The gratitude is richly deserved. A graduate of that wonderful Stella Maris nursery and a player who graced Wembley Stadium as an FA Cup winner with Manchester United in 1963, he went on to star in glorious technicolour for Leeds United, West Brom, Philadelphia Fury and Shamrock Rovers.
And for Ireland. Always for Ireland for those of us of a generation who remember how Johnny Giles changed the way Irish teams play, how he mastered control of the ball, how he offering freedom to carefree talents like Liam Brady, how he offered us real victories rather than moral ones.
It is quite incredible now to look at Johnny’s career stats and realise that he only played 59 times for his country between 1959 and 1979, a low enough return even in an era when Ireland played as many games in six months as they do now in a month.
His contribution to Irish football – and Irish life – deserves so much more than 59 caps against his name. This was a man who understood possession better than anyone, as a player, as a player-manager and as a boss in the dug-out.
This was a man who instructed Irish teams to play it out from the back long before it was fashionable as a look at the YouTube highlights from that great 3-0 win over the USSR at a heaving Dalymount Park in 1973 will testify. This was a man who could win the ball - boy could he win it- control the ball, pass the ball beautifully and even, from time to time, send it to the back of the net with the veracity of a marksman.
Johnny Giles wasn’t a good player. He was a great player who loved the game and played it with panache and with a competitiveness that sets out the men from the boys in the world of professional football.
He was also a man who was prepared to take risks. He wanted what was best for Ireland on the international stage so he took over as player-manager at just 33 years of age. He was still putting on the boots when he managed West Brom and great Irish players like Paddy Mulligan, Ray Treacy and Mick Martin from 1975, the first of two spells as boss at the Hawthorns.
He went to America and the Philadelphia Fury when few people gave ‘soccer’ any chance in the land of hype and glory. And he tried to make things right at Shamrock Rovers, he tried to turn Irish football into an industry when the country wasn’t ready for such grandiose ideas.
Perhaps that failure to accept real professionalism as Johnny Giles saw it still haunts Irish football to this day. We will never know but we should applaud him for being brave enough to take that chance.
The Ireland experience, with club and country, never delivered for Johnny Giles. He should have been at European Championships and World Cups with his country before the Jack Charlton revolution.
He should have won more than one FAI Cup with Rovers before his last game, as a 40-year-old, in Milltown in December 1980.
In truth, Johnny Giles gave Irish football more than he ever received. In his years as a television pundit he was in and out of his beloved Dublin on a regular basis and always visible on our screens. What the viewer didn’t see is the work Johnny Giles has done for Irish football and Irish society away from the public eye, the countless hours spent at clubs and charity events across the country and the money he helped them raise to keep Irish football on the road through the good times and the bad.
His dedication to good causes remains steadfast to this day. His humility should be an inspiration to all who know him. And his singing, like his golf, ain’t half bad either.
Today we say thank you to Ireland’s Mr Football – and happy birthday. Johnny Giles deserves all that and more.
BY CATHAL DERVAN & FAI STAFF