Ron Healey 1952-2018.

Although I note that there doesn’t seem to be any “official” confirmation of this yet, there have been messageboard threads appearing on Cardiff City and Manchester City sites in the last day or so mourning the passing away of Ron Healey, who played for both clubs during a career which saw him capped twice for the Republic of Ireland.

Healey, who was just seventeen when he made his first team debut for Man City in 1969, played in a European Cup Winner’s Cup Semi Final against Chelsea for them, but Joe Corrigan’s emergence meant that he was never a regular in the senior team and, after loan spells at Coventry and Preston, left for Cardiff in March 1974. As was always the case then, City were in the thick of a relegation battle and our new keeper must have been wondering what he had let himself in for when he conceded two goals within the first six minutes of his debut, against West Brom at the Hawthorns, only for a couple of efforts by the late Johnny Vincent to ensure we headed home with a much needed point.

That was the first in over two hundred games Healey played for us before injury forced him to retire in 1982. He was at City for a long time and would surely have played more often for us were it not for the rivalry he had with Bill Irwin for the first three and a half years of his time at Ninian Park.

So many City fans can trace their first association with the club back to the 75/76 Third Division promotion side.
This picture, from a 0-0 home draw with Millwall, towards the end of that season, shows Ron Healey and the whole of City’s back four denying an attack from the visitors. Fred Pethard, Phil Dwyer and Clive Charles watch Mike England put in what looks like a goal saving tackle -sadly, two of the five (Healey and Charles) are no longer with us.*

I wrote about this battle for number one shirt in the tribute I posted on a City messageboard yesterday;-

“I always found it hard to decide who was the best out of Ron Healey and Bill Irwin. While Irwin was, for me, the more spectacular of the two and was capable of making some brilliant saves on occasions, I think it might be fair to say that Healey was considered the steadier of the two and I always had the feeling that he was the one the City managers of that time would tend to turn to in a crisis.

My first memory of Healey upon hearing today’s sad news was not a City one, but of him being chipped by Kevin Keegan for a wonderful goal in an England v Republic of Ireland match at Wembley in one of two games he played for his adopted country – to be honest, while Irwin had that “save of the season” in the FA Cup match with Leeds, I’m struggling to remember one save from Healey’s City career to remember him by, it was more that with him between the sticks, you knew we had a dependable and very capable performer there.

RIP to Ron Healey, one of the best City keepers I’ve seen.”

Since then, I’m grateful to one of the contributors to the thread I posted in for recalling a penalty save of Ron’s from Halifax’s Ray McHale early in the 75/76 promotion season which preserved a point for us early in the campaign when we made a faltering start to our home fixtures. Given further time to think about Healey saves, I came up with another penalty save at a packed Roker Park, which earned City a 2-1 win there in 1979, that denied the home side a promotion to the old First Division, so there, a little late, are a couple of saves to remember him by.

RIP Ron Healey and commiserations to his family and friends.

*picture courtesy of https://www.walesonline.co.uk/