Joe Kinnear: FA Cup-winning defender who enjoyed colourful managerial career

Joe Kinnear was a man who did things his own way.

As a dependable full-back, he served as a key member of a star-studded Tottenham side before embarking upon a managerial career which brought him huge acclaim with Wimbledon’s ‘Crazy Gang’, but ended in a hail of expletives, controversy and at times ridicule at Newcastle.

No slave to political correctness, Kinnear told it how he saw it and was admired and respected by those closest to him on a journey which began in Ireland and for the most part revolved around London, but notably also took him to Nepal.

Kinnear, who has died at the age of 77, was born Joseph Reddy, the youngest of three children to Guinness Brewery stoker Joe and Margaret Reddy, in Dublin on December 27th, 1946, he and older sisters Shirley and Carmen spent their early years in the Kimmage and Crumlin areas of the city.

The marriage was not a happy one and his mother, who was just 20 when he arrived, eventually walked out and went to look for work in England, with her children – custody had been awarded to her husband – divided between their grandparents.

Having met and set up home with Gerry Kinnear in Watford, she returned for her children when her son was six and, along with the couple’s daughters Louise and Amelia, the Reddy children took on their stepfather’s surname.

Kinnear excelled at sports at both Kingswood Primary and Leggatt’s Way Secondary Modern schools, where his ability helped him be accepted swiftly.

A career as a professional was his dream from an early age and he looked to be on course when he played for and captained Watford Boys and then Hertfordshire Boys before being granted a trial by Watford at the age of 15.

To his intense disappointment, the Hornets did not offer him a contract