What a goal! Annie McBride puts Samford Soccer 3-0 up against UNC Greensboro.
The camera moved at just the wrong time but still captured the magic of a goal that can be traced all the way back to Wishaw.
Annie plays for Samford University at the highest level of the College Game in the USA, as you can see the players want for nothing in terms of facilities.
Back in the late eighties Annie’s Dad was catching the eye in the Celtic youth side. A darting winger with pace to burn, Sean was living the dream of half of Wishaw training with some of Celtics biggest names at Barrowfield.
In the eighties Celtic ran three/four teams. The first team, the Premier Reserves and the Youths/Reserve League West side. All in it involved about 40 players with plenty of overlap.
A youth team player could be playing in the Premier Reserve side alongwith a first team player on the way back from injury.
Sean McBride never quite made the first team breakthrough but he left Celtic with memories and medals.
MCBRIDE- CELTIC MEMORIES AND MEDALS
In 1989 he played alongside Stevie Fulton, Brian O’Neill, Gerry Britton and others as a goal from Fulton won the BP Youth Cup at Tannadice. Two weeks later Fulton was a substitute at Hampden as Joe Miller won the Scottish Cup Final.
The final match played at Hampden in the eighties was a Glasgow Cup Final. The tournament had switched to a league format for the youth teams with Celtic meeting Rangers in the final.
The Main Stand at Hampden was almost full for that match as the young Celts gave their fans plenty to cheer.
Gerry Britton opened the scoring, late on Gary Bendoris clinched it with McBride happy with his assist before assists were even a thing
Young McBride was so pleased that he was still in his Celtic jacket with winners medal when he went to mass after the match
71st minute: Annie McBride nets a goal to make it 3-0!!!
?https://t.co/xXsEdzgK2r
?https://t.co/kUOtpkcssw#DogDynasty | #AllForSAMford https://t.co/12pcKmRIAq
— Samford Soccer (@SamfordSoccer) October 30, 2026
In 1994 McBride moved to the USA, it’s fair to say that it is a decision that he has no regrets over.
He played at a decent level and got into coaching, earlier this year The Homeward Star reported:
After playing junior college soccer at Massasoit Community College near Boston and earning NJCAA All-American honors twice, McBride transferred to Birmingham-Southern College.
As team captain in 1997, he recorded 17 assists and earned TranSouth Athletic Conference Player of the Year and NAIA All-American
honors. These exploits with BSC won him the attention of the USL A-League, where the Cincinnati Riverhawks selected him in the third round of the 1998 draft.
Yet it was at Birmingham-Southern that McBride discovered his true calling, sticking around as a graduate assistant coach. Influenced by longtime BSC head coach Preston Goldfarb, McBride realized there was more to it than “just kicking the ball” and that he loved coaching as soon as he got into it.
He began teaching history and coaching boys soccer at Homewood High School in 2000. The success on the field started nearly immediately, as McBride and the Patriots won their first state title in 2003. He led his players to win more than 300 games and further state championships in 2005, 2006, 2014 and 2018.
Currently McBride splits his time between coaching and watching the ‘soccer’ progress of his kids Annie, Mary Siena, Kate and Edwin Sean.
Celtic is never far from his thoughts, in 2024 he caught up with Brendan Rodgers when Celtic spent pre-season in the States.
With so much experiences to draw on McBride has recently turned author, A Reading from the Book of the Romans to the Holy Ballers isn’t the usual former footballer story!
