{"id":404010,"date":"2026-04-17T21:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/404010\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T21:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:09:12","slug":"i-had-just-played-for-ireland-but-when-i-got-out-of-hospital-at-6-30am-id-to-walk-back-up-to-dalymount-in-my-socks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/404010\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I had just played for Ireland, but when I got out of hospital at 6.30am I\u2019d to walk back up to Dalymount in my socks\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Our League of Ireland Legends series continues with the 77-year-old Mick Leech, one of the great goalscorers of his era, who remembers facing Eusebio, glory with Shamrock Rovers and being let go by John Giles\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mick Leech after being named Soccer Writers Association of Ireland Personality of the Year in 2010. Photo: Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/e52e8cf6-8005-4eae-946d-5b51ea96cf9f.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Mick Leech after being named Soccer Writers Association of Ireland Personality of the Year in 2010. Photo: Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Before sitting down for a chat with one of the greatest forwards ever to don a pair of boots in the League of Ireland, some books are dusted down from the library shelves, for homework, just to get a reminder of how much of an icon Mick Leech was.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">However, as Leech chats to the Irish Independent over a coffee in a Dublin pub on a midweek morning, there comes a first-hand testament to the man\u2019s greatness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our League of Ireland Legends series continues with the 77-year-old Mick Leech, one of the great goalscorers of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2049,61,60,43,11113],"class_list":{"0":"post-404010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-aidan-fitzmaurice","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-shamrock-rovers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}