Johnny Giles
(1940-present)

Aged 84

Michael John Giles (born 6 November 1940) is an Irish former association football player and manager best remembered for his time as a midfielder with Leeds United in the 1960s and 1970s. After retiring from management in 1985, Giles served as the senior analyst on RTÉ Sport's coverage of association football from 1986 until 2016. The FAI voted Giles as the greatest Irish player of the last 50 years at the UEFA Jubilee Awards in 2004. After winning an FA Cup winner's medal under Matt Busby at Manchester United, Giles moved to Leeds in 1963 where he played in midfield alongside captain Billy Bremner. The duo formed a central midfield partnership which was one of the best in English club football. Their pairing helped yield several major trophies in the most successful era in Leeds' history. Giles and Bremner both scored 115 goals for the club. In his later years in football, Giles pursued a managerial career which saw him installed as player-manager and manager of, among others, West Bromwich Albion, the Republic of Ireland, Vancouver Whitecaps and Shamrock Rovers. Despite having an outstanding knowledge of the game, Giles personally never liked being a manager. He became disillusioned with aspects of the job, such as suffering at the hands of non-committal boardrooms, and left management permanently in 1985. He later declared that he had no regrets about quitting managerial life. Subsequently, after repeated encouragement from childhood friend Eamon Dunphy, Giles would inadvertently enter the world of football punditry in 1986. He went on to establish himself as a senior analyst on RTÉ Sport until 2016. In December 2019, he was employed as an analyst for Premier Sports' live coverage of the English Premier League matches. Also, he writes two columns per week for the Irish Evening Herald newspaper, and offers his opinions about the game on radio station Newstalk 106.

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