Birmingham City legend Joe Gallagher keeps right on to the end of the St Andrew's road

Jun 14 2011 by Brian Dick, Sunday Mercury

WHEN life is at its hardest the homing instinct in all of us drives us back to where we were happiest. For Joe Gallagher that was both the city of Birmingham and Birmingham City.

The former Blues captain spent more than a decade at St Andrew’s during which time he made more than 330 appearances and grew from a teenage scallywag into one of the finest defenders in England.

That was back in the 1970s when Freddie Goodwin and Jim Smith presided over some of the best players in the country and when the club became accustomed to mid-table security in the top division.

For the light and stardust brought by the mercurial Trevor Francis, Gallagher was the rock on which the edifice was built – the piano shifter to Francis’ piano player. They were good days.

“I was at the top of my game playing against the top players – the likes of Mike Channon, John Radford, John Toshack, Kevin Keegan, Joe Jordan, Andy Gray,” Gallagher remembers.

“And I’d had really good games against these guys and the papers were singing my praises.

“I was in contact with [England manager] Don Revie and his assistant Les Cocker and I was on the verge of playing for England.”

Gallagher’s almost seamless development from wide-eyed 15-year-old to the leader of hardened professional sportsmen was interrupted by a broken leg in 1977 following a car accident.

“After several hours I woke up in hospital and heard Tony Butler, a local sports radio reporter, saying ‘Birmingham City star Joe Gallagher has been in a car accident, he has broken his leg in 17 places and he will never play the game again’.”

Thankfully he proved the doubters wrong and came back to represent his country at ‘B’ level – at St Andrew’s against Australia.

He left the club – his club – soon afterwards to sign for Wolves, moved on to West Ham and in 1987 ended his playing days after four years at Burnley.

It was then life started lobbing hand grenades at Gallagher as the expected offers of coaching jobs and managerial positions simply failed to arrive.

At that stage he in had sold his house and invested all of his life savings in a hotel in Clitheroe. Seven months later both were gone.

“In my own layman’s terms I honestly think the books didn’t stack up.

“The business said it was taking ‘x’ amount when I bought the place but it was taking nowhere near that.