Early Career
As a youth Gibbons played both football and Gaelic football. He was selected for the Dublin senior squad aged 17 but Gibbons first love was soccer and when the GAA ban on foreign games made him choose, he gave up football. As a schoolboy football with Home Farm, Gibbons would win every honour in the Dublin schoolboy leagues. Despite offers from several League of Ireland sides, Gibbons chose to play with local junior side Whitehall Rangers. He earned his first international cap when called up to the Irish amateur side in a game against Scotland in Hampden Park in 1948. It was on this trip he struck a friendship with St Patrick's Athletic defender Jimmy Cummins. Cummins tried to persuade Gibbons to sign for St. Pats, who at that time were the top non league side in the country. Gibbons signed for St. Pats in March 1951 and the team would go on to win the Leinster Senior League. In the summer of 1951, St. Patrick’s Athletic were elected to the League of Ireland.
Read more about this topic: Shay Gibbons
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