Biography
Tall Irish centre half Mick O’Brien signed for Hull City in June 1924, a £750 fee being paid to Leicester City. Quickly appointed first team captain, Mick was a Tigers first team regular for two seasons and scored his only City goal in a January 1925 FA Cup tie against former club Leicester City. After missing only one League fixture during the 1925/26 season O’Brien’s stock was high and he left the club in May 1926 to embark on a lucrative trip to the United States.
Michael Terrence “Mick” O’Brien is widely listed as born in Kilcock, an Irish town on the Royal Canal twenty miles west of Dublin. However research undertaken by the Brentford programme editor suggested that O’Brien was actually born at Ushaw Moor, a pit village west of Durham City. It is perhaps possible that O’Brien, undoubtedly of Irish extraction, created a story about his Irish birth in order to improve his prospects of qualifying for the Ireland international side.
Whatever the truth, Mick only started playing football at the age of 18, when his family lived in South Shields and he had aborted a short spell enlisted as a gunner in the British Army at Plymouth. Mick had spells playing for North Eastern League sides Newcastle East End and Jarrow, quickly attracting the attention of Scottish First Division side Glasgow Celtic who signed him in December 1912. After failing to break into the Celtic first team, O’Brien joined Blyth Spartans in August 1913 and spent a successful 1913/14 season in the North Eastern League. When his work commitments took him to London in the summer of 1914 Mick had a trial for, and then signed for, Southern League side Brentford and he served the Bees throughout much of the 1914/15 season.
O’Brien joined the Royal Navy during World War One and by June 1916 he was serving on HMS Chester, which sustained severe damage caused by German gunfire during the Battle of Jutland. O’Brien was one of just a few sailors to survive this attack, all crew stationed on deck at the time of the attack lost their lives including a 16 year old Londoner Jack Cornwell, who was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his bravery and became a contemporary poster boy for the war effort. Later in the War O’Brien also served the Royal Flying Corps.
After hostilities had ended he had a short trial at Scottish League side Alloa Athletic before joining Southern League side Norwich City in August 1919, a club managed by future Hull City manager Major Frank Buckley. In December 1919 O’Brien negotiated a return to his North East roots and joined Division Two side South Shields. After finding his feet in the Reserves he made his senior debut for the Seasiders in January 1920 against Hull City and made two further starts during the remainder of the 1919/20 season.
In August 1920 Mick joined Queens Park Rangers, founder members of the newly formed Division Three South. At Rangers he began to build his reputation as a strong centre half, having previously been a utility defender and forward. Debuting against Watford in August 1920, O’Brien was a first team regular for two seasons, scoring his first senior goal against Bristol Rovers in October 1921, making a total of 70 appearances, scoring three goals and winning international recognition for the first time. In March 1922 Mick transferred to Division Two side Leicester City and slotted straight into the Foxes’ first team, where he remained for much of the the next two seasons – only goal difference separated Leicester from the promotion spots at the end of the 1922/23 season. When O’Brien left Leicester City to join Hull City in June 1924 he had scored six goals for the Foxes in 67 appearances.
O’Brien left Hull City in May 1926 to sail the Atlantic and sign for American Soccer League side Brooklyn Wanderers – the ASL was the first professional football league competition to be established in the United States. O’Brien returned to England seven months later under a cloud and without the riches the move was expected to yield, it being reported that he was suspended and fined by the Brooklyn club after allegations of poor performances in the pitch and insubordination off it. In December 1926 Mick joined Division One side Derby County, the transfer of his playing registration from Hull City to Derby County was investigated and found irregular by the Football League who imposed £100 fines on both clubs while also accepting the transfer. O’Brien made his top flight debut in March 1927 against Cardiff City and served the Rams for a season and a half, making 5 appearances in total.
In June 1928 O’Brien was freed by Derby County and was quickly snapped up by Division Three South side Walsall. After one season captaining the Saddlers that yielded 37 appearances, Mick returned to Norwich City, now playing in Division Three South, in May 1929, following the footsteps of Scottish former Walsall manager James Kerr who had just been appointed by the Canaries. After a poor start to the season Mick acclimatised to his new surroundings with a goal in September 1929 against his former club Walsall and in two seasons he went on to score five goals in 65 appearances for Norwich City. In June 1931 Mick transferred to Division Three South side Watford and served the Hornets for two seasons. He was part of the side that progressed to the quarter finals of the FA Cup in the 1931/32 season before losing out to Newcastle United, and when he hung up his boots in the 1933 close season he had scored six goals, all penalties, for Watford in 72 appearances.
With O’Brien’s playing days over, he immediately moved into coaching and managerial duties. He was appointed first team manager at former club Queens Park Rangers in May 1933, in his first season his side went close to promotion from Division Three South before falling away in his second season – Mick left the R’s in May 1935 after 96 matches in charge. After unsuccessful interviews for managerial jobs at Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley, he undertook scouting missions for Queens Park Rangers and Brentford during the 1935/36 season.
In May 1936 O’Brien was appointed manager at Southern League side Ipswich Town and in his first season his side finished top of the Southern League. However he was dismissed rapidly in August 1937 under something of a dark cloud that was never fully explained by the Town board. It was suggested that his dismissal arose after widower O’Brien was discovered to have had a relationship with the wife of a landlord at a pub owned by the Cobbold family, which also owned the football club (Mick’s wife had died in 1936, a year before the incident). He took a coaching job with the Middlesex FA after his dismissal from Ipswich. Three years later he died in Uxbridge in September 1940 at the young age of 47.
O’Brien was a decorated international footballer during the 1920s and 1930s. The complications that arose from the partition of Ireland in 1920 extended to football – the Ireland FA had jurisdiction only in Northern Ireland but was still able to select players from across the island. O’Brien won the first of his ten senior international caps against Scotland in February 1921 and added four of those caps while at Hull City – in October 1924 against England, February 1925 against Scotland, April 1925 against Wales and February 1926 also against Wales. Between 1927 and 1932 O’Brien won a further four international caps for the Irish Free State, the association that eventually became football’s governing body in the Republic of Ireland.
Details
Nationality: Ireland
Date/Place of Birth: 10 August 1893, Kilcock
Hull City First Game: 20 September 1924, Portsmouth A (Division Two), 31 years, 41 days old
Hull City Final Game: 1 May 1926, Wolverhampton Wanderers A (Division Two), 32 years, 264 days old
Clubs
Newcastle East End (1911-1912), Jarrow (1912), Glasgow Celtic (1912-1913), Blyth Spartans (1913-1914), Brentford (1914-1915), Alloa Athletic (1918, trial), Norwich City (1919), South Shields (1919-1920), Queens Park Rangers (1920-1922), Leicester City (1922-1924), Hull City (1924-1926), Brooklyn Wanderers (1926), Derby County (1926-1928), Walsall (1928-1929), Norwich City (1929-1931), Watford (1931-1933)
Hull City Record
Career: 80 apps, 1 goals
Mick O’Brien| Season | LGE App | LGE Gls | FAC App | FAC Gls | FLC App | FLC Gls | EUR App | EUR Gls | OTH App | OTH Gls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1924/25 | 33 | 0 | 5 | 1 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 1925/26 | 41 | 0 | 1 | 0 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
[Susan Gardiner is author of the splendid “Ipswich Town: A History”]
I wish I was an expert on Mick O’Brien’s time at Ipswich! 🙂 I think you’ve got it exactly right as far as the facts are known [regarding his dismissal from Ipswich Town]. His sacking is still a bit mysterious but in my opinion the Cobbolds treated him really badly. Also in my opinion, I think they already had their sights set on Scott Duncan [O’Brien’s replacement as Ipswich manager] and they wanted O’Brien out of the way. He was a very interesting character.