Martin Hugh Michael O’Neill OBE (b1952)
Born in Kilrea, the sixth of nine siblings, his father was a founding member of local Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA) club Pádraig Pearse’s Kilrea.
He played Gaelic football for both Kilrea and Derry at underage level as well. He also played Gaelic football while boarding at St. Columb’s College, Derry, and later at St. Malachy’s College, Belfast.
Despite never completing his degree, O’Neill remains an avid follower of criminology.
While at St. Malachy’s, he first came to public attention as a football player with local side Rosario Football club and then eventually with Lisburn Distillery.
This breached the GAA prohibition on its members playing “foreign sports”. When St. Malachy’s reached the 1970 MacRory Cup final, the Antrim GAA County Board refused to allow the game to go ahead at Belfast’s Casement Park.
The colleges involved switched the venue to County Tyrone to enable him to play. St. Malachy’s won the game.
Starting his soccer career in his native Northern Ireland, O’Neill moved to England where he spent most of his playing career with Nottingham Forest, with which he won the European Cup in 1980.
He was capped 64 times for the Northern Ireland national football team, including a spell as captain.
Unable to play any more through injury, he joined Grantham as manager in 1987. He enjoyed two years here before moving on to Shepshed Charterhouse two years later, following a dispute with the board.
O’Neill managed Wycombe Wanderers, Norwich City, Leicester City, Celtic and Aston Villa before moving to Sunderland in December 2011.
After a surprise sacking at Sunderland, he was appointed manager of Ireland in November 2013, with assistamnt Roy Keane.
He guided Leicester City to the Football League Cup final three times, in which he was twice victorious, in 1997 and 2000.
In his time as Celtic manager between 2000 and 2005, he led the club to three Scottish Premier League titles and the 2003 UEFA Cup Final in Seville.
In 2002, he became the second former Grantham manager (the other being Terry Bly) to be elected by Norwich supporters into the club’s Hall of Fame.
O’Neill was sacked by Sunderland in March 2013 following a 1–0 defeat by Manchester United which left the team one point above the Premier League relegation zone with seven games left to play in the season. Sunderland had failed to secure victory in the eight matches leading up to O’Neill’s departure, winning only three points out of a possible 24 during that spell.
He was confirmed as the new Republic of Ireland national football team manager in November 2013. He was joined by former team captain Roy Keane as his assistant manager. His first game in charge was against Latvia was a 3–0 win at the Aviva Stadium.
O’Neill courted controversy in March 2016 following comments he made about the physical appearance of players’ female partners, which were condemned as sexist.
In June 2016, O’Neill was criticised for using a derogatory term to describe LGBT people. During a public appearance in Cork that month, O’Neill informed a gathering of Ireland football fans that he had two others accompany assistant Roy Keane and him on a recent visit to San Francisco as he was worried people might think they were “queers”. The Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN)
In November 2018, O’Neill parted company with the FAI.[6][79]
January 2019 saw O’Neill become the manager of Nottingham Forest. O’Neill guided the club to a ninth-place finish in the Championship. However, he was sacked as manager on 28 June 2019, soon after assistant Roy Keane had departed the club.
He was awarded an OBE for services to sport in 2004.
O’Neill and his wife Geraldine have two daughters, Aisling and Alana. As a boy he supported Sunderland and Celtic.
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