Barry Mahy (21 January 1942 – 1 October 2020) was an English-American

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

defender. He began his career with

Scunthorpe United Scunthorpe United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England. The team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. The club was formed in ...

and finished it with the

New York Cosmos New York Cosmos may refer to * New York Cosmos (1970–1985), a team in the North American Soccer League (then the top-tier soccer league in the United States and Canada) * New York Cosmos (2010), a team playing since 2020 in the National Indepen ...

. He also earned four

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

with the U.S. national team in 1973.

Club career

While born in Doncaster, Mahy grew up on the island of

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

, a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

crown dependency The Crown Dependencies are three offshore island territories in the British Islands that are self-governing possessions of the British Crown: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey, both located in the English Channel and toge ...

. He began his playing career with the Islanders, a non-FIFA affiliated "national" team. In 1963, Dick Duckworth, manager of English Second Division club

signed Mahy. At the time Scunthorpe was performing poorly and Duckworth was attempting to rebuild the roster mid-season. Despite the changes, Scunthorpe finished at the bottom of the standings and was

relegated Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

at the end of the season. Mahy remained with the team through the 1966–1967 season, seeing time in only twenty-two games.
/sup> In October 1967 when he followed Scunthorpe manager

Freddie Goodwin Freddie Goodwin (28 June 1933 – 19 February 2016) was an English professional football player and manager. He also played county cricket for Lancashire. Career A wing half, Goodwin was signed as a trainee from Cheshire Schoolboys by Manchest ...

when he moved to the U.S. to coach the

New York Generals The New York Generals were an American professional soccer team based in New York City that competed in the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) in 1967 and the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1968. Founded as charter members ...

of the National Professional Soccer League.
/sup> The NPSL merged with the

United Soccer Association The United Soccer Association (USA) was a professional association football, soccer league featuring teams based in the United States and Canada. The league survived only one season before merging with the National Professional Soccer League ( ...

in 1968 to form the

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League (NASL) was the top-level major professional soccer league in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984. It is considered the first soccer league to be successful on a national scale in the ...

. At the end of the 1968 season, the Generals folded. In 1971, Mahy signed with the expansion

and played five seasons with the team.

National team

While Mahy played for the

Guernsey national football team The Guernsey official football team is the official football team representing the island of Guernsey (which is not part of the United Kingdom, but is a Crown dependency) in non-FIFA international football matches. It is not affiliated with FI ...

, it is not recognized by FIFA. Therefore, he was eligible to play for other, recognized, teams. In 1973, he was called into the U.S. national team. His first game was a 1–0 loss to

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

on 3 November 1973. He played three more games that November, his last with the national team coming in a 2–0 loss to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

on 15 November 1973.

Death

Mahy died on 1 October 2020 of unknown causes, aged 78.

References

External links

Scunthorpe United profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahy, Barry 1942 births 2020 deaths Footballers from Doncaster Guernsey men's footballers American men's soccer players Men's association football fullbacks English men's footballers English emigrants to the United States National Professional Soccer League (1967) players New York Cosmos (1970–1985) players New York Generals players New York Generals (NPSL) players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players Scunthorpe United F.C. players United States men's international soccer players English expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States English expatriate men's footballers English Football League players 20th-century American sportsmen