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Personal
Fullname: Peter Joseph Kavanagh
aka: Peter Kavanagh, ‘Fresh-Air Fiend’
Born: 11 September 1909* (TBC)
Died: 15 February 1993
Birthplace: Dublin
Signed: 29 Apr 1929 (from Bohemians)
Left: May 1932 (free); 4 Aug 1932 (Northampton)
Position: Outside-left
Debut: Celtic 2-1 Hearts, League, 10 Aug 1929
Internationals: N Ireland / Irish Free State / League of Ireland
International Caps: 1 / 2 / 2
International Goals: 0 / 0 / 2
Biog 
Peter Kavanagh played for Bohemians in a friendly against Celtic on 28th April 1928. Bohemians were the top side, having won a quartet of titles in the 1927/28 season: League of Ireland, the FAI Cup, Leinster Senior Cup and League of Ireland Shield. This ‘splendid boy’ was the youngest member of that clean sweep team.
He was recruited to Celtic by Alec Maley. The humorous part is that Alec Maley was actually sent over to see the teams full-back, but instead came back with this outside-left. That’s the breaks for you. Peter Kavanagh didn’t want to leave Dublin, but he signed and ironically then remained to live in Scotland till his final days (with a short spell in England & back in Ireland along the way).
Interestingly, columnist ‘Man in the Know‘ in the Glasgow Observor reporting on a Greens v Hoops pre-season training match commented that:
“As it was, all eyes were fixed on Kavanagh, but the “Fresh-Air Fiend” (they have got a nickname for him already) got little chance to shine in the first half, and came off second best in his duels with Ferguson in the second half. Little better could have been expected; it will take this dapper little Irishman a few weeks to find his bearings in Scottish Football.”
Why he was nicknamed a ‘Fresh-Air Fiend‘ is not clear.
On his debut against Hearts in a league win in Aug 1929, the game was marked more for the opening of the then new north grandstand for Jimmy McStay’s first game as captain. He came onto a game taking over from Willie Hughes but he never reached the levels of Adam McLean as hoped for. The match is also notable for being the first in which an official match programme was sold for a Celtic match.
Most of his matches were in the first half of the 1929-30 season, but his run ended after a 2-1 win over Cowdenbeath in the league in Nov 1929. Thereafter he was in and out the side. He had scored three goals in this run of games. His first goal was in a 4-3 defeat to Aberdeen (a bullet shot “that almost tore the roof off the net“, then scored one in a 3-1 win over Queen’s Park (Glasgow Cup) and one in a 4-0 win over Hibs. It was a poor season for Celtic, who finished well behind league title winners Rangers
He played a handful of games late in season 1930/31 when Celtic finished just behind Rangers by 2pts in a challenge for the league title. Peter Kavanagh had a good record, winning 3 out of 4 league games, but Celtic lost v Partick Thistle 1-0 away. This game was a big hit as at this point, there was a belief that Celtic were so well placed that the League championship was almost a certainty, thanks largely to a mid-week victory over Motherwell, but this unexpected defeat from the uncertain Partick Thistle team at Firhill seemed to set things back. He didn’t play again the rest of the season, and Celtic lost the league title mainly due to dropping points by drawing with teams (never lost a match the rest of the season).
He managed a run of games late in his last season in 1931-32, and managed to sign-off on a high in a 4-1 win over Kilmarnock with two goals (“the game of his life“). This run of games saw Peter also score the winning goal over St Mirren in a 2-1 win in Mar 1932. So this short run was the highlight of his time, and maybe indicated that he could have been better used in his time at Celtic or should have been kept on for longer to test him out further. However, again it was a poor season with Celtic finishing well behind league title winners Motherwell and Rangers in second place.
It didn’t work out at Celtic (“he did not develop the thrust expected“), and Celtic did not accommodate him over signing terms so he missed out on a tour to America. Must add that this was a time when Celtic had begun to slip, and no longer had the hegemony as they once did in Scottish football, and management at both board and team level was mostly poor.
Released on a free, he moved to Northampton in 1932 with another Celt, the American-Scot Jimmy McGuire (who was to be a big player for US football and FIFA post-WW2).
On returning from England, Peter Kavanagh signed for Hibernian and played with the Edinburgh side in 1934. In his spell there he came up against his old Parkhead team-mates, fittingly enough on St Patrick’s day. Celtic won 2-1 on the day but Kavanagh is reported in the match report to have made the Celtic goalkeeper have some difficult crosses to deal with, and Kavanagh was “raiding in rare style”.
His Hibs statistics show that he didn’t succeed there either and managed few appearances, and Hibs then transferred him to Stranraer. He later had stints at Waterford and finally in the Babcock & Wilcox works team.
On the international front he has the honour of having played for the FAI (Republic of Ireland side), IFA (Ireland/N Ireland) and the League of Ireland (FAI). He actually had turned down a chance of a second cap with the IFA to play for the FAI XI against Spain.
Peter Kavanagh passed away in Leverndale Hospital (Glasgow) in 1993.
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES (goals) |
LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 1929-32 | 32 | 3 | n/a | n/a | 35 |
| Goals: | 5 | 0 | – | – | 5 |
Honours with Celtic
none
Pictures
Glasgow Observor, 10 Aug 1929
Peter Kavanagh
Source: https://nifootball.blogspot.com/2007/01/peter-kavanagh.html
Biography:
A flying left-sided winger, Peter Kavanagh came through junior football in the Drumcondra area of Dublin, signing for Bohemians in 1927. His manager at Bohs was ex-Rangers player, Bobby Parker, who thrust the teenage Kavanagh straight into the first eleven. Bohemians duly did the “clean-sweep” in his first season. Quickly Kavanagh was drawing the attentions at a higher level. He played for the Bohs in a friendly against Celtic in April 1928; in October that year he scored twice as the League of Ireland defeated the Welsh League 4-3 at Dalymount Park; and the following October he played in another Inter-League match, this time losing out 2-1 to the Irish League.
In April 1929 Celtic were scouting for a Dublin full-back, but the reports sent back to Glasgow talked glowingly of Bohemian’s wonder-kid at outside-left. Quickly the club stepped in to sign him – though Kavanagh was none-to-keen to leave his native Dublin. He made his Celtic debut in a 2-1 Scottish League win over Hearts on 10 August 1929, scoring his first goal two weeks later against Aberdeen with a bullet “that almost tore the roof off the net”. In October, still just a teenager, he was selected by Ireland as stand-in for Belfast Celtic’s Jackie Mahoood. That 3-0 defeat by England proved to be his only Irish FA recognition. Later he twice played against Spain for the Irish Free State, in a 1-1 draw in Barcelona in April 1931 and in a 5-0 defeat in Dublin that December.
After initial good progress at Celtic Park, Kavanagh dropped down the pecking order as he “did not develop the thrust expected”. He had one more notable appearance for the Hoops, playing the “game of his life” against Kilmarnock on 21st February 1931. Following an impasse over re-signing terms, Kavanagh was freed by Celtic in May 1932. He began the following campaign with Northampton, but made just one appearance before appearing for Guildford City in 1933 then Hibernian from January 1934. He then played briefly for Stranraer (November 1935), back in Ireland with Waterford (February 1936) before finishing his career prior to World War Two with works team, Babcock & Wilcox.
Peter Kavanagh settled in Glasgow, passing away in Leverndale Hospital in February 1993.
* Date of birth possibly 5 June 1908.