Noel Campbell (footballer)

Noel Campbell ( born December 11, 1949 in Dublin ) is a former Irish football player.

Career

Campbell played from 1966 to 1971 at the St Patrick's Athletic in the Premier Division of the League of Ireland. For the 1971/72 season he moved to Germany to Fortuna Köln. The Fortuna played in the second highest class of Germany, in the Regionalliga West. Campbell came in his debut year in the eleven of President Hans Löring on 28 missions and scored five goals. Fortuna finished behind champion Wuppertal SV Rot-Weiss Essen and the third place in the Western League. In his second year at the Fortuna, the 1972/73 season won Campbell and his team-mates, behind Rot-Weiss Essen the runner-up. Campbell had scored four goals in 22 league games in Fortuna midfield. So the team was qualified from the south of Cologne for the promotion round to the Bundesliga. In the promotion round the Fortuna won against FC St. Pauli, 1 FSV Mainz 05, Karlsruher SC and Blue-White 90 Berlin. By winning the group in the promotion round Campbell played with the Fortuna in the 1973/74 season in the Bundesliga. As Campbell ran aground on the opening day of the season against Borussia Mönchengladbach, he was the first Irishman, who played a Bundesliga game. At the end of the season, Fortuna standing on points with the Wuppertal SV. However, by the inferior goal difference was Campbell, the Irishman had completed 29 league games, with the people of Cologne on the seventeenth place in the table. This was the descent into the second division. The 2nd Bundesliga was introduced for season 1974/75 as a double-track substructure of the Bundesliga. Campbell played the next four years in the northern season of this league. Overall, the eleven- Irish A-National player played 110 games in the 2nd Bundesliga, scoring 16 goals for Cologne.

In the 1980/81 season he played one year for Shamrock Rovers.