Robbie Walsh pictured, 4th from right in back row, in recent times with the Shamrock Legends.
By Jay Mwamba
Local soccer is mourning the passing of Robbie Walsh, the Shamrock stalwart who, as captain, led the Rocks to back-to-back CSL League Cup victories, and, as coach, helped keep them together in hard times. Walsh, a County Kildare native, died suddenly in Queens last Thursday. He was 44.
"Everyone at the Shamrocks is deeply shocked and saddened by this sudden loss," said club president Sean McMullan. “He had just recently returned to the coaching side of things with the 1960 team and he also got his boots back on when the Legends team formed.
“I want to express our deepest sympathies with everyone in his family and his close circle of friends. He will be missed and we will always be grateful to him for what he did for the club - not just what he achieved ten years ago but everything else besides."
Former president Scotty Shevlin, who appointed Walsh club captain in the late 1990s, echoed McMullan. “It’s a big loss to the club,” the Scotsman told the Echo.
“In all the years he captained the team, he did a great job,” added Shevlin. “He was a good captain and a tough player who gave it 100 percent each game.”
Highlights of Walsh’s captaincy were Shamrock winning the League Cup two seasons in a row [1999 and 2000], the first team ever to achieve that in CSL history.
He first lifted the trophy in the 1998-99 final, following a penalty victory over New York Albanians. The following season, on July 2, 2000, the Rocks edged Koha 1-0 in Woodbridge, N.J., to retain the cup.
Walsh was Man of the Match in that final, with John Guildea, player-assistant coach then, reporting to the Echo: “He was first class today.” Two nights before the final, Walsh had been named Shamrock’s co-Player of the Year, along with Michael Bishop, at the club’s 40th anniversary dinner.
“I’m devastated,” said Guildea last Friday. “I was working with him on Wednesday. I met Robbie and Johan Lannon [another Shamrock standout] the first day they came to New York [in 1996].”
The Dubliner called Walsh a great servant to the club. “A great player – tough as nails. He will be missed. We are all gutted.”
Lansdowne Bhoys official Paul Doherty offered condolences to the Walsh family, his friends and the Shamrock football club on behalf of the CSL champions.
“My admiration for Robbie started when our own club, like his, was struggling and his only interest was to make sure the players had a game to go to – to keep structure in their lives as well as his own. And when it came to [the Cosmos] Copa, he again showed pride and determination to the group,” he added.
Said Emmett Harvey, head coach of Shamrock Legends, the Over-37 side, Walsh had recently played for: “Robbie was a wonderful, special person -- a brilliant player, coach and leader. I had the pleasure of playing with Robbie on the field and he was the best center half I have played with.
“I played under him when he coached the Metro Two team in 2006 when we won it.
When we decided to put the Legends team together, the first person I contacted was Robbie Walsh. This is a big loss and he will be sorely missed.”
Walsh had taken the reigns as Shamrock coach in 2005 when the club opted to regroup in the CSL’s de facto fourth division [Metro Two] when struggling for players.
He led them to the Metro Two West title and promotion to Metro One that first season and clinched the Metro One championship in 2009, earning a move to the CSL Second Division.
“The club wouldn’t be as strong as it is today [if] not for Robbie Walsh who kept it going through tough times,” said Eoin Sweeney, an assistant coach of the Shamrock Legends, along with Donal “Ducky” Kelly.
The Echo, meanwhile, loses an avid reader who, as Harvey noted, “couldn’t wait to buy the Echo every Wednesday to read about the Shamrocks.”
Rest in peace, Robbie.
Editorial note: This appeared on the back page of today's Irish Echo. A funeral Mass was held this morning, Nov. 16, at St. Sebastian's Church, Woodside, New York City.
