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Archive for the ‘Football Articles’ Category

Gordon Banks OBE, League of Ireland star.

Posted in Dublin History, Football Articles, tagged , , , on May 11, 2010| 8 Comments »

Gordon Banks, World Cup Winner.

Much more than that actually. *That* save against Pele will go down in football history, in fact in 2002 he remarked to FourFourTwo magazine that “It’s something that people will always remember me for. They won’t remember me for winning the World Cup, it’ll be for that save. That’s how a big a thing it is. People just want to talk about that save.” In another interview, with The Observer Sport Monthly, he commented that “As I got to my feet I tried to look as nonchalant as possible, as if to say that I make that sort of save all the time.”

Gordon Banks defended more nets than just the English national one however. A quick glance at his C.V shows Stoke City, Leicester City , Chesterfield , The Fort Lauderdale Strikers, Cleveland Stokers and, believe it or not, Saint Patrick’s Athletic.

Banks played one game for the Saints, a home match against Dublin rivals Shamrock Rovers. Barry Bridges was managing the Saints at the time, as player manager. The year previously, in 1976, Pats had gained some attention by picking up Neil Martin, a former Hibernan F.C, Sunderland and Nottingham Forest striker, among other clubs. In fact, English player manager Bridges had an impresive record himself, including but not limited to spells at Chelsea, Milwall and QPR.

Barry Bridges

The Irish Times of October 1st 1977 noted that Barry Bridges stated there was a “fifty fifty” chance Banks would line out the next night in Richmond Park. Picked up from Fort Lauderdale, it all depended on clearance from the American F.A. The paper noted that

“The signing, which is likely to extract a sharp response from St. Patrick’s first choice goalkeeper, Mick O’ Brien, represents the Dubliners’ most entreprising move since Neil Martin joined the club last seaon”

Amazingly, Gordon Banks had returned to goalkeeping despite losing sight in one eye following a car crash. It was common enough at the time for English players to semi-retire in the U.S game, and Banks signing to Pats was a surprise to many. In the end, he was given clearance to perform and maintained a clean seat, in a one nil home victory over Rovers. He would never grace the pitch at Richmond Park again, and returned to the United States.

Barry Bridges remained at Pats until February 1978, moving on to become player manager of Sligo Rovers. Banks remains just one former English international to briefly play in the Irish league. Geoff Hurst, Terry Venables (another Saint), Carlton Palmer and Bobby Charlton are just a small selection of others who have done the same.

 Gordon played alongside future Waterford United player Bobby Charlton in 1966.

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For those of you who like follow ups 2.0….

Posted in Football Articles, Miscellaneous, tagged , , on May 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

“and where you go we’ll follow,
we’ll follow
we’ll follow”

This bit, which brought about nice comments and nods of agreement from various League of Ireland supporters, was printed in the Galway United F.C match programme for the Drogheda Utd./St. Patrick’s Athletic clashes. More importantly than little old Come Here To Me, the match programme also featured League of Ireland hero Michael D. Higgins T.D

“We also need to mix the beautiful game in with other aspects of culture, like poetry, theatre, spectacle, and all the other glorious things of life!”

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“The Saints” (Sunday 30th August 1981) St. Patricks Athletic F.C versus Shamrock Rovers F.C

Posted in Football Articles, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2010| 1 Comment »

“Since the end of last season I have been acquiring new players: three are local lads from junior clubs- Billy Reid (Fatima Rangers) Paul McGrath (Dalkey United) and John Cleary (Ballyfermot Utd.)”

Ooh Ah Paul McGrath. With “..a bit of time and encouragement” he won’t be a half bad player. Not a bad call.

This one showed up recently, and should be of interest to not just Saints but maybe Rovers fans and League of Ireland fans in general. The team listings in the central page for example makes for interesting reading. There is so much to this though, the ad’s for local businesses, the simplicity of the match programme, the irritating game of ‘Symbol Cross’ on the last page, and the annoying fact the backcover Adidas ad features snaps of Manchester United and Ipswich Town (not many Irish Ipswich Town fans at the moment). Suppose Barstool culture goes back a bit itself.

So, from the First Round of the League Cup, at a bargain 30p, here it is. Enjoy.

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Well it’s more believable than Snakes on a Plane…

Posted in Football Articles, Miscellaneous, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 21, 2010| 3 Comments »

Three years ago, rumours surfaced that Samuel L. Jackson, one of the coolest men on the planet (Snakes on a Plane aside) was a lifelong fan of Bohemian FC.
The information initially came from a paragraph on his Wikipedia entry which read:
Jackson is an avid basketball fan, and especially enjoys the Harlem Globetrotters and the Toronto Raptors. Jackson is a lifelong fan of Eircom League soccer side, Bohemian F.C, and he can often be seen at home games at Dalymount Park with his family. He is well-known and respected among the club’s staff and fans.
Within a week, there was a media frenzy; The Biography channel took this information as fact and mentioned it on an hour long special dedicated to the Pulp Fiction actor. Irish radio picked up on it fairly quickly and ran competitions with questions like “Where do Bohemian FC play?” The Sun featured a half page article and a photo-shopped picture of Jackson wearing a Bohs hat and scarf. Even the Teflon Taoiseach got in on the act and piped up that he’d be attending the next Bohs game. A Bohs spokesperson was forced to admit they were unaware of any link at the time. (Rumours abound that Shamrock Rovers were set to announce Danny Glover as a lifelong fan were never confirmed. )

A Scouser? Don't make me laugh...

But others were not so quick to believe. The statement disappeared from Wikipedia, and with Jackson set to appear on The Late Late show, an intrepid Bohs fan made contact with one of the researchers on the show and asked about bringing the subject up. The response was:
” The audience, least of all Samuel L. Jackson, wouldn’t know who or what Bohs is.”
As Johnny Logan has proved several times (see here and here) since then without need of prompting, this statement is complete rubbish. A letter appeared in The Irish Independent saying Jackson could not be a Bohs fan, as he had never been seen in the stands at the home of Irish football, Dalymount Park. One sharp Bohs fan living in Belgium retorted with:
“He can still claim to be a Bohs fan in the same way thousands of Irish people claim to be fans of British clubs like Manchester United, Celtic or Liverpoool, and yet have never set foot in Old Trafford, Parkhead or Anfield. Maybe Samuel watched Bohs in an Irish bar in downtown Washington  decided that makes him a “fan”. “
It’s been a long time coming but maybe heres the proof that the naysayers need; A poster on www.thebohs.com provided us with a picture this week that closes the argument once and for all- Samuel L Jackson is indeed a Bohs man. (Or if he wasn’t, he certainly is now!)

Proof at last that Samuel L. Jackson is a Bohs man. Photo credit LA Bohs.

(A big shout out to all at thebohs.com for the info for this piece!)

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“You can’t buy our History”

Posted in Events, Football Articles, Miscellaneous, Social History, tagged , , , , , , on April 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Football chants surrounding certain teams histories have been bantered back and forth on this island and elsewhere over the last couple of years given the influx of investment into the game by money grabbing swines. Liverpool chant at Chelsea “You can’t buy our history,” and we all laugh at Shamrock Rovers for swapping theirs for shiny new accomodation in Tallaght.

But there is a little bit of history at least for sale at Whytes Auctioneers this week (viewing in their galleries at at 38 Molesworth Street; auction at the Freemasons’ Hall, Molesworth Street; Viewing is Tuesday to Thursday 20-22 April, 10am-6pm and Friday 23 April (day of sale), 10am-4pm.) On sale is a varied selection of League of Ireland memorabilia including this:

1929-30 Irish Free State Football League Winners gold medal to Bohemians FC

 The above medal is estimated to reach between €5-700 at the auction; And rightly so. The twenties was a “Golden” era for the team; Two years before this, the Bohs team, captained by the great Harry Cannon, had swept the boards and won every trophy available.

Also going at the auction are a wide selection of programmes from both League of Ireland and International games including this gem:

1946 (21 April) Football Association of Ireland Cup Final Drumcondra v. Shamrock Rovers programme

Definitely worth heading along to if you have an interest in all things football related. All details are at the Whytes website linked above. And if anybody feels generous enough to pick up the Bohs medal and pass it onto myself, feel free. It’d be going to a good home.

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Off to Ringsend in the Sun…

Posted in Events, Football Articles, Miscellaneous, Reviews, Social History, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 18, 2010| 2 Comments »

Someone on The Bohs forum recently posted a link to a nostalgia packed Panini Italia ’90 sticker album that brought memories flooding back. Co-incidentally, last Saturday, I managed to get my hands on an absolutely meticulous Euro ’88 era Ireland jersey for the princely sum of €1.60. Searching on-line, I found the very same jersey retailing here at £140 of your finest British pounds. Will I be flogging my jersey on? Not a chance. Where, might you ask though, did I find such a bargain? Well, Shelbourne Dog track oddly enough…

I picked this up for a bargain €1.60!

On alternating Sundays, Shelbourne Park and Harolds Cross play host to carboot sales. I hadn’t been to a boot sale for years and forgot that the general idea was to get there as early as possible.  Both of these bootsales open their gates at 8.30 in the morning, but following a busy day/ night on Saturday and a late breakfast on Sunday, we made in there at half two and unforunately most of the stalls were gone home or off to the beach to sun themselves.  Details of when and where the bootsales take place can be found here.

Bootsales; And the characters that run them. from Flickr

I played witness to some great conversations here, a couple of grannies delving into a box of religious memorabilia and muttering to each other “Jaysis, look, theres a lovely St. Francis Scapular.” (A scapular is like a set of felt religious dog-tags.) and “Lovely, three mass cards for a fiver.” Oddly enough this stall was run by a couple of young lads, not what you’d be expecting.

Anyways, a great day under the shadow of the magnificent new Lansdowne Road Stadium (I absolutely refuse to call it the Aviva; anyone who does, deserves a clatter on the back of the head,) on the best day of the year so far, along with the Ireland jersey, I picked up a St. Pauli shirt and a Dubliners 7″ with “Surrounded  by Water” on one side and “Dublin in the Green” on the other side. With a bit of shamelessness on my part, and the stallholder asking for a fiver, I told him I’d give him two quid for it. And he accepted. Good buzz! I’ll be heading along to the Harolds Cross one next week, I’ll let ye know how I get on!

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Yer only happy, on Grant Payment day

Posted in Football Articles, tagged , , , , , , , on April 16, 2010| 2 Comments »

Low lie the fields of Belfield Bowl
Where once we watched the great college play
Evan McMillian is our captain
We have dreams and songs to sing
Of the glory round the fields of Belfield Bowl…

I recently wrote a brief bit on the new UCD noisey fans section (they don’t seem to like the term Ultras), who I noticed down at Richmond Park (Who, to their credit, kept singing at 3 goals down. “3 nil, and you still won’t sing…”, coming from Block B)

“Fair play to the lads behind it, as if you can get something like that off the ground at Belfield, you can probably do it anywhere. That’s not having a go at UCD AFC as a team, but it’s probably fair to say if you’re in UCD and a League of Ireland fan- you went there with a team in your life already. Shels, Bohs, Pats, Rovers and a few more to boot, the city is carved up nicely. If you haven’t fallen for a side by the time you go to college, it’s unlikely you’ll become a diehard out of the blue”

Belfield 2011?

Anyway, The University Observer, the official paper of the UCD student body, has just carried out this fantastic interview with the lads behind the new group.

“It’s a bunch of lads having a bit of craic,” he began, musingly. “We’ve always gone to League of Ireland games but not really to support one team. We just said this year we’re going to take on a team and reckoned UCD would be the team with the least fans. So we decided we’d be their fans.”

Some business savvy individual at UCD AFC sorted the lads out with Season Tickets and since then they’ve been attracting a few new individuals, joining with them on match nights. This really is a success story in my own opinion, bringing a bit of life to the game at Belfield.

My only criticism of the lads? Far too nice. Coming to Inchicore and not going beyond a round of ‘Same old Patricks, always cheating’. Whatever about the ‘junkie’ abuse from other Dublin clubs, or the abuse we return- the game is nothing without it. Get stuck in lads. Tax robbing bastards owe us nothing else.

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Even ‘national monuments’ can take a turn for the worst.

Posted in Football Articles, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2010| 15 Comments »

Firstly, I’ve always supported the claim by some (mainly Bohemian F.C) football supporters that Dalymount Park merits national monument status. It’s well known the national team played there of course, but beyond that- you could get a fantastic book out of this place (and I hope someone does)

Even Nazi Germany have graced the pitch. Image taken from the Facebook Group 'Dalymount Park is a National Monument'

Pele and Zidane have graced the pitch, and closer to home some English legends like Bobby Charlton and Bobby Moore. 22,000 people went along to Dalymount Park in 1959 to watch Saint Patrick’s Athletic take on Waterford in a Cup Final. That was typical enough. Some matches were a tad odder, like a bizarre charity match in 1952 (“stage artists carrying huge mallets and wearing massive fur coats”, and “Big man stretches arm, holds off midget who swings wildly at nothing” for example) between a press team and a stage team. Why even limit a discussion of Dalymount to football? Thin Lizzy, Boomtown Rats, Bob Marley,Motorhead- all have taken to the stage here.

Why then did it feel like a trip to the DDR on Tuesday night?

Granted, it wasn’t the Connaught Stand (shudders) and the Des Kelly stand we were put in was quite nice, had a roof and was generally fine, but the turnstiles on the way in and the Gulag-like jacks are tragic at best. Imagine bringing your kids to their first League of Ireland game, at a stadium with such diverse and wonderful history, and being put in the Connaught Stand or coming through those turnstiles.

The atmosphere under that roof was electric, Mark Quigley was given a few healthy renditions of ‘White Joey Ndo, you’re just a white Joey Ndo….’ and he didn’t seem to mind the abuse as he stretched beside the away section. I don’t want to guess the away crowd, but it was very respectable and in fine voice and spirits. In truth I thought the Bohs lot were unusually quiet,the roar out of the Jodi can be thunderous on a good night, last night something was amiss over there. It happens at any ground on occasion, maybe it was a Tuesday night thing. I’ve often loved the displays that have come out of that section, like Zapata on his horse on the night of that Fahey goal.

When we got our goal (as you’ll see below in the YouTube video you’re all going to watch) our subs were STRAIGHT over to celebrate with the lads. At the end of the match the players and fans connected on a level I haven’t seen in a long time, and the chanting continued for a few minutes after the final whistle. Gold. Great to see a return to that kind of relationship.

Dalymount Park remains one of my favourite football stadiums to visit, if only for the history of it and the great pubs that you find on the street outside. In fact, I wouldn’t object to a Phibsboro pubcrawl for Come Here To Me in the nearish future. Still, Dalymount Park also remains in dire need of some sort of urgent fix-up. It is a disservice to the history of soccer in Ireland, and not just the resident Bohemian F.C, that the place is in the state it is.

All in all, for Saint Patrick’s Athletic though, a good performance on and off the pitch.

This is worth a look, on the history of Dalymount Park.

Jaycarax, who would know that kind of thing, insists The Clash never played there. They do tell you not to use Wikipedia, sometimes they’re right.

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A Night In The Family Stand

Posted in Football Articles, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 4, 2010| 5 Comments »

The view here is perfect.

Those annoying pillars in the stand can see to it that for 45 minutes, you’re relying on the eyes of the person beside you to see what exactly is going on out there on the pitch. You’d want to arrive a little early (or join the veterans on the Camac) to see the game comfortably.

7.35 kick off is unusual, obviously done ‘for the telly’. Arriving at 7.45, you’d be forgiven for thinking for once you’d made kick off. Alas, you haven’t. Best just grab the first seats you spot. Straight into the first block.

Family stand. This is Monster Munch stuff. In many ways, while the youngest kids in the ground- to them this is always a big night. It’s here the half-time yoof are to be found. Lourdes and Swords Celtic as far as I recall, loads of tiny lads bracing themselves for half-time and their time on the pitch. They’re here for Saint Patricks Athletic and Sporting Fingal of course,(well eh…I don’t think anyone is here for Sporting Fingal) but they’re also here for their own bit of time. Why not? This is how you get youngsters interested of course, and how you keep kids in the game.

Paddy The Panther frowns on your vulgarity

Anyway, the ball goes out about fifteen minutes in. Oh look! It’s yer man who was playing for us last year!

OI! YOU’RE A *starts with f*ING *starts with w*KER!

Yells the brother, brilliant.

GET OFF THE PITCH YOU *starts with f*ING CLOWN!

I’m in on it now too. This is great. This is probably what I missed most about football when I got stuck working Friday nights last year. Let the steam off and all that. It might as well be Sean Fitzpatrick out there.

Then it dawns on us, this is the family stand. This is where the most hot-dogs are sold, where the most ketchup is spilled, where the most bored mammies are to be found, where the smallest of the small people go. Scarleh. A quick telling to from the father and we have to watch our mouths from here on in.

Things are different in this stand alright. It’s been years since the main stand rocked too hard (bar European nights) but up the front there are a handful of youngsters giving it loads. ‘RED ARMY!’ ‘RED ARMY!’ Parents look on in a sort of ‘awwwwh, bless’ way, but only a decade ago they wouldn’t have been alone, and it’s great to see them get into it. Granted, there are more Manchester United and Liverpool shirts in this small section than Saint Patricks Athletic ones, but once they get the bug they’ll be hooked. The idea of the family stand is a great one then.

Well into the second half, and the player me and the brother were abusing earlier is taken off.

‘BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO’ rings out from the youngsters in the block, they’re learning quick. Some day, they’ll be bringing their kids here- and much like me, they’ll be mortified by a slip of the tongue no doubt. I’ll be back with the foul-mouthed oldies next week.

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“C’mon You Boys In Blue”

Posted in Football Articles on March 20, 2010| 2 Comments »

A nice surprise at Saint Patricks Athletic FC versus University College Dublin AFC

Paddys Day hangovers don’t go away quickly. They can take days. On Thursday, the city centre was a ghost-town. At the time of writing, we’re all still untagging ourselves from photos on Facebook and wondering what actually did happen on Paddys Day. It’s bad.

Drums, they don’t help.

THUMP THUMP THUMP *the teams name*
THUMP THUMP THUMP *the teams name*

Arriving 5 or so minutes into the match on a pretty miserable Friday night, we pop into Block B and it takes a minute or two to realise the drums we’re hearing are UCD fans.

This won’t mean anything to some of you. ‘So what?’ Any League of Ireland fan however, no matter how bad their addiction, can tell you why this is surprising. Last time I checked, they had no fans at all, never mind fans with drums.

I actually thought ‘this is brilliant’ and that the sight of UCD fans like them gives me great hope for the League. Fair play to the lads behind it, as if you can get something like that off the ground at Belfield, you can probably do it anywhere. That’s not having a go at UCD AFC as a team, but it’s probably fair to say if you’re in UCD and a League of Ireland fan- you went there with a team in your life already. Shels, Bohs, Pats, Rovers and a few more to boot, the city is carved up nicely. If you haven’t fallen for a side by the time you go to college, it’s unlikely you’ll become a diehard out of the blue.

At 1 nil down they kept banging.

At 2 nil down they kept banging.

Ryan Guy makes it three, does his cartwheel thing, and when the ball moves from the half way line again….

….You hear the drums.

So, a tip of the hat to the small band of lads on their efforts. ‘College Til I Die’ might not be the best chant, we all want out eventually I’m sure, and I NEVER understood chanting ‘Top Of The League- Yer Havin’ A Laugh’ at anyone.

(Yes, we are having a laugh obviously. It’s great fun up there. You’d be having a laugh too)

Still, by and large it was great to see, I remember being taken out to a silent, empty Belfield Park (pre Bowl) and being fairly tempted to chuck myself in the lake by the Arts Block with the direness of it all. Even a small group of people can change the atmosphere at a match completely.

Grant money well spent.

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And where you go we’ll follow, we’ll follow, we’ll follow…..

Posted in Football Articles, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 6, 2010| 17 Comments »

A trip to Saint Patricks Athletic F.C (Inchicore) versus Galway United F.C, as League of Ireland football returns to Dublin for a new season

Every second week before the Euro

Nice to be back really.

I remember as a child being taken to see Saint Patricks Athletic in a stadium you could only describe as electric. The camac standing area directly opposite the stand would be a red, white and yellow explosion of colour, and a flare in the shed and deafening roar awaited that first goal in that game. The 90s were brilliant times for the domestic game, not just in Inchicore but on the Northside too, were local football could draw in considerable crowds and at least a handful of your classmates got it. Unlike the ‘Who are yis’ in the class we had chosen our teams purely on the grounds of geography and as such were all (literally) singing from the one sheet. We, quite literally, meant we. Us and our next door neighbours.

Still, a hard rain fell on the League of Ireland. A really hard rain. A flood even. The old man would still take us to home matches and car trips to Drogheda, north of the liffey and suburbs of Wicklow, but the religious nature of going stopped. You go from missing a few games to missing half a season. I’m incredibly grateful there’s a younger Fallon to catch the bug and get us back down.

Anyway, to say Saint Patricks Athletic had a woeful season last year would be an understatement on par with ‘the economy is looking a bit shakey’.

Back from under the stairs for a new season

Getting into the ground a bit late I hear the sound of a trumpet. A fucking trumpet. A quick glance and it’s coming from the Galway United away supporters. A small but loyal band of followers, and mainly youngsters, you can take it some of these lads left the schoolyard a bit early to travel up, just as some of the young lads down the far end of the crowd would for a trip to Cork or Belfast. There’s a passion there that doesn’t come across well on the telly.

“United, we love you, we love you…
and where you go we’ll follow, we’ll follow, we’ll follow….”

I’m too busy looking at the one man trumpet show to see the build up to the goal that puts Pats in the lead. Then it happens. The home support lights up.

I spot four good sized large tifo flags, a flare in the middle of it, and a few hundred fans going mad like Pats had won the league, not just scored the first goal of their first League match.

It’s not until half-time rolls around that you realise what a community thing the league is in Ireland. I’ve heard and seen the same at Dalymount, Turners Cross, that kip in Drumcondra and other stadiums. Your man who is emigrating to America next Monday (“No sorry folks, it’s Tuesday. He’s leaving on Tuesday. Good luck to him”) gets a mention over the P.A, the Palmerstown and Clondalkin under 12s come on the pitch and have a kick around, a bucket goes around for the local old folks and whatever else. The club is at the heart of the community, and the youngsters scoffing the (bloody awful) hotdogs into themselves now will hopefully be the ones bringing their kids here down the line.

Coming soon to a Dublin shed near you.

When the whistle goes, and Pats take the 2 goals and 3 points away from this one, the shed (where the away support are based) erupts into one last defiant chant: “United! United!”

They’ve travelled across the country for this. When the matches fall that way, a similar sized band will do the same in reverse. I feel terrible for falling out of the habit, but after tonight- I reckon I’m hooked again. The odd trip down last year isn’t good enough, you’d wonder why you’d miss a game….

Bohemian F .C (Phibsboro) fans make a point about corporate football to Red Bull Salzburg

Will the game grow in this city? I don’t know to be honest. There’s no way I can see a return to the glory days, but at the same time shenanigans on the otherside of the pond have shown British football up as the emotional wasteland that it is.

You can Love United, Hate Glazer as much as you want, but you’ll never love United in the way that lad on the trumpet loves United.

The United he shares a home with.

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British Barstooling Extravaganza!

Posted in Football Articles, Reviews, tagged , , on February 3, 2010| 1 Comment »

So it’s been brought to our attention here at CHTM that Fagan’s Bar in Drumcondra, local haunt of Teflon Bertie and his crew of stick-proof minions was one of nine “British” pubs chosen to show the worlds first live 3-D barstooling extravanganza that was last weekends Man United versus Arsenal clash. (Seriously; that’s how it was reported in the Sindo; “The Drumcondra pub, along with eight other British bars, made history as they became the first premises to show a soccer game using the latest polarised 3D method.”) Christ.

Looks kind of like a Batman villain, doesn't he...

The quare fella himself even paid a visit for a quick pint of Bass or whatever it is he imbibes before making a quick getaway before the game even began; I wonder what pull he had in getting the sideshow there but you can be sure if there was a pie involved, he had a finger in it.

We’ll be up in the direction of Fagan’s in the coming weeks, but after last weekends spectacle, and given the nature of pubs we here at CHTM like to frequent, I think you can be assured we’ll be giving Fagan’s a wide birth!

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