EVEN now, 25 years after the event, Dessie Gorman bristles slightly at the question. He is pondering his status as the first southern Irish Catholic to sign for Linfield. Back in 1992 in Northern Ireland, it was a minor sensation, a transfer that made front-page news and dominated pages on the back for weeks after. In fairness, the latter outcome had as much to do with Gorman's impact on the pitch as it did off it.

The pitting of Celtic against Linfield, the club Gorman represented with such distinction for five years, has inspired heated debate and comment in some quarters about the fabric of the Irish club and their supporters. The 52-year-old, a free-scoring striker who counted Liverpool, Arsenal and Dundee United among his suitors during his heyday, is anything but naïve, and today he deftly sidesteps the controversy in the manner in which he evaded defenders with such aplomb.

“I get asked the question often,” he says. "At the end of the day, I just say I was there to play football. That's what I was bought for, that's what I was trained for and that's what I did. I said 'the rest of it is for you fans to decide outside a football ground'.”

A brief history lesson is required to understand the significance of Gorman's arrival at the club via Shelbourne, Derry City, Bourges in France and Dundalk, where he grew up. An Irish border town, it had strong republican links; Linfield's reputation, meanwhile, preceded it. The club drew its support predominantly from Belfast's loyalist strongholds: the Shankill, Sandy Row and the Donegall Road.

In 1948, a pitch invasion instigated by Linfield fans during which Belfast Celtic players were attacked led to the latter club disbanding. Deep-seated suspicion towards Catholics was the norm at Windsor Park, the venue where the Northern Ireland international football team, itself a divisive entity in Irish civic life, played matches.

Protestant anthems including The Billy Boys and The Sash were regularly sung at games involving both and for almost five decades, Linfield operated an unofficial "Protestants only" policy when it came to signing players. In 1990, in an echo of the past, Donegal Celtic (the team that was the spiritual heir to Belfast Celtic) drew Linfield at Celtic Park in the Irish Cup. The match was ordered to be staged at Windsor Park and was played out against a backdrop of near-continuous trouble. The low point of which came when a Linfield supporter attacked a Celtic player on the pitch.

It was into the dying embers of the Troubles that the bold Gorman strode but as ever in the tangled web of Northern Ireland there was a significant back story.

Linfield had already taken a chip out of the long-standing "Protestants only" edifice with the signing of Tony Coly, a black, Catholic midfielder from Senegal in 1988. Then, a few months before Gorman's arrival, came Chris Cullen, a Catholic from nationalist Downpatrick signed by then manager Eric Bowyer. Cullen was widely perceived to be a stalking horse and Bowyer later recalled “he broke the mould”. The powerful American lobby group the Irish National Caucus had urged Coca-Cola to withdraw its advertising space at Windsor Park in protest at its signing policy and the allegation was that Linfield was bowing to external pressure.

Cullen barely registered an appearance at Windsor Park but part of the wall had come down. Trevor Anderson, who replaced Bowyer some months later with results tanking, would smash through it, signing future Hibernian manager Pat Fenlon from Bohemians and Dubliner Martin Bayly by season's end. But Gorman was the key to it all. He recalls that he was accepted from the start, even if a clear decision was taken at the outset regarding his public appearances.

“If you look back at any TV archives, you'd understand that there were no interviews. I didn't give interviews because they were always going to ask the question, the question that I couldn't answer 'what is it like or what was it like?' I just referred everyone to Trevor and I played football and got on with the game. You had fans at Linfield who threatened to throw away their scarves because I was playing or what have you. Linfield stood by me and said 'well, those are fans that we don't want at football matches'. And I was accepted by the fans after my first game, they knew I wasn't bought as a token or that I was a dud or as part of any Coca-Cola advertisement thing. They understood I could play football and they understood what Trevor was trying to do to win matches – if he had to buy certain players then he did it.”

Anderson's decision was vindicated that season. His Linfield side would go on to win the league title and secured the clean sweep of league, Irish Cup, League Cup and Floodlit Cup the next. For Gorman, it was proof, too, that he had found his spiritual home.

“My real friends in Dundalk, they knew I just wanted to make a living for myself. I was after coming back from France and went to Derry, Shelbourne – I was floating about a bit. I was probably waiting for the right club to come along. I believe that there is always a club that suits a player and Windsor Park was a big stage and you couldn't hide. If you couldn't play football then fans would soon let you know and you wouldn't last too long. I thrived on that challenge because there were so many people wanting me to fall flat on my face. And, you know, I enjoyed proving them wrong.”

A measure of the impact Gorman made on Northern Irish football was spelled out to him a few years later when Raymond 'Soupy' Campbell crossed Belfast from bitter rivals Glentoran in a move that was reminiscent of Maurice Johnston's decision to sign for Rangers in 1989. Campbell was a Catholic and one of Glentoran's star players. It was almost as significant as the signing of Gorman himself. He says he remembers the first time they met.

“He was standing outside the manager's office one night after training. I remember saying 'Ah, hello Soupy, how are you?' and he said 'Dessie, pleased to meet you, [it's] because of you I'm here' and I says 'how do you make that out' and he says 'you paved the way for players to move around freely now'. I took that as a compliment because he was a superb player.”