Johnny Fullam

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Johnny Fullam (born 22 March 1940 in Dublin) is an Irish ex-soccer player during the 1960s and 1970s.

Johnny began his career at Home Farm before signing for Preston North End in 1958. He scored 6 goals in 49 appearances at Deepdale.

In 1961 he was asked to guest on Shamrock Rovers tour of America on the understanding that he would sign for the club.

He scored his first goal in a competitive match from the penalty spot against Transport in a League of Ireland Shield game on the 20th of August 1961. He suffered a serious knee injury in February 1962 and missed Rovers FAI Cup win that season.

He made his European debut in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup against PFC Botev Plovdiv and won his first Shield medal in 1962/63. Johnny was a regular member of Rovers' all-conquering side of 1963/64 when the Hoops almost made a clean sweep of the domestic trophies. He was one of five Rovers' players who were on the League of Ireland side that beat the English Football League side 2-1 at Dalymount Park on the 2nd of October 1963.

Just over a week later he played against Valencia CF despite having gone down with food poisoning and Rovers drew 2-2 with the Spanish giants.

Johnny won the first of his six FAI Cup medals with Rovers in 1964 and in the replayed final the following year he scored the winner. He scored against Real Zaragoza in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1965 [1].

The following year he scored again in Europe in the 4-1 win over Spora Luxembourg and had two great games against FC Bayern Munich where Rovers were seven minutes from putting the eventual winners of the competition.

He was on the mark in Europe again in 1968 against Randers FC but a knee injury he received in March 1969 kept him out of Rovers' record making six-in-a-row FAI Cup Final win.

He signed for Bohemians shortly after and won yet another FAI Cup in his first season at Dalymount Park. In 1975 he won the League with Bohs and picked up another FAI Cup in 1976. He made 8 appearances in European competition for Bohs.

He signed back for Rovers in the 1976 close season and captained the Milltown club to his eighth FAI Cup win in 1978. He was given a free transfer by Johnny Giles at the end of the 1978/79 season.

Johnny Fullam finished his League of Ireland career at Athlone Town.

He had played for Rovers for eleven seasons in two spells and he was a worthy recipient of the Shamrock Rovers Hall of Fame award in 1991.

He earned 11 caps playing for Republic of Ireland national football team, 10 while with Rovers. He holds the Rovers record for the most European appearances with 19 scoring the aforementioned 3 goals.

[edit] Honours

  • FAI Cup: 8
    • Shamrock Rovers - 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1978
    • Bohemians - 1970, 1976
  • Leinster Senior Cup: 1
    • Shamrock Rovers - 1964
  • Dublin City Cup: 1
    • Shamrock Rovers - 1964
  • SWAI Personality of the Year: 2
    • Shamrock Rovers - 1967/68
    • Bohemians - 1974/75

[edit] Sources

The Hoops by Paul Doolan and Robert Goggins (ISBN 0-7171-2121-6)