- English McConnell
English McConnell (born
14 May 1883 inLarne ,Northern Ireland died13 June 1928 ) was aNorthern Irish footballer who played for Sunderland, Chelsea and theNorthern Ireland national football team as awing half .Club career
McConnell started his footballing career with Northern Irish side, Cliftonville in 1902 before signing for Glentoran where he won the Irish League Championship in the 1904–05 season; he made 26 appearances while with Glentoran, scoring a signle goal. McConnell then signed for English team, Sunderland, in 1905 and made his debut on
28 October 1905 against Blackburn Rovers in a 3–0 win atRoker Park . [cite web|url=http://www.thestatcat.co.uk/Imatchdets/IMD4133.asp|title=Sunderland 3-0 Blackburn Rovers|publisher=The Stat Cat|accessdate=2008-07-31] He played for Sunderland from 1905 to 1908 and made 39 league appearances scoring no goals. [cite web|url=http://www.thestatcat.co.uk/Mplayers/MPG547.asp|title=English McConnell|publisher=The Stat Cat|accessdate=2008-07-31] He then signed for Sheffield Wednesday in 1908 making his debut against Leicester City on1 September 1908 and went on to make 44 league appearances scoring no goals until being signed by Chelsea in 1910. [cite web|url=http://www.adrianbullock.com/swfc/stats/play0387.htm|title=English McConnell|publisher=Wednesday Archive|accessdate=2008-07-31]He signed for Chelsea for £1,000 but only stayed at the club for two seasons before moving to South Shields after making just 21 appearances, with no goals for Chelsea. [cite web|url=http://chelsea2.chelseafc.com/cgi-bin/playersearch.pl|title=English McConnell|publisher=Chelsea Database|accessdate=2008-07-31] He stayed at South Shields from 1911 to 1912 before moving back to Ireland, with Linfield and won the Irish League Championship in the 1913–14 season, he played out the rest of his career with Linfield, till it was halted by the First World War. He died in 1928.
International career
McConnell gained his first international cap for Northern Ireland on
21 March 1904 against Wales, with Northern Ireland winning the match 1–0. He made 11 further appearances, making it 12 in total.References
* [http://www.thestatcat.co.uk/Mplayers/MPG547.asp English McConnell's careers stats] at The Stat Cat
* [http://nifootball.blogspot.com/2007/08/english-mcconnell.html English McConnell's player profile] at Northern Ireland's Footballing Greats
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