Pat Jennings
In 1945 Arsenals 1978 FA Cup winning goalkeeper was born, his name is Pat Jennings.
After turning out for nearby under 18 team Shamrock Rovers (Newry) whilst age 11 at school, Jennings decided to pay his full attention to Gaelic football for the next five years before returning to Newry. After standing out from the rest of the players he set his bags for English Third Division team Watford in 1963. Jennings would play in every match during his first campaign at The Hornets, but by 1964 The Irishman had already caught the eyes of Tottenham whom he signed for in a deal worth £27,000.
Jennings would enjoy a spell of 13 years at White Hart Lane, appearing for Spurs 472 times in the league and altogether amassing a mighty 591 appearances in total. Within three years he won his first piece of silverware lifting the 1967 FA Cup for the first time, before clinching the 1971 and 1973 League Cup and in-between the 1972 UEFA Cup. Impressively he scored from his own box during the 1967 Charity Shield beating the hands of Manchester United’s Alex Stepney. In 1973 he was declared the Footballer Writers Association footballer of the year. Fast track three years and he became the first goalkeeper to win the PFAS copy of the award.
In the summer of 1977 Jennings transferred to the more successful side of North London Arsenal whilst Tottenham believed he was close to hanging up his gloves. This would prove to be untrue with Jennings playing for a further eight years. Within the space of four years he assisted The Gunners to four Cup Finals in three consecutive years. These were the 1978, 1979 and 1980 FA Cup and that year the Cup Winners Cup final. Unfortunately Arsenal only won one of these showdowns when beating Manchester United 3-2 in the 1978 FA Cup. After pushing his career out for nearly a decade at Arsenal by the end of his years on the red side of North London, Jennings played 327 times for Arsenal with 237 of those appearances being in the league between 1977 and 1985.
In February 1983 Jennings became the first footballer in English football to make 1,000 senior games, making the most of this accolade with a clean sheet versus West Bromwich Albion. In late 1984 Jennings would run out of the tunnel for the last time as goalkeeper for Arsenal against Sheffield United. In May 1985 a celebratory match was held turning out to be a North London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur at Highbury.
After retiring Jennings betrayed The Gunners, returning to arch rivals Tottenham featuring more often than not in their reserve team keeping his reflexes going for Northern Ireland’s 1986 World Cup Campaign. His last match for Spurs was during the Football League Super Cup versus Liverpool in 1986. He was then temporarily signed by Everton for back up for the 1986 FA Cup Final in a Merseyside derby against Liverpool, after Neville Southall had been plagued by injury whilst representing Wales.
In terms of Jennings International career he made his debut for Northern Ireland when having just become an adult at the age of 18 when at Watford. The match commenced in 1964 versus Wales in the British Home Championship which his country won 3-2. In 1982 he featured in what’s been hailed Northern Ireland’s best ever tournament – the 1982 World Cup. During his first three games he conceded only once before then letting in four in the second group stage matches against France who finally won Group D.
Even though Jennings had given in his notice in 1985, Jennings played one last song for Ireland at the 1986 World Cup on his 41st Birthday becoming the oldest person to compete in the competitions history at the time. The game was Northern Ireland’s last group game resulting in a 0-3 loss to Brazil. From 1966 to 1986 Jennings featured for his country in the qualifying stages of six World Cups. He also secured two British Home Championships with Northern Ireland in 1980 and 1984.
Once officially retiring Jennings became a goalkeeping coach and has helped out at Tottenham ever since.
In 2003 Jennings was included into the English Football Hall of Fame to thank him for his abilities that he showed in football. In 1987 Jennings was awarded an OBE as part of New Years Honours for his services to football in Northern Ireland, come 2023 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) during the New Year Honours for services to football and charity.
Liam Harding
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If you read Pat Jenning’s autobiography, you would not have made the comment that he “betrayed” Arsenal.
Far from it, as, in fact, he details quite clearly how The Arsenal were so much more professional in all their dealings with him than our noisy neighbours.
When he retired, the spuds offered him a position – The Arsenal didn’t, at least that’s how I read the situation.
Pat Jenning’s, in my opinion, has been the best keeper, along with “safe hands” to ever wear the jersey of The Arsenal and his move to us was a kick in the teeth for our noisy neighbours – a really nice person in every way.
Excellent summary Liam on the great man. It was actually Don Howe who forced Jennings’s hand to retire in 1985. The young John Lukic was the more favoured goalkeeper. Jennings was offered a spot back at Tottenham Hotspur reserves to stay fit for the 1986 World Cup Tournament. At the age of 40, Jennings helped secure Northern Ireland a ticket to the above World Cup Tournament by keeping 6 consecutive clean sheets in the World Cup Qualifying matches. That included the last qualifying match at Wembley Stadium against England which ended 0-0. Supporters and pundits accused England’s Bobby Robson of match fixing. You only need to watch that match to see there was no match fixing whatsoever. Pat Jennings was simply World Class that night. Glen Hoddle could not believe his own eyes when Jennings drived full length to turn a long range shot destined top corner around the post. There was other save Jennings made that night that even had the commentor baffled. Jennings was beaten for dead, and still managed to turn the headed shot over the crossbar. I remember the match where Jennings had a dart thrown at him and it went into his forearm. Jennings never made an issue about. Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough wrote Jennings a letter, not apologising, but cursing Jennings for being unbeatable every time Arsenal and Nottingham Forest clashed. Brian Clough had a sense of humour. When I was a kid, I wrote to Jennings asking about the gloves he wore. I also sent him lots of photos of myself in action. He hand wrote a letter back on an Arsenal embossed letter head explaining to me about those Uhlsport gloves, and sent each photo I had sent with his autograph on the back of each photo. Two weeks later he sent me a photo of himself holding up a pair of Uhlsport gloves wishing me the best with my footballing career, and signing his name. I was not expecting that. Pat Jennings is one goalkeeper that would easily adapt to today’s modern football. They used to call him the GENTLE GIANT,, when in fact he stood 6 foot tall. But his agility was absolutely first class. His ball handling was brilliant,,,, even when playing on an ice affected pitch without gloves on. He could turn defense into attack at the blink of an eye. He had the great ability at making difficult saves look rather easy, mainly because he knew his angles and knew how to make the goals look small to the opposing striker. Over the years to this day I show goalkeepers videos of Jennings. They are usually gobsmacked at what he could do. That was a great article Liam. Please keep them coming. Cheers mate
Legend have it you cant served two masters at the same time.
Having made his debut with another legend of the game, it’s the flamboyant George Best I have came to be more familiar with.
In a career that spell discipline and dedication, like Raya it maybe fair to say Jennings was equally adept with his feet as he scored in the charity shield victory over Man United in 1967 when his clearance find his way past his counterpart Alex Stepney.
The legend only controversy it appears was moving between Souds and Arsenal, but as I was made to understand it the Lily Whites suspected Jennings legs were beginning to go in 1977 hence putting him up for sale. Arsenal swooped in quickly and sign the former Spuds man.
That decision have to be seen as a master stroke as the former Spuds man showed class is permanent, as he continued to produce the same outstanding performance for us.
But Jennings abruptly dropped from the first team, showed Arsenal has a history of poorly handling goal keepers in transition.
A most well laid out article Liam. I read your excellent articled about our players from the 1930’s too but have refrained from commentating on them as, though I know the history of our club very well, I was not , of course, present to see those great players and sides of the thirties, so would be not able to give a worthwhile opinion,as it could only be based donly on hearsay and what I had read about them
But the article about PJ , was shugely enjoyable and instructive, esp to far younger fans than I.
One serious quibble though and that was the oddly disappointing comment you made about PJ “betraying us”.
I thought that unfair, untrue and unworthy of you. Any footballer once out of contract is, and always should be , free to work with whomsoever he pleases, as Pat did. Nothing wrong at all in that!
But other than that AN EXCELLENT PIECE. WELL DONE!!
Stuart Pearce told a wonderful story of meeting with Pat and being told that in an away match against Nottingham Forest he was hit by a dart thrown from the home crowd which stuck in his hand. At half time he asked our coach Don Howe for some anti septic, and Don went mad and complained to Forrest coach Brian Clough about his animal supporters. A few weeks or so later a letter from Clough arrived, saying: “My dear Pat, I have no sympathy for you whatever, as whenever you come to Forrest’s ground you stop everything, so no surprise that you stopped the dart. Love Brian.” Pat showed the letter to Pearce, who recounted it on 5Live. I’m quoting this from memory, but the actual transcript is available via Google etc. as it’s one of 5live’s most requested.
..and I agree that Pat is far too much a gentleman to “betray” anyone.
I was speaking to a spud fan who had supported them for over 50 years
We did speak about PJ and was there any hostility when PJ moved across
He said certainly not
They wished him well.. there were a minority who didn’t but a majority did
Unlike the sol debacle where the spuds were united in there hatred of sol
I loved big pat and imo pj was one of our best keepers
When he spoke His voice was deeper then the grand canyon
His hands were larger then a shovel
We had a great Irish core team at the time
Should of done better in the league in that era
Starring up from the sides at highbury and looking at big pat
He looked like a giant
Onwards and upwards