Cod Almighty | Article

by Steve Meek

12 March 2025

Just three injury interrupted seasons and 25 goals but in full flow, hair flopping, shirt flapping, Michael Reddy was unstoppable and a magnificent sight. Our brief encounter with the Kilkenny chuggabug still has many a heart fluttering all these years later.

Michael Reddy was not a steady Eddie. Long of limb and floppy of mane, he looked more like a two-legged Irish racehorse than a footballer. Whoah, hold on, cries our one young reader. Who is/was Michael Reddy? Who on earth are you wobbling on about, grandad?

Okay, junior, I'll start at the beginning. Michael Reddy made his League of Ireland debut at Buckley Park, so it was only natural that he should join Town. Newly crowned Town manager Russell Slade finally brought Reddy to his field of dreams in 2004. Incidentally, when Slade did something that displeased the crowd, he was always referred to as a bald teacher, as though that was the greatest insult imaginable. Calling someone a brunette cabinet maker or a blonde landscape gardener somehow doesn't seem as harsh, although I suppose ginger estate agent carries a vague whiff of disapproval.

Anyway, Michael Reddy. The first thing we realised is that he was fast. The second thing we realised is that his hair was too floppy to be able to accurately steer a ball with his noggin. A target man he was not. What he needed, and what he got, in his second season with the Stripes was a big lump to play alongside him. That man was the legendary Gary Jones, or Lumpaldinho to his friends, who did the dirty and aerial work whilst Reddy did what he did best, which was accelerate. Together they scored 31 goals the following season. Yes, that's right. We played two men up front and they got 31 goals between them. I thought I'd better repeat that in case you fainted the first time you read it.

Some context. In the bald teacher's almost successful second season (losing that utterly dreadful play-off final in part due to a bloody awful referee) we played a style of football that may not have pleased the purists. In other words, we defended in numbers and then kicked the ball up the pitch as far as possible in the hope that Reddy or Lump would do something with it.

At the time, having been raised on aesthetically delightful Buckleyball, I hated it. In retrospect, having been exposed to 'pass the ball around your own six-yard box until someone in the crowd has a heart attack' and 'score one goal then take off all your strikers and retreat into your six-yard box' (early Artell and Hurst respectively) it seems like a golden age of Blundell Park entertainment. The point was, with Reddy up front, you always thought you had a chance. He basically scored the same goal, but what a goal it always was, not some Johnnie Sniveller two yard tap-in, oh no.

Pick any Reddy break from our archives, it’ll give you a warm glow:

"The last Torquay twitch served up a Town cherry. Town were defending with Torquay pressing, the ball fell to Kalala on the edge of the Town box, who prodded it clear. Reddy, 35 yards from Town's goal, stretched out and toe-poked the ball past a defender. It rolled out towards the Smiths/Stones/Findus stand, and the young man in his hot rod slipped into overdrive and caught up with the ball on the halfway line.

Alone again, naturally, he hit the nitro button and fazoomed down the left, the yellow lorry slow defenders behind him. On, on, on and on again. Reddy, Reddy, Reddy, Reddy, chips and Reddy; magnificent, in full flow, hair flopping, shirt flapping, unstoppable.

Into the area, the crowd rising, two defenders reaching, Garner missing with his trip. Two more touches, to the edge of the six-yard box, with Marriott digging a hole, Reddy fizzled the ball with the outside of his right boot into the bottom right corner.

Cue a procession with floats and marching bands as Reddy accepted the warm Ready Brek glow of love. What the Town needs now is love sweet love, and Reddy gave it to us."

What was he like off the pitch? Well, a team mate at the time described him as "a lark", which could mean one of two things. Firstly he was a thirsty gentleman and liable to get into scrapes whilst attempting to quench said thirst, or secondly that said team mate was just a really bad birdwatcher. To complete the sheer Irishness of the Irish man he rather pixieshly claimed on Radio Humberside that his grandmother used to send him holy water which he dabbled onto his boots in a spiritual and devout way. Whether or not this aided him in his fleet footedness is open to question, but I urge you to keep an open mind.

Being thirsty of course was a standard sensation for footballers of that age, in stark contrast to today's prime athletes who all take creatine and only drink protein shakes. In other words, he was a young man of his time. I find it hard to believe that fellow striker Lumpaldinho, for example, achieved that physique with electrolyte drinks. Calm down, Gen Z. That was the world that was.

Every moment he was here Reddy found himself linked with bigger clubs, since he was clearly too good for us. This added a certain jeopardy to watching him on the pitch, as every game we suspected might be his last in a Town shirt. Indeed, he was frequently referred to as 'Luton's Michael Reddy’ on the basis that he couldn't really belong to us, being the natural property of a much bigger club like…..Luton.

Sadly Reddy’s place in the winners' enclosure did not last long. Having been kicked relentlessly by defenders without the pace to compete with him fairly (including the playing incarnation of Professor Artell), his career ground to an injury-related halt and we saw no more of him on the sacred Blundell Park turf nor any other football field. After 70 games and 26 goals, it was the end. But in his time here he gave the fans what they have always wanted – moments that lifted them from their seats and transported them into a dimension of football joy.

Cheers, Michael. You did good.

Illustration courtesy of Alex Chilvers