{"id":294566,"date":"2025-07-27T00:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T00:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/294566\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T00:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T00:17:13","slug":"willie-irvine-northern-ireland-and-burnley-goalscoring-hero-dies-aged-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/294566\/","title":{"rendered":"Willie Irvine: Northern Ireland and Burnley goalscoring hero\u00a0dies aged 82"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Burnley<\/p>\n

Burnley striker Willie Irvine in 1965<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland international Willie Irvine has died at the age of 82 after a long illness.<\/p>\n

The former Brighton & Hove Albion, Burnley and Preston North End striker won 23 caps for his country between 1963 and 1972, scoring eight goals.<\/p>\n

His most famous night in a Northern Ireland jersey arrived in May 1963 when he scored the equaliser in a 1-1 draw with Span in Bilbao during qualifying for the 1964 European Championship. He also scored at Wembley in a 2-1 loss to England during the 1965 Home Championship.<\/p>\n

The Carrickfergus native was on Linfield\u2019s books as a teenager before earning a move to Burnley in 1960. He spent eight seasons at Turf Moor playing 126 league games, registering 78 goals.<\/p>\n

\"Willie<\/p>\n

Willie Irvine during his time at Preston North End<\/p>\n

He moved to Preston in 1968, where he scored 27 times in 81 league appearances. He also scored 27 times in 69 games for Brighton, before helping Halifax Town avoid relegation to the Fourth Division in 1973. He wound down his playing career with a stint at non-league side Great Harwood.<\/p>\n

After football, Irvine held a number of jobs which included working as a window cleaner, managing a DIY store and providing guided tours of Turf Moor for Burnley supporters.<\/p>\n

A statement from Preston North End read: \u201cWe are saddened to learn of the passing of our former player Willie Irvine, who made 81 appearances for North End between 1968 and 1971. Our thoughts are with Willie’s friends and family at this difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Burnley striker Willie Irvine in 1965 Northern Ireland international Willie Irvine has died at the age of 82…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[22219,58911,1144,8538,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-294566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-burnley-fc","9":"tag-keith-bailie","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114922326970411061","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}