John Connelly Profile

John Mi­chael Con­nelly, born St Helens, Eng­land, Ju­ly 18, 1938. Few play­ers employ­ed a sud­den burst of speed more ef­fect­ively than John Con­nelly. A fast and dir­ect flanker, he won the Lea­gue Cham­pi­on­ship wi­th Man­chester Uni­ted in 1965 and sco­red 35 goals in 113 mat­ches for The Reds be­fore he mo­ved to Black­burn Rov­ers at the start of the 1966-67 season.

Born and bro­ught up in St Helens, John Con­nelly star­ted his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer wi­th Burn­ley where the right wing­er won the Fir­st Di­vi­sion Cham­pi­on­ship in 1959-60. Af­ter notch­ing up 105 goals in 265 Foot­ball Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for The Clarets, he was bro­ught to Old Tra­ford by Man­chester Uni­ted man­ager Matt Busby for an es­tim­ated trans­fer fee of £56,000 at the end of the 1963-64 cam­paign. Sur­pris­ingly, he left Man­chester Uni­ted in the sum­mer of 1966 when he was trans­ferred to Sec­ond Di­vi­sion si­de Black­burn Rov­ers for a fee of £40,000. The flanker hit 36 goals in 149 Foot­ball Lea­gue ga­mes for the Ew­ood Park si­de be­fore he teamed up wi­th neigh­bouring Bury where he fin­ished his foot­balling ca­reer in 1973. In­ter­na­tion­ally, Con­nelly won 20 full caps for Eng­land af­ter ma­king his seni­or de­but in a 1-1 Brit­ish Ho­me Cham­pi­on­ship draw wi­th Wales in front of over 62,000 people at Nini­an Park on the 17th of Oct­ober 1959. John Con­nelly Play­ing Ca­reer: Burn­ley, Man­chester Uni­ted, Black­burn Rov­ers, Bury. Play­ing Hon­ours: Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Fir­st Di­vi­sion 1960, 1965, Eng­lish FA Char­ity Shield 1965, Brit­ish Ho­me Cham­pi­on­ship 1960, 1966, FIFA Wor­ld Cup 1966.

John Connelly Quickfacts

Af­ter re­tir­ing from the ga­me at the end of the 1972-73 sea­son, John Con­nelly ran a pop­u­lar fish-and-chips res­taur­ant called Con­nelly’s Plaice in the small to­wn of Bri­er­field in the bor­ough of Pendle.

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