Used to live round the corner from me when I was a kid just off verdant lane...Used to moan about us playing football outside his house...was always in the bookies...always looked miserable ...at the time the millwall fans were onto him though ...he liked a sideways or backward pass
Affectionately known in Ireland as a prick!!! Actually, you can scrub the “affectionately” part!! 😉
In Roddy Doyle's The Van, punters would wobble up to the counter, their bellies bedecked with Tricolours, and ask for a Dunphy and chips. The Dunphy bit of that combination was a battered sausage. It was called a Dunphy because (and I am only quoting from a great literary work here) it "looked like a prick". 😂
I just remember during one god awful rain soaked half-time, my dad and his mates stood in a mostly empty east terrace, sipping whiskey laced coffee, pointing and laughing at a dreadful brass band parading up and down the pitch and trying to work out which of the band was Eamon Dunphy and which one was Harry Cripps... I think they were the ones marching in the wrong direction.
Tidy player but he was dead to me the moment he dissed us publicly. Never quite got how a weedy prick with literary ambition felt so connected to Millwall
The book was/is a great read, and the forerunner of Garry Nelson's equally fine account of day-to-day life in the second tier. But Dunphy just gave up on the book once he'd moved to us, which I always felt was ridiculous - anyone interested in the subject would have really wanted his insider take on what it's like joining a new team (especially one that you've not respected one bit). In a perverse way - and this is a classic Millwall thing - being dissed might not be much fun, but being irrelevant (i.e. in Dunphy's case, "I can't be bothered to write about Charlton") is worse. I'd have loved to know whether he still felt we were nancy boys, a month or two after making the move.
Dunphy was never likely to be a fan's favourite at The Valley, but I've seen worse, and he did (IMO) make a contribution to the 74-75 promotion. Harry Cripps likewise, and he WAS embraced by the support when he joined - which goes to show that the lukewarm response to Dunphy at the time says more about him rather than just being ex-Millwall.
Dunphy played in the first game I saw but I can't say what he was like as a player. As a commentator I think he likes to be controversial. He is the one Irishman who hates Jack Charlton.
I too have been disappointed in the way he described us in Only a Game and his recent biography the Rocky Road. He was at Charlton 18 months and his spell ended in a promotion. Surely that matched his achievement at Millwall? His negative description of Nelson describing him as 'lucky' which I felt was unfair. He describes his chronic back injury in detail.Contrast that with Mark Bright who is as Palace as Dunphy is Millwall and the way he described our 1998 play off victory.
My wife is Irish and over the last few years I was staggered to see him as one of their main pundits. I decided when the Kindle price dropped to buy Rocky Road and it has been in the main an enjoyable read. It has helped me understand some of the nuance of Anglo Irish relations from an Irish perspective
I can now see that he is attitude to Charlton is written through the lens of a journeyman player who knew his moment had past when the Spanners failed to win promotion in 1972.
The book was/is a great read, and the forerunner of Garry Nelson's equally fine account of day-to-day life in the second tier. But Dunphy just gave up on the book once he'd moved to us, which I always felt was ridiculous - anyone interested in the subject would have really wanted his insider take on what it's like joining a new team (especially one that you've not respected one bit). In a perverse way - and this is a classic Millwall thing - being dissed might not be much fun, but being irrelevant (i.e. in Dunphy's case, "I can't be bothered to write about Charlton") is worse. I'd have loved to know whether he still felt we were nancy boys, a month or two after making the move.
Dunphy was never likely to be a fan's favourite at The Valley, but I've seen worse, and he did (IMO) make a contribution to the 74-75 promotion. Harry Cripps likewise, and he WAS embraced by the support when he joined - which goes to show that the lukewarm response to Dunphy at the time says more about him rather than just being ex-Millwall.
Dunphy's book 'Only a Game' is subtitled 'Diary of a Season', which explains why he didn't include his move to us. He may have been an unpleasant character, but his accounts of the pathos and disappointments of being a fringe player in an unfashionable team are fascinating. Unfortunately, over the years I've had cause to agree when he said Charlton are "soulless".
In contrast, I don't rate Garry Nelson's books. Full of footballing cliches - which are surely the worst sort.
The book was/is a great read, and the forerunner of Garry Nelson's equally fine account of day-to-day life in the second tier. But Dunphy just gave up on the book once he'd moved to us, which I always felt was ridiculous - anyone interested in the subject would have really wanted his insider take on what it's like joining a new team (especially one that you've not respected one bit). In a perverse way - and this is a classic Millwall thing - being dissed might not be much fun, but being irrelevant (i.e. in Dunphy's case, "I can't be bothered to write about Charlton") is worse. I'd have loved to know whether he still felt we were nancy boys, a month or two after making the move.
Dunphy was never likely to be a fan's favourite at The Valley, but I've seen worse, and he did (IMO) make a contribution to the 74-75 promotion. Harry Cripps likewise, and he WAS embraced by the support when he joined - which goes to show that the lukewarm response to Dunphy at the time says more about him rather than just being ex-Millwall.
Dunphy's book 'Only a Game' is subtitled 'Diary of a Season', which explains why he didn't include his move to us. He may have been an unpleasant character, but his accounts of the pathos and disappointments of being a fringe player in an unfashionable team are fascinating. Unfortunately, over the years I've had cause to agree when he said Charlton are "soulless".
In contrast, I don't rate Garry Nelson's books. Full of footballing cliches - which are surely the worst sort.
but it should have been sub-titled "Diary of part of a season"
The book was/is a great read, and the forerunner of Garry Nelson's equally fine account of day-to-day life in the second tier. But Dunphy just gave up on the book once he'd moved to us, which I always felt was ridiculous - anyone interested in the subject would have really wanted his insider take on what it's like joining a new team (especially one that you've not respected one bit). In a perverse way - and this is a classic Millwall thing - being dissed might not be much fun, but being irrelevant (i.e. in Dunphy's case, "I can't be bothered to write about Charlton") is worse. I'd have loved to know whether he still felt we were nancy boys, a month or two after making the move.
Dunphy was never likely to be a fan's favourite at The Valley, but I've seen worse, and he did (IMO) make a contribution to the 74-75 promotion. Harry Cripps likewise, and he WAS embraced by the support when he joined - which goes to show that the lukewarm response to Dunphy at the time says more about him rather than just being ex-Millwall.
Dunphy's book 'Only a Game' is subtitled 'Diary of a Season', which explains why he didn't include his move to us. He may have been an unpleasant character, but his accounts of the pathos and disappointments of being a fringe player in an unfashionable team are fascinating. Unfortunately, over the years I've had cause to agree when he said Charlton are "soulless".
In contrast, I don't rate Garry Nelson's books. Full of footballing cliches - which are surely the worst sort.
It is a very long time since I have read Only a Game, so I may be wrong, but I thought he described playing in a reserve game in front of fifty people at the Valley, a ground that could hold 70,000 as soulless.
Not that I am defending him as a person, the book didn't endear me toward him. It was before I started watching Charlton so I have no idea what he was like as a player.
Edit: I think they made a TV film of the book, I remember watching it with my dad some decades ago- I just had a look on YouTube to see if the film is on there unfortunately there are pages of clips of him being a 'controversial' pundit so if it is on there it is well hidden.
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Christ, he talks utter bollox when they have him on TV here.
A proper relic he is.
When he played for us I thought he was a waste of space.
In Roddy Doyle's The Van, punters would wobble up to the counter, their bellies bedecked with Tricolours, and ask for a Dunphy and chips. The Dunphy bit of that combination was a battered sausage. It was called a Dunphy because (and I am only quoting from a great literary work here) it "looked like a prick". 😂
Never quite got how a weedy prick with literary ambition felt so connected to Millwall
Dunphy was never likely to be a fan's favourite at The Valley, but I've seen worse, and he did (IMO) make a contribution to the 74-75 promotion. Harry Cripps likewise, and he WAS embraced by the support when he joined - which goes to show that the lukewarm response to Dunphy at the time says more about him rather than just being ex-Millwall.
I too have been disappointed in the way he described us in Only a Game and his recent biography the Rocky Road. He was at Charlton 18 months and his spell ended in a promotion. Surely that matched his achievement at Millwall? His negative description of Nelson describing him as 'lucky' which I felt was unfair. He describes his chronic back injury in detail.Contrast that with Mark Bright who is as Palace as Dunphy is Millwall and the way he described our 1998 play off victory.
My wife is Irish and over the last few years I was staggered to see him as one of their main pundits. I decided when the Kindle price dropped to buy Rocky Road and it has been in the main an enjoyable read. It has helped me understand some of the nuance of Anglo Irish relations from an Irish perspective
I can now see that he is attitude to Charlton is written through the lens of a journeyman player who knew his moment had past when the Spanners failed to win promotion in 1972.
In contrast, I don't rate Garry Nelson's books. Full of footballing cliches - which are surely the worst sort.
It is a very long time since I have read Only a Game, so I may be wrong, but I thought he described playing in a reserve game in front of fifty people at the Valley, a ground that could hold 70,000 as soulless.
Not that I am defending him as a person, the book didn't endear me toward him. It was before I started watching Charlton so I have no idea what he was like as a player.
Edit: I think they made a TV film of the book, I remember watching it with my dad some decades ago- I just had a look on YouTube to see if the film is on there unfortunately there are pages of clips of him being a 'controversial' pundit so if it is on there it is well hidden.