Renowned footballer Victor Noctor celebrates 80th birthday on Friday
Victor with his eldest grandchild James Owen, who is studying history at university in Southampton
THE London family of Carlow town native Victor Noctor recently contacted to enquire if some reference could be carried in the newspaper as a family keepsake to mark Victor’s 80th birthday today Friday, 9 May.
When Victor’s daughter Laura Noctor-King contacted me about such a possibility, her dad’s name immediately resonated. Growing up in Carlow during the early 1960s, Victor Noctor’s name meant a lot to me, as he was regarded as the area’s outstanding soccer player.
A native of Brown Street, Carlow, Victor was born on 9 May 1945, the day after VE Day (Victory in Europe) was declared, bringing an end on this continent to the almost six-year conflict that was World War II. It was felt by his family that the name Victor was entirely appropriate for the new, peacetime arrival in Carlow.
Victor was educated at primary level in Bishop Foley Boys National School on Railway Road. He did not have to travel far for his secondary schooling as the CBS Academy (secondary) was located on College Street, directly across the road from Brown Street.
After his school days, Victor went to work in the town’s L&N (London & Newcastle) supermarket at Upper Tullow Street (the L&N franchise changed to SuperValu in 1995).
While working at the Carlow supermarket, he was making his mark as a budding soccer talent.
Victor quickly came to prominence as part of a talented Barrow Rovers side, which he captained as a 19-year-old to claim the McCalmont Cup in Kilkenny in 1964. Sixty-one years on, Rovers remain the only club from Co Carlow to claim this prestigious piece of soccer silverware.
The red-haired midfielder skippered the Carlow team to a 4-2 victory over Green Celtic from Kilkenny city, in a final played during the 1964 Kilkenny Beer Festival in May of that year. The game was played on the ’Comer Road soccer venue of the day.
Roy Penny scored two of the goals, with Dermot O’Boyle and the late Dominic Kinsella the other goalscorers.
Although small of stature, Victor was a two-footed inside right, greatly admired for his outstanding skill on the ball, his ability to read the play ahead of other players and his knack of creating and scoring goals.
Only 12 players were allowed on a panel in those days. And when the late Willie Purcell from Ballinacarrig was injured after 20 minutes of the final, he was replaced by Mickey Brennan.
Willie, a native of Montgomery Street, Carlow, was also an interprovincial hockey player and a well-known GAA umpire. Along with the late Tom Doyle of Tinryland, Willie umpired for the late Brendan Hayden of Tinryland and Carlow football fame, who was an inter-county and All-Star referee.
Dermot O’Boyle, affectionately known as ‘Nudger’, remembers he and Victor were CBS classmates and the youngest members of that Barrow Rovers team, which included seasoned footballers such as Tom Hennessy, Gerry Ruth, Meath native, the late Enda Smith, the late Dominic Kinsella, and former sports editor, the late Paul Donaghy, who kept goal.
Other players from that era in the Carlow area included Pat Darcy, a neighbour of Victor’s in Brown Street, the late Tommy ‘Yank’ Connors from MacGamhna Road, bar manager at the late Noel Duggan’s pub on Dublin Street, and the late Dan Fennelly, Pollerton Big, a work colleague of Victor at the L&N supermarket.
Dan, also a dedicated follower of Carlow GAA, passed away on 23 December last.
Victor was also a skilful Gaelic footballer, lining out with Éire Óg teams that won three successive Carlow minor championship and league titles in the early 1960s.
Dermot O’Boyle states: “Victor was a classy, knacky left-half-forward – a scoring attacker. The late Johnny Rea was centre-forward and I was right-half-forward on those Éire Óg minor teams.”
He and Victor also played together at county level for Carlow minors. Exclusive GAA players were not all that keen on the youthful soccer-playing duo. The GAA’s infamous Rule 27 (‘the ban’) remained firmly in place at that time, making it illegal for Gaelic players to play or watch soccer and other ‘foreign games’, namely rugby and cricket.
It was not unknown for soccer/GAA players to use fictitious names when lining out in soccer games, seeking to avoid coming to the notice of the GAA authorities.
In terms of other sports, Victor was an accomplished pitch and putt player, competing at the lovely groomed course that surrounded St Dympna’s Hospital in the town during the 1960s. He was a scratch player in the sport. Victor was also an avid cricket fan.
Another memory of Nudger’s was Victor’s admiration for the Dublin football team of the 1950s, due to the attacking style of play adopted by The Dubs, which attuned to his own style of football.
Dermot remembers being on the same flight with Victor in the summer of 1966, when Victor, then aged 21, left for London and he (Dermot) was heading to Jersey for summer work.
Shortly after his arrival in London, Victor met his wife-to-be Joyce – the couple have been married for more than 50 years and have five children, as well as grandchildren ranging in age from 20 to a newborn in March of this year.
In London, Victor continued to work in retail, being in management for Superdrug, a large pharmacy/retail store in the UK.
He played soccer for fun with some friends in the English capital and still enjoys kickabouts with his three sons, all of whom love their football. Victor is a passionate, lifelong Arsenal fan.
Over the years, Victor returned to Carlow to visit his mother, Mary Noctor, who also travelled to London to visit him and his family. Now deceased, Mary would send to her emigrant son, keeping him abreast of happenings in his native town.
The Noctor family will celebrate Victor’s birthday on Friday at his Epsom home on the outskirts of London, when they plan to have a copy of as a centrepiece of the celebration.
Four of the Noctor children will be present for the birthday party – Sarah, the eldest, along with Graham, Laura and Daniel. Son Peter, who lives in South Africa, will not be attending but will surely be there in spirit.
It only remains for all of Victor’s Carlow friends, neighbours and sporting colleagues to wish the former Carlow soccer star good health, wealth and happiness into the future as he celebrates reaching ‘The Big 80’.
