CORK-BORN George O’Callaghan had something of a yo-yo footballing career after bursting onto the professional scene as a talented teenager.
Eyed by Arsenal and Spurs when he was in his formative years at Port Vale (then in the Championship), he turned to drink when ex-Albion captain and manager Brian Horton dropped him from the Vale first team.
Although the tall midfielder worked his way back into contention, he returned home to Ireland to rebuild his career before making several other attempts to succeed in the English game.
Over the course of five years, he was an influential cog in Cork’s League of Ireland side, the highlight coming with a championship win in 2005 when he scored eleven goals from midfield and was voted League Player of the Season.
He survived meningitis in 2006 just a handful of months before another Championship side, Ipswich Town, gave him another opportunity to make it in England but he struggled to hold down a place at Portman Road.
After only 13 appearances, the Tractor Boys were prepared to offload him to third tier Brighton. A deal was agreed in August 2007 but he made the move on loan rather than permanently because he still thought he could make it in Suffolk.
By then 28, the player brought experience and creativity to Dean Wilkins’ largely young side, slotting in effectively in the centre of Albion’s midfield alongside Dean Hammond, making 16 starts and one appearance off the bench.
But his Irish gift of the gab brought it all to a messy end. He publicly criticised chairman Dick Knight’s handling of contract negotiations in an explosive article in The Argus and didn’t play for the Seagulls again.
The Irishman told reporter Andy Naylor he thought the team was in danger of falling apart because chairman Knight had been too slow to sort out contracts and loans.
Knight countered: “We have given him the chance to shine and show his talents. It’s not George O’Callaghan’s business to tell the club what we should be doing.”
The midfielder spoke out after Albion capitulated 3-0 at Millwall on Boxing Day. He told Naylor: “There are a lot of lads who are very important to this team that don’t know if they are coming or going and I think it’s about time the club got a grip on it and sorted it out, because it has dragged on for too long and I feel it is starting to affect the players.
“I just don’t think it is right and it’s something the club needs to look at. It used to happen at Cork City when I was there and we lost a lot of good players. We lost Kevin Doyle and Shane Long for peanuts over contracts not being sorted out early and quickly.
“It makes you angry as a player. I can cope with it, because I am a lot older than the other lads, but the young lads are really upset and it’s not right.”
O’Callaghan’s version of events the club would have wanted to keep to themselves plainly differed from Knight’s while Wilkins was stuck in the middle.
“I know the manager tries his best behind the scenes,” said O’Callaghan. “He is fantastic. I think he works with a very small budget. It must be more frustrating for him, because he has built a team and it could easily fall apart now.
“Things should have been sorted out a lot quicker. It has been a big thing in the squad in the last few weeks. I’ve mentioned it and the club need to sort it out now.”
The Irishman said he had encountered something similar at Ipswich the previous season, pointing out players just needed to know where they stood.
“I don’t want to stay and then see our best lads go, like Hammo,” he reasoned. “If we want to make that push for the play-offs and get back into the Championship it needs to be sorted.”
Knight was in no mood to take that sort of broadside from a loan player and told the reporter: “The team’s performance was absolutely woeful. I think certain players should be looking at themselves before trying to deflect criticism elsewhere. I thought it was a disgrace.
“George O’Callaghan is totally out of order. I would suggest he is trying to deflect attention away from his own performance, which was frankly poor, and he wasn’t the only one.
“Young players within the club are dealt with contract wise as and when the time is right.”
Knight maintained that he’d already agreed with Ipswich that both O’Callaghan and fellow Town loanee Matt Richards could extend their loans until the end of the season but neither player wanted to commit to it until they’d explored other options.
Unsurprisingly, O’Callaghan’s stay with the Seagulls came to an abrupt end and he returned to Portman Road.
Sidestepping the spat with Knight, O’Callaghan reckoned his return to Ipswich was his decision, telling The Argus: “I enjoyed playing regularly at Brighton but I spoke with the gaffer and decided it is right to try again at Ipswich and try to get first team action.
“They are a good bunch of lads at Brighton and I enjoyed playing with them so I hope things work out for them.”
When a month later there was no look-in happening with the Tractor Boys, he returned to Ireland once again to play for his old club, Cork City. It was part of a familiar pattern.
O’Callaghan had joined the Albion on loan (the same day David Martot signed a similar arrangement from Le Havre) on August transfer deadline day having rejected a permanent move earlier that month (the clubs had agreed a £60,000 deal plus £15,000 based on appearances).
The player said at the time: “It would be a shame to leave Ipswich because the supporters have been brilliant to me, even though they never saw enough of me, and all the lads are fantastic, but I need to be playing regular football.”
Town manager Jim Magilton praised O’Callaghan’s ability and attitude and empathised with his frustration at not getting a run in the side. He said: “I don’t want to lose George but I wouldn’t stand in his way. He has been great since he has been here. He is very popular in the dressing room and he has done very well.
“But he is 28 years of age and needs to be playing games. I have been there, so totally understand how frustrating it can be. We will do anything we can to help him.
“I have absolutely no problems with George. He has been top class since he came here. His attitude is first-class in training and in games.”
O’Callaghan had impressed Knight in a reserves match when Ipswich beat the Seagulls’ second string.
When O’Callaghan finally agreed the temporary move, Albion also wanted his Town teammate Richards on loan, but he too prevaricated, only to change his mind the following month. It was the first of three loan spells with the Albion. Brighton also wanted a third Ipswich player, injury-prone Dean Bowditch, who had briefly been on loan the previous season, and he eventually returned for a month in 2008.
Born in Cork on 5 September 1979, O’Callaghan left Ireland as a teenager to pursue his football dream and in a March 2020 podcast with the Irish Examiner, he talked about his early days at Port Vale when he was regarded as one of the hottest properties in football.
“Arsenal came in for me when I was 18,” he said. “I was waiting outside the manager John Rudge’s office and Pat Rice, who was Arsene Wenge’s assistant at the time, came out and said: ‘George, we can’t get you this time, we’ll get you next time,’.”
When the youngster protested to Rudge, he was told Arsenal had only offered £1m for him and Vale wanted £2m. O’Callaghan continued to progress in Vale’s Championship team but when Rudge was replaced by Horton, he was demoted back to the youth team.
In another podcast, A Footballer’s Life, O’Callaghan admitted to Graham Cummins that he turned to drink as his promising career stalled. “You’re responsible for your own actions so it’s ultimately your own fault. But nobody looked out for me or had my back at the club. Nobody caught me and said, ‘George, what’s going on, you’re not yourself’.
“Those days, the clubs didn’t care, it was old school, you were put out to do the job and if you didn’t you were replaced.
“You never asked anyone for help in those days. I kind of went into meltdown. Everything unravelled, I didn’t know what I was doing.”
When he eventually got back in the first team picture, he said Arsenal’s north London rivals Spurs then showed an interest in him. “David Pleat tried to sign me for Tottenham. But Brian Horton said: ‘You’re doing really well,’ and offered me a two-year deal and doubled my money.”
He asked Rudge’s opinion about the situation and when told he should stay at Vale because he’d struggle to get games for Spurs, he stayed put. “I took his advice and signed the contract. Within about 14 months I was finished, sent home.
“It was a massive mistake, a big, big mistake. I was too comfortable in the situation I was in. I probably didn’t have the guts to go ahead with it. I loved playing for Port Vale but I should have pushed for Arsenal and Tottenham. And then you can always go out on loan if it doesn’t work out.”
One of O’Callaghan’s early matches for Albion was against his old club and unsurprisingly he was a natural interviewee before the game. “It is a very special club to me because I started off my career there when I was only 15,” he told The Argus.
The Irishman scored four goals in 22 league starts plus 12 sub appearances for Vale and felt he probably had a point to prove coming up against them (Albion won 1-0 with a goal from Alex Revell).
“I never showed Port Vale fans what I can do,” he said. “I took a few wrong roads when I was a kid and it has taken me a while to get back to where I am now.
“It will be nice to put on a good performance and show them what they have missed; the player I have turned into. I never fulfilled my potential there.
“I started off doing well there as a kid but I didn’t really have the right guidance and it all went pear-shaped. As soon as John Rudge left as manager and Brian Horton came in, my chances were limited. I think that is where it all went wrong.
“Obviously, I wasn’t his type of footballer. People said he was a good footballer, but he wanted physical lads.
“Maybe at the time I wasn’t physical enough and he didn’t fancy me. I don’t blame him in any way because at the end of the day it is all down to yourself and how you look after yourself.”
He added: “I had so many knocks there that it took the fire out of me. I had to go back to Cork to get that fire back into me and build my career again.
“It was a big learning curve in my life. I lost my career in English football for a while and had to battle hard to get back.”
The player’s topsy-turvy career continued back at Cork City before he had another go in England, spending eight months at Tranmere Rovers. Once again he returned to Ireland, this time to play for Dundalk, but the lure of the English game beckoned again.
O’Callaghan linked up with Yeovil Town in the summer of 2009 and played in three pre-season friendlies. In the opening months of the season, he made 15 appearances (including six from the bench) but found it difficult to break into the team past the partnership of Jean-Paul Kalala and Shaun MacDonald.
Next stop, in December that year, was Waterford but before long he was back at Cork City once again. Brentford took him on a two-week trial but nothing came of it and instead he went to then Conference side Cambridge United but didn’t feature.
The wandering Irishman at one point tied his luck with Brunei side Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota but he got into trouble for failing to bow to the Crown Prince.
His old Brighton and Ipswich teammate Nicky Forster took him on at Dover Athletic but he only played once for the Conference South team, and he announced his retirement on Christmas Eve 2012.
He briefly managed Sabah in the Malaysia Premier League in 2014 but he struggled to deal with El Hadji Diouf and was sacked in January 2015 when he started missing training sessions.
Four years after playing what he thought was his last game, he turned out for junior Cork club Rockmount.
After packing up playing, O’Callaghan became an agent and spent a year as a business development manager for William Hill. He was a general manager for gym chain Anytime Fitness for two years and later co-founded agency TEN Sports Management.
In parallel lines 