Terry Harkin really has done it all from playing alongside George Best to help bring senior football back to Derry

Memoir reveals how great Derry striker became a legendary campaigner for his home town football club.

A new biography exploring the extraordinary life and career of the Derry-born international footballer Terry Harkin is being released next week.

A Game of Two Halves, written by Terry’s son Kevin, is published by Colmcille Press and will hit the shelves in time for the Extra.ie FAI Cup final.

This is particularly appropriate as, besides being a top striker in England, Terry was one of the Gang of Four responsible for bringing Derry City back into top-flight football after the authorities had closed the club down for more than a decade.

Besides being a former City player, Terry is also possibly the only player ever to score six goals against his hometown club in the one game, bagging that tally in Coleraine’s 9-6 victory over the Candystripes at the Brandywell in the early 1960s.

The new memoir covers Terry’s early life growing up in Derry and his move over to England as a professional footballer at a time when few indeed made the trip across the water.

For club and country, he played alongside such greats in the game as Northern Ireland legends George Best and Pat Jennings as well as Welsh legends John Charles and John Toshack - and for such illustrious managers as the late great Billy Bingham and Harry Gregg.

The 340-page book also covers the Creggan man’s lifelong friendship with Jim McLaughlin - he played both with and against him. And their friendship would play such an influential role in the rise again of Derry City when, with the other members of the Gang of Four - Tony O’Doherty, Eamonn McLaughlin and Eddie Mahon - Terry campaigned tirelessly and against great odds to help restore Derry City from obscurity to their rightful place at the pinnacle of the game in Ireland.

In the foreword to A Game of Two Halves, Derry City’s chairman Philip O’Doherty writes: “If it hadn’t been for the former international striker Terry Harkin, it is quite possible that Derry City would today be little more than a footnote in the history books of Northern Ireland football.

“As a long-time friend of the Harkin family, I am particularly delighted that Terry’s immense contribution to his club, and this city, is to be formally recognised in this book.

"He has been a role model for so many young people; a gentle giant both on the pitch and in the boardroom, who has taken such great joy in playing sport and in serving his community. We have seen many great stories written about Derry City, it is entirely fitting that we now see one written about one of the club’s greatest ever champions, Creggan man Terry Harkin.”

‘A Game of Two Halves’, priced £15, will be available on-line from next Wednesday; also from Colmcille Press and local bookshops - Foyle Books and Etsy, as well as Derry City’s club shop in the Brandywell.