Northern Ireland Manager
Dave Clements tenure as Northern Ireland manager lasted for eleven matches, he took over in the winter of 1974–75, part way through the qualification matches for Euro 76. He took over as manager at the age of only 29 and his first game as manager was on 16 March 1975 and was a Euro 76 qualifier against Yugoslavia in Belfast. This was the first time that Northern Ireland had played a home match in the province since 1971 and resulted in a fine 1–0 victory which put the Northern Irish in with a chance of qualification. However a home defeat to Sweden in October 1975 and a loss in Belgrade to Yugoslavia in the final group qualifier the following month stopped Northern Ireland progressing to the last eight knock out stage.
Dave Clements continued as manager into 1976, however results were disappointing culminating in Northern Ireland losing all three matches in the British Home Championship in May of that year. They lost heavily to Scotland 0–3 in Glasgow and to England 0–4 at Wembley before losing 0–1 to Wales in Swansea. The Welsh defeat was Dave Clements last game as both manager and player for the national team on 14 May 1976.
Read more about this topic: Dave Clements
Famous quotes containing the words northern, ireland and/or manager:
“You’ll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That’s not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It’s just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them.”
—Dodie Smith, and Lewis Allen. Roderick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland)
“I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house, but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina: this was so much time fairly gained.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)