Richie Warburton
Born: c.1944, Belfast
Died: 2 July 2010, Belfast
Height: 5.08 ft
Weight: 10.07 st
Position: Outside-Right
Representative Honours: Northern Ireland: 4 Amateur Caps / 1 Goal (1963-1966), Youth; Irish League: 1 Cap (1964).
Club Honours: (with Glentoran) Irish League Champion 1963/64; Gold Cup Winner 1962/63; Co. Antrim Shield Runner-Up 1963/64; City Cup Winner 1964/65; Ulster Cup Winner 1966/67.
Club Career:
Teams | Seasons | Signed | Fee | League | FA.Cup | Europe | Other |
Glentoran | 61/62-66/67 | - | Amateur | *143/41 | - | 7/0 | - |
TOTALS | - | £0 | 143/41 | - | 7/0 | - | |
Biography:
The product of RBAI, a rugby-playing school, Richie Warburton made an early impact on the football field, his fast wing-play in Glentoran's 1962 Fairs Cup matches against Real Zaragoza marking him as a star, despite an 8-2 aggregate defeat. As well as football and rugby, during his schooldays Warburton also excelled at hockey and athletics - he was an Ulster Schools Sprint Champion.
Through 1963 he claimed a first Amateur cap and scored against Eire to help the Northern Ireland Youth team qualify for the European Youth Tournament in England. By the mid-1960s he was a regular among the scorers for the Glens. In September 1964, the same season that he scored 22 times for his club, Warburton scored his only Amateur international goal, in a 2-1 defeat by England Amateurs at Romford, and a month later featured in his only inter-league match, a 4-0 defeat by the Football League at his home ground, The Oval.
Warburton's playing career was ended after he tore his cruciate knee ligaments during an Amateur International game against England at Watford in September 1966. With football behind him he proved to be adept on the golf course too.
ObituaryNorthern Ireland Amateur Cap Details:
Former Northern Ireland amateur and Glentoran outside right Richie Warburton, one of the fastest players in Irish League football history, has died in Belfast. He was in his mid-sixties.
Warburton, a high ranking civil servant, was a pupil at Royal Belfast Academicals Institution when Glendora’s then manager Harry Walker gave him his debut against Arts in an Irish Gold Cup match at the Oval which Glentoran won 6-1.
Not only did he possess outstanding skill and vision which attracted several English and Scottish clubs his pace was bewildering. prompting Distillery manager the late Jimmy McAlinden to comment “He is the fastest player I’ve seen in Irish football. If he does go cross-Channel and get full-time football then the world could be his oyster.”
He played 150 games for the Glens between 1961-67 scoring 41 goals, winning an Irish League championship medal (1964) and others in the Gold and City Cups and County Antrim Shield. He collected, four amateur international caps and also made one inter-league appearance Richie. Sportsman with the true Olympian spirit, was the complete all-round athletic- Ulster grammar schools quarter mile champion, member of the RBAI second rugby XV and the hockey side.
A cruciate ligament injury sustained in an amateur international against England at Vicarage Road, Watford, in 1966 prematurely ended his career when only 22 years old. “It was difficult to come to terms at that age” he said in an interview. “I remember hobbling home from the match with my knee going up like a balloon every step of the way.”
Northern Ireland football, to which he contributed so much, extends sympathy to the entire family circle. - Malcolm Brodie
12-01-1963 Wales... A W 2-0
26-09-1964 England. A L 1-2 1 Goal
25-09-1965 England. H L 0-2
24-09-1966 England. A L 0-2
Summary: 4/1. Won 1, Drew 0, Lost 3.
Irish League Representative Appearance Details:
28-10-1964 Football League H L 0-4
Summary: 1/0. Won 0, Drew 0, Lost 1.
