Mural unveiled in Belfast for the man who saved Barcelona

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The mural has been painted as part of a campaign to erect a memorial at Patrick O'Connell's unmarked grave in London.

Barcelona almost folded in the 1930s, but O'Connell, their manager, helped organise a money-spinning tour to Mexico and the US.

The ex-Belfast Celtic player has been honoured by fans stirred by his story.

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"So then what happened was, after the president of Barcelona [Josep Sunyol] was assassinated by Franco's troops, Patrick O'Connell got an offer to take his team over to Mexico and the US.

"Franco had also frozen their bank accounts in Barcelona so he persuaded the team - his great team in Barcelona - to go over to Mexico and the USA and to play exhibition matches and they raised enough money from that to actually wire funds back into a secret bank account in Paris and those funds enabled FC Barcelona to survive until the worst of the civil war was over."

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