Of all the young hopefuls who have crossed the Irish Sea in the hope of making a career with one of the big clubs in Liverpool or Manchester, Paddy Kennedy can at least claim to have won something: the FA Youth Cup with Manchester United in 1953, in a team that boasted the likes of Edwards, Colman, Whelan, Pegg and Scanlon. But that was about as good as it got. Despite having signed pro during that Cup-run, this “Busby Babe” made only one League appearance before being off-loaded to Blackburn, for whom he played only three times, as they were promoted to Division I. A leg injury while there sidelined him for 18 months which his son John told the local paper at the time of his father’s death “scuppered his chance of an international cap”. As it was, he arrived at Third Division Southampton as part of Ted Bates’s comprehensive bring-and-buy sale in the summer of 1959.

Having started the new season at left-back, he was replaced, after only two games, by the previous incumbent, Tommy Traynor. After his debut, at home to Norwich, the Portsmouth Evening News commented ” new left-back Pat Kennedy found lever Canadian-born winger Errol Crossan a difficult handful. Kennedy who still looks overweight will have to speed up considerably”.

After four games for the Reserves, he returned to Lancashire, on a free transfer to Oldham. He would never play first-team football for them – or, indeed, any other League club – but would work for Massey Ferguson in Manchester’s Trafford Park from 1961 to 1985. He was well known in the Urmiston area for his part in establishing amateur football and he was a founding member of Urmston Vics as well as being President of the now defunct Four Provinces Gaelic football team and Knutsford Rangers.