have been doing something right. At the end of the day, in my wildest dreams I never thought I would ever play for Celtic first team when I first left Bangor. So I think the job I did at Celtic was OK.

"I was one of the better players at the time. That’s why people cannot understand why I didn’t go onto better things."

The former Celtic player is now only 30, but already he is eight years away from when his career peaked. Capped by Ireland at every level, Byrne was perhaps one of the most talented players to arrive at Parkhead during an era when qualifying for Europe was an achievement, never mind remaining there after Christmas. Supporters might recoil in horror at mention of his name, since it requires them to recall a time when the sign welcoming fans to Parkhead read like an inscription stuck above a grave. Byrne, though, supplied some life, at times a little too much. "The sort of character I was at the time, a lot of people did not like it at Celtic. Maybe because I was not one of the boys as such things went against me a bit. I was a bit wild, if you like ...."

He arrived at Parkhead in 1993 carrying considerable baggage, and not just the extra padding observed around his buttocks. He admits to drinking, smoking and gambling away his chance at Oxford, having also failed to make the grade at Arsenal. "I was doing all the things a teenager does," he shrugs. However, not every teenager is a father at 15, as Bryne was, and not every teenager has the brassneck to return home to Ireland with belief in tact having been rejected by Oxford.

A year later he was on the road again, a head full of dreams and with reason to believe that finally his skills were to find reward at a club managed by his hero Liam Brady, with whom, bizarrely, he stayed for the first six months of his stay.

Not many leave Celtic after three years with only a loser’s medal in the Coca-Cola Cup final (against Raith Rovers!) for company. Byrne, though, did at least score one of the penalties later rendered redundant by Paul McStay’s miss, but few will remember this.

They may, however, recall those goals against Rangers, the only two league goals he scored in the entire 1994/5 season. Even Henrik Larsson cannot boast so prodigious a goals per game ratio in Old Firm fixtures, and nor could the Swede hope to better the goal scored by Byrne in the 1-1 draw with Rangers on 4 January 1995, when he turned to sweetly volley home a John Collins cross. It wasn’t enough to keep Byrne at Celtic, amid doubts about his weight and general fitness.

When he returned to Irish football, there were no shortage of workaday players seeking to take the rise out of him. "You try and do things you did at Parkhead, and they don’t come off," he says. "It frustrates you. All of a sudden, before you realise it, people think you’ve lost it."

It was hard to accept a homecoming so lacking in ticker-tape after having left Bangor Town aged 21, the recipient of both the league’s Young Player and Player of the Year trinkets. He was on stand-by for Jack Charlton’s World Cup squad in 1994. On Thursday night, aged only 30, he was being carried off the park in a game between Kilkenny and Waterford, spending the night in a local hospital. However, even a damaged ear drum won’t keep Byrne away from Slattery’s today at midday, he promises. And, he gently chides you as you prepare to leave, he has one more thought for the road, though you suspect the rambling might now have started. "It’s my testimonial on the 12 May, at Dalymount Park. Half the funds raised are going to Our Ladies’ Hospital for Sick Kids. You have to get yourself over here for the craic.

"Celebs are coming from Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Eastenders .... Jack Duckworth is managing one of the teams.

"It’s just something they want to give me after what I have given to the game over 16 years. I’m trying to get Alan McManus and John Higgins involved. Steve Collins the boxer is coming, and his brother Roddy. Maybe I’ll get some Celtic players along......"