MOST people would need two lifetimes to do it all - accountant, director of a football club, MD of a nationwide bakery business and treasurer of the FA in Ireland.

But by last year Joe Delaney, who now runs the Swan Hotel in Stourport, had been retired for nine years and had already done all those things and more besides.

He was in the FA which voted for Jack Charlton to be manager and witnessed the greatest successes Irish football had known.

For more than five years he employed ex-Manchester United player Shay Brennan, one of the 1968 European Championship winners, as bar manager in Tipperary and through him became a big fan of the English team.

He became firm friends with people such as Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles and other members of the team.

A fervent United fan, Mr Delaney admits he found more time to see matches when he was still living in Ireland - about 14 times a year compared with five or six visits during the last season.

His own footballing career began in Waterford in Eire where he was born in 1940.

After training as an accountant and working in various businesses and joining a bakery business in Tipperary he joined Waterford Football Club.

Two years later he became a member of the FA council and went on to be assistant treasurer and treasurer.

He travelled around with the Irish side and saw them qualify for their first European and World Cup championships.

Highlights include the day when Charlton masterminded Ireland's memorable victory over England in the European Championships and getting to last eight in the World Cup in Italy in 1990.

His work brought him into close contact with all levels of successive Governments.

''I had to pinch myself sometimes say when I arrived home and the Prime Minister's office had been on the phone for me,'' said Mr Delaney.

Being director at Waterford remains one of his fondest memories.

''I became chairman of the club and in that time they had won championship leagues, but they hadn't won the FA Cup for 37 years.

''It was my ambition to win it with them and after five years there I introduced a five-year plan. In my last year there, they won the cup, the Holy Grail for the first time in 47 years.''

Mr Delaney, who joined Stourport Rotary Club last month, came out of retirement last year to run the Swan Hotel in High Street and has built up the business with his wife Joan who he describes as the ''driving force'' behind its success. His five grown-up children have been visiting regularly from Ireland.