Gary Mills O'Reilly (born 21 March 1961) is an English former professional footballer who played in

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...

and

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

as a central defender.

Life and career

O'Reilly was born in

Isleworth Isleworth ( ) is a town located within the London Borough of Hounslow in West London, England. It lies immediately east of the town of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane, London, River Crane. Isleworth's or ...

, now part of

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

. He played for

Grays Athletic Grays Athletic Football Club is a football club based in Grays, Essex, England. They are currently members of the and play at Parkside in nearby Aveley. History The club was established as Grays Juniors in 1890, before merging with former S ...

before turning professional with

in 1979, and made his debut the following year. After 45 League games for the club, he joined

for a £45,000 fee. He stayed with Brighton for two-and-a-half seasons before moving on to

. He scored in the

1989–90 FA Cup The 1989–90 FA Cup was the 109th season of the world's oldest association football, football knockout competition, The Football Association Challenge Cup, or FA Cup for short. The competition started in September 1989 for teams outside the foot ...

semi-final as Palace beat

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

4–3

after extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a Draw (tie), tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is ...

, and then scored the opening goal in

the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

, against

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

. The match ended in a 3–3 draw, and Palace lost replay 1–0 five days later. After a brief spell on loan at

, O'Reilly rejoined Brighton & Hove Albion in January 1991. Brighton finished that season sixth in the Second Division and reached the playoff final, where they were beaten by

Notts County Notts County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Nottingham, England. The team participate in the National League (division), National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. Founded on the 2 ...

. Any hopes of another promotion challenge the following season – and of a place in the new

FA Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

– were quickly forgotten as Brighton found themselves fighting a battle against relegation which was eventually lost. O'Reilly then retired from playing. Following his retirement from football, he made a career in sports broadcasting. He has appeared on

BBC Five Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcas ...

's ''

Fighting Talk ''Fighting Talk'' is a topical sports show broadcast on BBC Radio 5 Live during the English football season. The show is broadcast on Saturday mornings for an hour between 1100 and 1200 and is based on a similar format to the ESPN show ''Around t ...

'', as a pundit on pan-African broadcaster GTV's Saturday morning preview show and Sunday night review show, as a commentator for

Trans World International IMG, originally known as the International Management Group, is a global sports, events and talent management company headquartered in New York City. It has been owned by Endeavor since 2013. Trans World International (TWI) is an event and pro ...

and

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

, and as both pundit and commentator on

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

matches for ART Prime Sports, Dubai. From February 2017, O'Reilly and

Chuck Nice Chuck Nice (born July 10, 1975) is an American stand-up comedian and radio personality from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he started his career hosting a show atop a new-wave dance club The Bank. Nice was a comedic show host on QVC's sister s ...

co-hosted the

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

'' Playing with Science''.

Honours

;Tottenham Hotspur *

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

: 1983–84

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oreilly, Gary 1961 births Living people Footballers from Isleworth English footballers Association football central defenders Grays Athletic F.C. players Tottenham Hotspur F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players Crystal Palace F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players UEFA Cup winning players English Football League players FA Cup Final players