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Posts Tagged ‘FAI’

The Beautiful Game- Ballyfermot Late Night League.

Posted in Events, Football Articles, tagged , , , , on October 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Ballyfermot Late Night League is being run in conjunction with the BASE youth Centre at Kylemore Park on Thursday nights at the following times.

Times: 6pm to 7pm (12 to 13years old)
8pm to 10pm 14 to 17years old

If interested pleae contact The BASE Damien Finneran or FAIDCC Michael Moore on 087 9805772.

Late night soccer is once again taking off around the capital. Normally with the support of local youth groups and authorities, the games give young people something positive to do with their time, taking young people off street corners and uniting them around a love of the beautiful game. The social positives of late night football are obvious. Crime falls in areas where the games have taken off, and a recent report in the Sunday Tribune made for interesting reading.

“On an average Friday night before the soccer league was running, gardaí at Ballymun received an average of 89 call-outs to deal with anti-social behaviour. But since the league has been running, the average number of call-outs relating to youngsters has been just 44 – half the previous amount. “

League of Ireland clubs have given their support to the ventures, in fact it was through Saint Patrick’s Athletic I heard of the Ballyfermot league. Let’s hope it works out in the area, which is soccer mad to say the least.

The Late Night League (LNL) idea comes from the Football Assocation of Ireland, and so far has been a roaring success. They used to joke that getting good at football was one of the only ways to get out of working class Dublin, hopefully being good at football however will give kids a sense of pride in their own communities, not to mention create a bit of craic.

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Glory Glory Man United?

Posted in Football Articles, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

On the fourth of August, a League of Ireland selection will take on Manchester United Football Club in the new stadium at Lansdowne Road. Before we go further, that’s what we call it around here. Lansdowne Road.

The day after this, Shamrock Rovers will take on Juventus on Italian soil, in a crucial competitive match. Juventus and Manchester United, two football giants no doubt. Unlike the Shamrock Rovers side taking on Juventus however, the League of Ireland selection are playing for nothing. They’ve never really trained together before this, they play for a wide variety of teams. They’re not a team themselves, and they’ve been chucked together for a glory friendly. To be frank about things, this isn’t the best time either.

Why? Look at the League table. Bohemians, Saint Patrick’s Athletic, Shamrock Rovers and more besides stand a very realistic chance of lifting the League. So far, it’s been rollercoaster stuff, with nobody running away with it and surprises and upsets coming in thick and fast. In the midst of this, I’ve heard this game referred to in the media on multiple occasions now as a ‘pre-season friendly’. This is not a pre-season friendly for us. This is a match that couldn’t be timed much worse in truth.

(more…)

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Annual Match Programme Fair- Pearse Street

Posted in Dublin History, Football Articles, Social History, tagged , , , , on May 19, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The annual Match Programme Fair is coming up again, at St Andrews Parish Centre on Pearse Street.

It takes place on Sunday, May 30th

I only recently uncovered a box of copies of the SuperSaint programme from 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 under the bed, absolute gems. Every programme from 1999-2000 in particular opens with a 1,000 word essay from Pat Dolan on whatever was getting on his nerves that week.

For example,in Issue 13 of the campaign, Galway United at home, Dolan noted that

It is certainly not satisfactory for our youth to believe that supporting their team is about sitting in front of the TV. It is something bordering almost on fraud for RTE’s over exposed Premiership to rely on opinions of people not qualified to comment. As someone who has analysed games for TV and radio, both live in the stadium and ‘live’ in the studio in front of the telly, I can tell you that you can only truly appreciate the pattern of the game and the wider picture if you actually attend the match! How gullible as a nation have we become that we accept people pontificating about the merits of English soccer and decrying the merits of Irish soccer, who attend neither.

Indeed.

As well as a trip to Pearse Street, you could do worse than to make a trip out to the Phoenix Park for a free month long exhibition there on the history of football in the park.

“The exhibition was launched to mark the FAI taking over the lease for the football facilities in the Phoenix Park, which are known as ‘the Fifteen Acres’. The exhibition contains photographs documenting the history of football in the Fifteen Acres, beginning with the foundation of Bohemian Football Club at the Gate Lodge of the Phoenix Park on September 6th 1890 and including photographs of football clubs from the late 19th century right through to the present day”

Do both on the same day and then go home, stick the scarf on, play some Subbuteo and give Jack’s Heroes a spin.

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C’mon YBIG

Posted in Football Articles, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , on May 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The nice people at YBIG (Or You Boys In Green)have uploaded their new online magazine, which you can check out here. When you’re flicking through it, be aware that the Star ads open fancy pop up video footage. Nothing like having headphones in, the volume up, and hearing Mr. Betfair Dunphy talking away to himself (while sitting on a swively chair in Tallaght Stadium)

An example of content.

Along with plenty of League of Ireland coverage, it’s got plenty on the national team, a nice historical piece on an encounter between West Germany and the Republic and some great video content. It’s the future. There’s even a video of that cheating French bastard (language, Timothy) doing cocaine. You’ll get it when you click it.

Hopefully this isn’t the end of the lovely bus-friendly regular YBIG magazine.

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Something you WON’T see in Dublin…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Sorry Lads, I'm off to Glasgow.

While we might see a Carrolls or two close its doors in Dublin after Ireland failed to qualify for the World Cup (Every cloud and all that…) there is now plenty of excitement building over the planned friendly with Brazil in March.

Dublin won’t see a cent however, as todays Irish Independent states that Celtic Park is now one of the most likely venues for the friendly.

London (Emirates Stadium), Glasgow (Parkhead) and Manchester (Old Trafford or City of Manchester Stadium) are the more likely venues.

Arsenal’s ground is a front runner due to the fact that Brazil have played there before and also the FAI’s links to Arsenal through Liam Brady.

But there is a complication as the English FA have confirmed that England will play Egypt in a friendly in Wembley on Wednesday March 3rd.

Police would not be keen to allow two internationals go ahead in the same city on the same night so that would rule out the Emirates for Wednesday.

The same problem arises with Parkhead for that date as Scotland host the Czech Republic at Hampden on March 3rd, so if Parkhead is chosen for the Brazil game, it would have to go ahead on the Tuesday night.

The ‘Green Army’ will get to spend a few of the pennies in the South African jar then. With League of Ireland season tickets going for buttons by comparison, lets hope a few season ticket books find their way into the hands of broken hearted Ole Oles.

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