Inducted to the John McCredy McAlery Hall of Fame in May 2019, Peter McCusker scored 45 goals in 253 appearances over nine seasons at Solitude.
A star of the Down and Connor League, contemporary reports from the late 1970s assert that Peter was “a quick-thinking players, whose style won him many admirers” and that was certainly true of the Red Army, who have revered his name for more than four decades.
Peter McCusker battles with Coleraine’s Liam Beckett
Runner-up for the NI Football Writers’ Player of the Year Award for the 1978/79 season, McCusker played in 44 of Cliftonville’s 48 fixtures across all competitions during that iconic campaign and found the net 12 times in a term that ended with a memorable Irish Cup Final victory over Portadown.
Part of the first Cliftonville side to play in Europe when French giants FC Nantes Atlantique visited for a Cup Winners’ Cup clash a few months after that famous Windsor Park defeat of the Ports, only two of the famous 79ers – Eamonn Largey and Walter Mills – served the Club longer than McCusker, who has remained no stranger to Solitude since the conclusion of his playing days, having assumed a multitude of off-the-pitch roles over the years and it goes without saying that his place in the folklore of Ireland’s Oldest Football Club has long since been cemented.