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# LOI Legends

All time
The Benin international who lit up Irish football
'I was looking up to these older lads who weren't good for me' - The Englishman who found redemption in Ireland
Winning the '4 in a row,' getting capped by Ireland and escaping a 2016 terrorist attack
The story of one of Irish football's greatest servants and how he almost chose GAA
Lining out in the San Siro aged 20, playing with two legendary Irish sides and moving to Australia
Joining Manchester United at 16, glory in Ireland and the 'rollercoaster' of management
'I was considered not to be Irish... I could have buckled at any stage and drank'
‘It was only after we scored, you’re 50 odd minutes in and thinking: we’re 1-0 up in White Hart Lane’
'I was just hoping to get a game with the reserves... staying for 17 years was beyond my wildest dreams'
Working with Martin McGuinness in a meat company, singing for the Dalai Lama and playing at the World Cup
Coming up against a great Liverpool side, breaking records and trying to get Stephen Cluxton to play soccer
'The senior guys, they didn't like me, they didn't want an Irish guy coming over'
'There's no hard-luck story with me. I wasn't good enough to play Premier League football'
The Irish striker whose 'little demons' couldn't get the better of him
The Irishman who made his La Liga debut in front of 90,000 at the Camp Nou
'If you were from Ballymun, you could be turned away from an interview, let alone a job'
'My second oldest brother was a Rovers fanatic... All I could see were the tears running down his face'
The Irish star who joined Premier League giants in their mid-90s peak
‘John Giles didn't want me to leave, but I was determined to play first-team football’
'I feel like I was Irish' - The Barbados-born footballer who found a second home
'Did I think Damien Duff was going to make it? I always thought he had a real chance'
'I look back on my life and for a fella with such a lack of ability on the ball, it's been amazing'
'I had never played centre midfield until my very first game at Leicester, when Martin O'Neill told me to'
'We used to kick lumps out of each other in training and Pat Fenlon would just sit back and laugh'
‘I would have come from the flats… Brian Kerr gave me the confidence to go into any room and meet people’
'We beat Le Tissier's Southampton. Lawrie McMenemy shook my hand and said: 'Listen kid, sensational f*****g goal''
'You give everything you have, running around like a lunatic, and I’m still doing that at nearly 70'
'Bayern Munich had already sold tickets for the next round... We were minutes away from history'
'Leeds United were over for a second or third look at me the day I got my ankle broken in two places'
'Boredom leads to a lot of things and we ended up going to the pub and wasting ourselves'
‘I’ve good friends that are in prison and some that are dead. For me football was an escape’
'It’s nice to have the feeling that you belong to a club and I don’t think there are any better than Bohs'
Facing Zidane in Dublin, an ill-fated stint in England and becoming one of Irish football's all-time top scorers
'It does make you stay awake at night and struggle to sleep, and not want to get up in the morning'
'It had become slightly more difficult. Your wife starts to realise that actually, weekends exist'
'My mother told me to stick with the butcher's trade as she said I'd need it more than the football'
'I played for that jersey' - The Limerick lad who marked Maradona and battled Real Madrid in the European Cup
'We had another bottle of beer. Next thing, the agent came in and said: You have to play a match tonight'
'I learned English in school but it wasn't really the same English in Derry': from Belgrade to the Brandywell
'The fans were thinking: F**k sake, we paid that amount of money for this lad and he's useless'