Joseph Finbar Gamble (born 14 January 1982) is a retired Irish

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

. Gamble's playing career spanned 16 years and saw him play for a number of teams across England and Ireland, most notably his local

Cork City Cork ( , from , meaning 'marsh') is the second largest city in Ireland and third largest city by population on the island of Ireland. It is located in the south-west of Ireland, in the province of Munster. Following an extension to the c ...

, as well as being capped twice for the national side before finishing his career in Singapore as player-assistant coach at

DPMM FC Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota Football Club (His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Brunei Football Club in English, commonly known as DPMM FC) is a professional football club based in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. The club played in the Brunei ...

. After retiring as a player, Gamble moved into full-time coaching before returning to Cork City as their first-team assistant coach.

Club career

Cork City

Born in

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

, Gamble made his debut for Cork in the Super Cup against Bohemians in July 2000. Soon after he signed for

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

on a free transfer, before he returned to Cork City in 2004. He quickly established himself in the City first team and was a mainstay in the team that won the

League of Ireland The League of Ireland ( ga, Sraith na hÉireann), together with the Football Association of Ireland, is one of the two main governing bodies responsible for organising association football in the Republic of Ireland. The term was originally use ...

Premier Division in November 2005. He later went on to win the

FAI Cup The Football Association of Ireland Senior Challenge Cup (FAI Cup), known as the Extra.ie FAI Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a knock-out association football competition contested annually by teams from the Republic of Ireland (as well as Derry ...

and the

Setanta Sports Cup The Setanta Sports Cup was a club football competition featuring teams from both football associations on the island of Ireland. Inaugurated in 2005, it was a cross-border competition between clubs in the League of Ireland from the Republic of ...

while at the club.

Hartlepool United

With Cork struggling financially Gamble was allowed to look for a new club and joined

Hartlepool United Hartlepool United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Hartlepool, County Durham, England. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. They were founded in 1908 as Hartl ...

for a trial in December 2009. Hartlepool's Director of Sport Chris Turner was impressed with Gamble and signed him permanently on 5 January 2010. He joins former Cork teammate

Denis Behan Denis Behan (born 2 January 1984) is an Irish football coach and former player who played as a forward. He spent many years playing for League of Ireland clubs Cork City and Limerick, as well as in the English Football League for Hartlepool U ...

at Victoria Park. In May 2011 he was not offered a new contract by the club, along with nine other players from the 2010/11 squad.

Limerick

Joe Gamble signed for

Limerick Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...

on 23 June 2011. Gamble made his Limerick debut on 16 July 2011 against Athlone Town at Athlone Town Stadium. Joe Gamble was an integral part of the Limerick F.C side for the remaining of the 2011 season as Pat Scully's side pushed for promotion for from the First Division. Gamble made 13 league appearances in midfield for the Shannonsiders as they narrowly missed out on a promotion play-off place to Monaghan United.

DPMM FC

Following Gamble's release from Limerick, he went on a two-week trial with

of the S.League, along with

Francis Jeffers Francis Jeffers (born 25 January 1981) is an English football coach and former player, who is a first-team coach at Oldham Athletic. Jeffers started his career at his boyhood club Everton, making his debut in 1997 as a 16 year old. After scori ...

, on 24 November 2013. Following the completion of the trial Brunei DPMM announced they would be signing Gamble along with

Robert Alviž Roberto Alviž (born 6 September 1984) is a Croatian retired football player, who last played for Austrian lower league side ASKÖ Oberdorf. Club career Alviž previously played for Khazar Lankaran in Azerbaijan Premier League and Anagen ...

and

Boris Raspudić Boris Raspudić (Serbian Cyrillic: Борис Распудић; born 11 October 1982) is a Bosnian Serb retired footballer, who currently is football manager of Sloga Trn in the Second League of the Republika Srpska. Club career Raspudic pla ...

. He scored his first goal for the club against Young Lions on 23 August 2015. He won the 2015 S.League with DPMM on 21 November 2015.

International career

In his early career at Cork City and Reading, Gamble made eight appearances for the Republic of Ireland under-21s, scoring once. The goal came as part of a 3–2 win against Denmark at his 'home' stadium, Turners Cross. In 2006 Joe was nominated on the eircom League team of the season and was shortlisted for player of the year. His displays for 'City did not go unnoticed by Ireland manager

Steve Staunton Stephen Staunton (born 19 January 1969) is an Irish football manager, scout and former professional footballer. He played as a defender (association football), defender with two separate spells each with Premier League sides Aston Villa F.C., A ...

and in May 2006 he was called up to the Irish International team. He manned the substitutes bench in a match against

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

, but a poor performance saw Staunton unwilling to experiment late in the game. Gamble later played for the Republic of Ireland B team against

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

in November 2006. In doing so he became only the third City player ever to do so. In May 2007, it was announced that Gamble had again been drafted into Steve Staunton's

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

squad to travel to the United States to take part in friendly matches against

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...

and

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

. He made his international debut against Ecuador on 23 May 2007 at the

Giants Stadium Giants Stadium (sometimes referred to as Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands or The Swamp) was a stadium located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The venue was open from 1976 to 2010, and it primarily hosted spo ...

, and having suitably impressed, he started the game against Bolivia three days later at the

Gillette Stadium Gillette Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is southwest of downtown Boston. It serves as the home stadium and administrative offices for both the New England Patriots of the National Footb ...

, thus becoming the first home-based player to feature in a Republic of Ireland starting eleven since Glen Crowe's appearance against Greece in 2002.

Coaching career

In 2014 and 2015, Gamble assisted

Steve Kean Stephen Kean (born 30 September 1967) is a Scottish football coach and former player, who is currently the academy director at Hibernian. Kean played as a winger for clubs in the lower divisions of Scottish, English and Portuguese leagues i ...

on and off the field at

Singapore Premier League The Singapore Premier League, commonly abbreviated as SPL, officially known as the AIA Singapore Premier League for sponsorship reasons, is a men's professional football league sanctioned by the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), which ...

club

as they won the league title for the first time in their history. Retiring at the end of 2015, he then worked as a fitness coach at Waterford FC in 2017 and later in a similar role at his former club,

, from 2018 to 2019. Gamble was assistant manager to Neale Fenn at

from November 2019 to October 2020.JOE GAMBLE NAMED CORK CITY’S ASSISTANT MANAGER
, leagueofireland.ie, 5 November 2019

Honours

Club

Cork City *

(1):

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris (dwarf planet), Er ...

(1):

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto ...

(1):

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing ...

Limerick *

League of Ireland First Division The League of Ireland First Division ( ga, Céad Roinn Sraith na hÉireann), also known as the SSE Airtricity League First Division, is the second level division in both the League of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland football league system. ...

(1):

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

* Munster Senior Cup (1): 2011–12 DPMM FC * S.League (1):

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...

* Singapore League Cup (1):

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

Individual

*PFAI First Division Team of the Year (1): 2012

References

External links

Joe Gamble profile
a
Vital Hartlepool
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gamble, Joe 1982 births Living people Association footballers from Cork (city) Republic of Ireland men's association footballers Republic of Ireland men's youth international footballers Cork City F.C. players League of Ireland players Reading F.C. players Hartlepool United F.C. players English Football League players Republic of Ireland men's international footballers Republic of Ireland men's B international footballers Republic of Ireland men's under-21 international footballers League of Ireland XI players Limerick F.C. players DPMM FC players Expatriate men's footballers in Brunei Singapore Premier League players Men's association football midfielders