LIMERICK HAVE ANNOUNCED the return of former midfielder Joe Gamble as strength and conditioning coach to both the club’s first-team and myriad underage squads.
A league and FAI Cup winner with local side Cork City during his six-year stint at the club, Gamble also plied his trade across the water with Hartlepool United, before helping Limerick to the First Division title to cap a two-year spell in the mid-west.
Now, after another league-winning, two-year spell at Brunei DPMM of Singapore, the 34-year-old is ready to transition to a non-playing role at one of his alma maters.
“I’m very excited,” Gamble said to the club’s website. “It’s a whole new experience, obviously, not being a player and now sitting on the other side of the line where you’re coaching players.
“It’s something that I’ve prepared, studied and applied myself to for years well before I retired. I knew I would go down this route and it’s great that Limerick have given me the chance to prove what I can do.
“I wanted to go back into football full-time. I know Pat (O’Sullivan, chairman) and Kieran (Judge, operations manager) well, I was speaking to them and after doing so well to get promoted they really want to kick it on. They’re hungry for more and I want to be a part of that.”
In addition to his first-team duties, the twice-capped Republic of Ireland international will also be embedded in the underage structure at the club, in time for the impending 2017 introduction of the Under-15 National League, which will slot under the already established Under-19 and Under-17 National Leagues.
Gamble’s return to the Markets Field follows hot on the heels of the club’s re-signing of 2016 Player’s Player of the Year Chris Mulhall, who featured as joint-top scorer — along with John O’Flynn — during the Shannonsiders’ runaway First Division success, underlining the former UCD man’s impressive transition from right-winger to centre-forward.
Gamble also holds the honour of being the last League of Ireland player to line out for the Boys in Green, with the then-Cork City star involved in Steve Staunton’s side’s US tour in 2007.
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