Willie McElroy’s interest in football goes back to the early fifties.  He suffered a football injury at the age of seventeen, and began following the fortunes of Enniskillen Rangers from their foundation in 1953 out of the old YMCA club.  Work took him to Scotland and on his return in 1966 he joined the Rangers Committee, and soon was largely instrumental in establishing the Rangers Youth set-up.  He managed the Under 15 and Under 18 teams to successes in the Telegraph Shield and Corry Cup competitions, but his involvement went much further than management:  for example, he founded what must be one of the earliest examples of a Football Fanzine with his publication of Rangers News, full of football stories, cartoons and gossip about club members, each copy painstakingly Xeroxed on the primitive equipment then available.

He was the first manager of the Rangers third team, the Swifts, formed to provide football for all the players which the Youth set-up provided, and he went on to manage the Reserve Team, before finally taking on the job of First Team Manager.  He had many successes as Manager including the Mercer League title in 1973, but it was perhaps his greatest achievement that he led Rangers to their first IFA Junior Cup Final in 1975. In the run to the final, Rangers were drawn away from home in all of the rounds, before meeting Glebe at Omagh Showgrounds before the largest crowd for a Junior Cup Final in living memory.  

Rangers lost that final in extra time, and Willie duly retired from team management, but his involvement in football administration increased considerably.  He had been Rangers’ representative on the Fermanagh and Western Management Committee since 1966, and became Honorary Treasurer soon after, first under William Connor as Chairman, and George Crawford as Honorary Secretary, and later under Enda Love and Brendan Keogh. His colleagues on the Management committee included great names such as Robin Mitchell, George Henderson, Joey Burke, Robin Porter and Mrs Una Lavery.

Willie was chosen by the Fermanagh and Western to Belfast to serve as representative to the Junior Committee in 1971.  He was certainly the first Fermanagh and Western representative to attend meetings regularly: previously the nominal Fermanagh and Western members were usually resident in Belfast with little connection to the West.  Willie, however, attended faithfully - and in those days it was a three-hour journey there, and a three-hour journey back – with the result that he was appointed Chairman of the Junior Committee for 1979 to 1981. He had been heavily involved in the organisation of the 1975 Final, helping to produce, for the first time at a Junior Cup Final, a Match Programme.  Willie raised most of the sponsorship and advertising revenue from local firms, prompting Herbie Johnston, a venerable figure on the Junior Committee to ask: “Willie, do you only know bookies and bar-owners?”

Willie was certainly the first Fermanagh and Western official to chair an IFA Committee, and during his chairmanship he was responsible for re-introducing the Junior Internationals which had gone into abeyance because of the security situation in the early seventies.  He was Head of Delegation against Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, and he also served on the IFA Centenary Committee in 1980.  As an IFA Council Member, he had many interesting trips to Home Championship matches in Wembley and Hampden Park, often in the company of Enda Love and Brendan Keogh, and he was in Cardiff in 1980 when Northern Ireland won the British Championship.

Perhaps Willie’s greatest contribution to football was the support he gave to a young Jimmy Cleary.  Jimmy played for Rangers Under 15s in the Telegraph Shield, and made his first appearance, alongside his older brother Fred, for the Under 18s when he was used in an emergency in 1970 at the tender age of fourteen, and proved to be the best player on the field.  Jimmy won a Mercer Cup medal under Willie’s management in 1973.  Willie had recommended a number of local players – Adrian Hopkins, Paul Reynolds, the McFrederick Brothers, Pat Sharkey, among others - to Gibby McKenzie, the manager of Portadown FC, and he drove all of these players regularly to trials and training.  Clearly the best of his recommendations was Jimmy whom he took to Portadown at least twice a week, and Jimmy certainly repaid Willie’s encouragement through his glittering career at Portadown, Glentoran, Northern Ireland and Espana ’82. Jimmy appreciated everything which Willie did for him, so much so that he presented Willie with one of his international caps and one of his Northern Ireland World Cup jerseys.  Willie treasures these items and is of course very proud indeed of Jimmy’s career and the part he played in it.

In more recent times Willie’s involvement in football matters has diminished but there was a glimpse of old times when in 2005, in company with a number of Fermanagh and Western Officials, he attended the Irish Football Association’s Anniversary banquet in Belfast City Hall.  Willie is a Life Member of the IFA and on that occasion he enjoyed meeting his old colleagues and sharing many old stories. He also entertained his Fermanagh and Western friends on the minibus to and from Belfast, and gave us all a reminder of his great good humour and capacity for fun.

I am privileged to have known Willie for forty-five years, and I am honoured to welcome him into the Fermanagh and Western Hall of Fame, in one of the second group of inductees, after Enda Love and Brendan Keogh.  Congratulations go to Robin Mitchell also – the two men are very worthy and very distinguished, and we are very lucky to have had such gentlemen working for the good of our local game.