Within the trade, they are recognised as the hub of all football teams and in the terminology of another era, they were known as inside forwards.

Nowadays, they are called midfield players, but whatever the designation, Ireland has been privileged to produce some magnificent examples of the species.

From Peter Doherty to John Giles to Liam Brady, their influence on the game has spanned the generations and enriched the pages of football folklore on both sides of the Irish Sea.

But there was a fourth contender for the title of Ireland's best inside forward. Unlike the others, Liam Whelan didn't have the benefit of a long career to project his skills. Yet, at 22, he was already nudging greatness when the Munich disaster claimed his life.

"You look at his record and discover that in 96 appearances for Manchester United he hit the target 52 times," says Derek Dougan, the former Northern Ireland international. "That's a phenomenal strike rate for an inside forward, all the more so because he achieved it right at the start of his career."

Truly, Liam Whelan can be described as the lost talent of Irish football. Apart from Manchester United, Home Farm was his only club and unlike his brothers, Christy and John, who played for Drumcondra among others, he never attracted a solitary offer from a League of Ireland club before United signed him at the age of 17 in 1953.

United came to Dublin to sign Vinny Ryan, a student at the O'Connell School in Dublin's northside and an immensely gifted team-mate of Whelan's at Home Farm. As so often happens, however, Ryan didn't perform on the day and Bert Whalley went back to Manchester United with Whelan's signature on a registration form.

If his talent went unnoticed by League of Ireland clubs, not so by others. Brazilian team officials and players, in Switzerland for the 1954 World Cup finals, went to watch an international youth tournament and, after the Dubliner scored four times in one game, tried to sign him and take him to Brazil.

That was recognition on a grand scale. Similar sentiments came later from another authentic source. Bobby Charlton has always been a gifted diplomat and, yet, his assessment of the player with whom he shared lodgings for two years in Manchester was significant.

"As a youngster, I always wanted to be the best player in the world, but as long as Liam Whelan was around I doubted if I could," he said. "He was able to do things with a football which were beyond the rest of us."

Footage of the famous Busby Babes is scarce, but in Manchester old-timers still talk of the time Whelan took on Bilbao almost single-handed in a run from deep inside his own half and ended it with the shot from the penalty area that enabled United to come back from the dead and eventually win their European Cup quarterfinal tie on aggregate in 1957.

When Whelan arrived in Manchester Jackie Carey advised him to hold on for as long as he could to his first name. Carey knew what he was talking about, but, of course, it proved a futile cause. To the British press he became known as Billy Whelan, but Liam or Billy, the skill that was his hallmark remained constant.

He could pass, he could dribble and, on occasions, his shooting power was explosive. But his biggest single asset was his ball control and his ability to beat opponents with just the tiniest adjustment of the ball. His piece de resistance, the trick which dismayed opponents as much as it delighted team-mates, was his ability to `nutmeg' players, i e put the ball through their legs. He did it on the training ground and he did it in matches.

I was at a luncheon in Liverpool last year when somebody asked Noel Cantwell if Duncan Edwards really was the best player ever produced by England. Questions like that about players so young are easily dismissed, but Cantwell, one of football's great talkers, was indulgent.

"I never played with him, but I played against him in perhaps the most famous World Cup game ever staged in Dublin," he told his audience. "And Liam Whelan nutmegged Duncan Edwards twice. I don't think Duncan was best pleased about that".

That dramatic 1-1 draw against England at Dalymount Park in May, 1957, was one of only four games he played for Ireland. In fact, it should have been five, but when they selected him for the game against the then World Cup holders, West Germany at Dalymount on Sunday, November 25th, 1956, they forgot to tell Matt Busby that players who turned out for their clubs the previous day would automatically be replaced in the national team.

Thus, when Whelan presented himself at the team hotel on the morning of the game, he discovered that his place had been awarded to Noel Peyton. So, he promptly went to his family home in Cabra, returned to Dalymount in the afternoon, and paid in to watch the game from the school end of the ground.

The grand plan at Manchester United was that one day Busby would have the best two inside forwards in Europe in his team, Whelan and Charlton. Substitute Giles for Charlton and the FAI felt much the same about international football.

"I watched Liam Whelan and Arthur Fitzsimons play together in my last game for Ireland in Holland in 1956," says Con Martin. "And they blended so well in a 4-1 win that I left Rotterdam that evening wishing it was my first Ireland game rather than my last."

Ironically, Whelan sought permission to be excused from the ill-fated Belgrade trip. He had just lost his place in the team to Charlton - Dennis Viollet was the other inside forward - and felt he could benefit from a rest in Dublin. But Matt Busby told him that "it wouldn't look right" if he didn't travel with the squad.

When Liam Whelan's remains were eventually brought home, Dublin's northside came to a standstill. The tragedy of Munich was suddenly transferred to his home city and thousands lined the streets as the cortege made its way from the airport to Cabra in an unprecedented outpouring of grief for a sports person.

The fledgling talent had been extinguished, but the legend would grow with each passing year.