John Reilly: From schoolboys soccer in Swords to a World Cup qualifier in the Caribbean
Coach John Reilly, right, with Dan Neville during a British Virgin Islands training session. Reilly hopes his story will inspire others to broaden their horizons.
John Reilly smiles when trying to narrow down his nationality.
The son of an Irish father who was born in London, moved to Dublin and now resides in the British Virgin Islands after a stint in South Africa is unequivocal in his answer.
“My Mayo father best described my nationality as ‘a Cockney Irishman’...
“I’m quite happy with that description. Ireland is home, my boys are there, they are Irish and fiercely proud of their country along with their father.”
And well his two grown up sons might be given what he has achieved over the past 30 years on a journey that has taken him from standing on the sidelines of schoolboy pitches in Dublin to the dugout of a World Cup qualifier in the Caribbean last Saturday night.
“I have always been involved with football since I could crawl,” explains 60-year-old Reilly. “I had a very kind uncle who took great interest in me and taught me the basic skills and techniques that I still use today. I played schools, schoolboy clubs, district football, amateur clubs, and semi-professional. I’m as passionate as ever with the game. I have an obsession to improve and I’m a true student of football.”
Born and raised in Hackney, Reilly was always aware of his family tree and the roots which stretched back to the soils of Mayo and Galway. Those Irish connections were bolstered when he married a woman for Dublin and they returned to the city shortly after their first son, Seán, was born. A few years later another boy, Georgie, (‘he was born in the Coombe’) completed the family. As Seán grew, so did his interest in football which led him to the local Swords Celtic club.
That decision was to change the course of his father’s life.
Reilly senior explained: “I had had an interest in coaching from my late 20s. A good friend of mine worked at Leyton Orient and had brought some good ideas to the practices.”
Like many a good father before him, Reilly answered an SOS call from his son’s team.
“There wasn’t anyone to run the side so I and another dad took on the role and had many weekends full of laughter, fun, and a good few pints along the way!”
The return to football rekindled something in Reilly and he began hunting down courses and coaching badges. He began with FAI programmes and swiftly climbed the ladder.
“I progressed all the way through to Uefa B, got asked to coach at Crumlin Utd then to Malahide FC where I completed my Uefa A license and I secured an FA Elite license in England!
Reilly had a stint at Home Farm before taking up a job offer in Rustenburg, South Africa: “I worked at Royal Bafokeng Sports which provided a sports programme for local schoo children, it was a hugely successful with thousands of children participating, incorporating five sporting codes: Football, rugby, netball, martial arts, and athletics, with my main focus being on football.”
His return to Dublin from South Africa was short-lived. “I was then offered a coaching role in Tortola (the main island in the British Virgin Islands) while coaching at a Dublin club by Walter Reich a Canadian businessman with a passion for football. He was a youth football programme founder who had observed my sessions. Walter wanted a Uefa A license holder to develop and progress youth football players in his programme.
“The programme is called ‘Manatees’ and now we have joined the Wolues men’s senior team (a side in the BVIFA National Football League) to add a youth programme for girls and boys on the islands. We provide football practices for any child that wants to play football and it is free to join. The girls programme (Soccer Sisters) is accelerating at an unbelievable pace with up to 50 girls now at the practice. And I am still there to this day working for Cedar International School and the BVI Football Association.”
Reilly’s day job is to oversee both Football and Athletics at Cedar and while in that role he was approached by the president of the British Virgin Island’s FA who offered him a part-time role as the technical director of the association, a role he held for a number of years.
Dan Neville succeeded him as full-time technical director and the former academy coach at Bournemouth is now also the national team’s interim head coach while Reilly is his right-hand man in the coaching staff.
Reilly loves the life he has built on the island of Tortola. The people he says are relaxed and friendly, who ‘have time to say good morning and leave you in peace.’ But even paradise has some dark days.
Reilly paints a harrowing picture of the impact of two category five hurricanes that struck in September 2017.
The territory was devastated by first Irma and then Maria as 200mph winds flattened almost everything in their path.
Reilly recalled: “Buildings were destroyed, trees were uprooted, cars were overturned. The destruction was unbelievable.
The Football Association was forced to ‘operate out of a shipping container’ as their HQ was crushed like tissue paper by the tempest. Such was the damage to the stadium in Tortola that the national team had to play games in the neighbouring British territory of Anguilla. The rebuild and return to normal stretched from months into years. Thousands were displaced and hundreds of players, from an already small playing pool, were lost to the sport.
“The hurricane caused us lots of players to relocate to a lot of countries,” BVI captain Troy Caesar said in 2019. “It caused a lot of problems in the BVI. Even some of the youngsters that I used to coach were gone and people’s addresses were lost.”
What was also lost was the development work and youth schemes crafted by the likes of Reilly in growing the game amongst children and making ground on the territory’s main sporting draws: athletics and basketball.
Reilly continued: “We have a population of around 28,000, so as you can imagine the problems we have in finding players who can represent the BVI but we do manage to find them amongst a domestic league of 11 teams (split between clubs drawn from Tortola and the other main island of Virgin Gouda) and through parents and grandparents who have left the BVI. We have a very young squad and the most pleasing thing is that we have players who have come through our underage programme and are now in the senior national team. We have a great attitude to learn and a desire to succeed. I’ve no doubt people will be talking about some of our young players in the not too distant future.”
The task is an onerous one. The British Virgin Islands are 208th in the Fifa world rankings — only Anguilla and San Marino are below them.
Their campaign began with a 3-0 loss to Guatemala in the CONCACAF Group C Qualifier at the Stadion Ergilio Hato in Curaçao on Saturday night. Tuesday night brings an appointment with Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
“We learned very valuable lessons against Guatemala that will improve our young players development,” Reilly said. “The aim is to get the foundations in place; then we can put on the floors and then the roof. It’s going to be a momentous task for us to qualify but we are well prepared, very committed, and with an obsession to improve in every part of our game. My role this week is to work with the defensive set-up, tactically and technically. We are on the field daily training and many classroom sessions studying and analysing our opponents.”
And Reilly hopes his story will inspire others to pack their bags, broaden their horizons, and grow more than their coaching skills. “I only wish more coaches based in Ireland would look to travel and work abroad, I thoroughly recommend it. There are great life lessons to be learned working with different cultures. When I started out I didn’t think I’d be coaching in Nations League games and World Cup qualifiers!”
Two very proud sons watching in Rush and Malahide tonight will attest to that.
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