The Irish priest who revived Sam Allardyce's career has spoken of his delight at the coach's appointment as England football manager and said "It's a great moment in my priesthood."
Fr Joe Young, who was chairman of Limerick FC twenty five years ago when he appointed Allardyce as player-manager of the club, added that the coach was "brilliant and a maestro".
Before being appointed by Young, Allardyce had been sacked two years earlier as assistant manager at West Brom, the club the priest supported as a child
Young, who has been praying and saying mass for "Big Sam" Allardyce in recent days, told BBC Radio 5 Live last night: "I'm absolutely delighted. It's a great moment in my priesthood. All I can say to you is one thing. He believed in the Field of Dreams. He was a purpose-driven manager. I never experienced so much joy in the fact that he believed if you don't bring them through with discipline, forget about it. He was brilliant and a maestro".
Young described the positive approach of Allardyce at the club he was appointed to in 1991, when Limerick FC raised money through collection tins in pubs. "What he believed in, in what we were trying to do in Limerick and help young people come through the welfare system... He believed in it, and I believe in Sam," he said.
Young added that the current Sunderland manager, 61, has been in his prayers in recent days. "I said mass for him this morning, and I'll say mass for him tomorrow morning. God bless him, because he is wonderful," he said.
The priest implied he bet on Allardyce, who is expected to be given a two-year contract seeing England into the 2018 World Cup in Russia. "When I got a list of possible managers that we could maybe get, it was like putting a pen on a paper, with my dad for the Grand National," he said. "It was Sam Allardyce. I believed in Big Sam."
In his autobiography, Allardyce wrote of his appointment by Young: "The phone rang one evening. 'Hello Sam, it's Fr Joe Young here.' 'P*** off', I said, and put the receiver down. I couldn't be bothered with any prank calls, I wasn't in the mood. The phone went again and the voice protested: 'Sam, please, I really am Fr Joe Young and I'm the chairman of Limerick. We wonder if you'd be interested in becoming player-manager of our club'. What did I have to lose? Joe was the head of the local parish and his church was just round the corner in the poorest area of Limerick. The fans may have been small in number but they were a passionate lot who crowded into the social club afterwards which was the lifeblood of Limerick, where takings at the bar kept the team going."
