Search

06 Sept 2025

Farewell to Handy Andy

Andy Donnelly in team photo

Andy Donnelly in team photo

Legendary Torquay United goalkeeper sadly passes away

Andy Donnelly, one of Torquay United's most popular goalkeepers, has died at the age of 80.
It was from Weymouth, where he had played under manager Frank O'Farrell in the early 1960s, that O'Farrell signed Lanark-born Donnelly in 1967 to replace John Dunn, who had been sold to Aston Villa for £8,000.
Over the next five years, under O'Farrell and then Allan Brown, Donnelly made 178 appearances during one of the most successful spells in Torquay's history, all of it in the old Third Division (League One).
Never the tallest of goalies, he was agile, brave and, surprisingly confident off his line, the fans nicknamed him 'Handy Andy'.
When he was finally succeeded by another Plainmoor 'great', Mike Mahoney, Donnelly emigrated to South Africa where he played for Cape Town City before eventually returning to Weymouth, from where his family announced his death at the weekend.

To continue reading this article,
please subscribe and support local journalism!


Subscribing will allow you access to all of our premium content and archived articles.

Subscribe

To continue reading this article for FREE,
please kindly register and/or log in.


Registration is absolutely 100% FREE and will help us personalise your experience on our sites. You can also sign up to our carefully curated newsletter(s) to keep up to date with your latest local news!

Register / Login

Buy the e-paper of the Donegal Democrat, Donegal People's Press, Donegal Post and Inish Times here for instant access to Donegal's premier news titles.

Keep up with the latest news from Donegal with our daily newsletter featuring the most important stories of the day delivered to your inbox every evening at 5pm.