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Posts Tagged ‘Saint Patricks Athletic’

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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Osam Is Doubtful- Issue 2 (2003) Saint Patrick’s Athletic fanzine

Posted in Football Articles, Social History, tagged , , , , , on August 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Front and back page of fanzine, pages 3 and onwards below on Scribd. Best viewed at full screen size.

Previous fanzines posted on Come Here To Me:

Only Fools and Horses (Bohemian F.C)
Hoops Upside Your Head (Shamrock Rovers)

My thanks to Dodge for passing on both issues of Osam Is Doubtful to me last Friday in Bray. Something good can come out of the worst away trips.

Anyway, Osam Is Doubtful. One of two Pats fanzines I remember following the club as a youngster, with When The Saints Go Marching In being the other. Both efforts were well written, and much more appealing to me growing up than the official effort, a feeling common among my mates at the time. I suppose, the official programme has always had to “Welcome Shelbourne Football Club, their players and supporters to Richmond Park tonight….”while the fanzines could be a little more honest.

The name of this one was a nod towards a Saints legend, Paul Osam. Issue 1 noted that “The name comes from that part of the preview of every single Pats game since the great man came to the club where he’s announced as doubtful”.

32 pages in length, I intend to get issue 1 up to, opting for this one purely on the back of several ‘laugh out loud’ moments on first read. Highlights include a great piece on going to see the national team in Lansdowne Road (“I’m not joking when I say it was the worst atmosphere I’ve ever experienced and I’ve been to Pats vs. Bray in Belfield on a Tuesday night”), a nice piece on Martin Russell (free kick specialist) and a good rant at the jokeshop moniker ‘Stadium of Light’, which Pats fans never really took to thankfully.

Enjoy, and expect the other issue in the nearish future.

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Robbery and jubilation.

Posted in Football Articles, tagged , , , on July 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Full credit to Photopat3 on flickr for a serious of excellent images, link below. Spot the author of this piece!

A great selection of images from last night are to be found here, at Photopat3’s Flickr account.

Some reflections on a one-a-piece clash.

Did we deserve a point? Far from it. Bohs dominated the game for large chunks last night, and our goal at the end was as scraptastic as it comes. Still, what a feeling. An equaliser well into extra-time, when the opposition fans are chanting ‘WE ARE TOP OF THE LEAGUE’, is as sweet as it gets.

The performance of the Saints last night on the pitch left quite a bit to be desired. Why hold back, it was dire. Were Bohs particularly strong? In truth, no. An early (and well-taken) goal had them ahead from 4 minutes in until almost the last kick of the game. We probably had a taxi-load of shots on goal over the whole match, and one of them somehow ended up in the back of the net. Such is football. The quietness of the Jodi, and lack of the usual banners even, indicated Bohs fans are still reeling from what happened in Wales. Why wouldn’t they be? There is a hunger there in the Pats support after years of coming close to success, and even relegation. Bohs fans must feel like they’ve been through it all.

While the display from the Ultras of the Saint Patrick’s Athletic support was a wind-up job unlike any I’ve ever seen before (The Next Shels banner in particular), and the hatred for Mark Quigley (*spits on the ground*) somehow reached a new level from our last meeting, it was clear to both sets of supporters the game was not going to come near the level of our previous clashes this season,and the atmosphere seemed to come and go a bit. Like in Tallaght Stadium during the Setanta defeat, it was encouraging to see lads keep singing even when we were miles behind on the pitch. For the first time in a long time, there seems to be a connection between players and supporters.

This League really is there for the taking now, for a number of teams. My apologies to my visiting Sligo friend for knocking his glasses from his head in the 90somethingoranother minute of this one, but in a moment like that these things happen. Little is fair in football, and now I know how ‘they’ feel in the away section when this happens in reverse at Inchicore, far too frequently too. From Cork to Donegal, I’ve seen teams come to Inchicore and do exactly what we did last night.

Whatever about the chants we encounter about our anti-social ways, that looked like a clean smash and grab job to me. Now, time to step it up a gear.

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Support Your (Really) Local Football Club

Posted in Events, Football Articles, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2010| 1 Comment »

Geography dictated that I would be a Saint Patrick’s Athletic supporter.

As a youngster, I remember my Dad couldn’t walk too far in the stadium without spotting a neighbour from Palmerstown, or the older days in Ballyfermot. This Is(n’t) England, you’d be a laughing stock if a Galway youngster decided he or she was a Derry City fan, or a Derry youngster became ‘Bohs Til I Die’. We don’t do it that way, you take what you get. The Liffey, the county border markings and local history dictate these things. Suburbs all go in together.

Glenville Football Club however are right on my doorstep. I don’t play football (I’m dire), but I follow it. I don’t know too much about the local Football Clubs, but Glenville have come to my attention recently owing to the fact they’ve drawn League of Ireland champions Bohemian F.C in the Cup. A big day out, to say the least.

We are located off the Kennelsfort road in Palmerstown, Dublin 20 in the Community School

You can nearly spot them from the door.

Hopefully, local residents will come out in force to support them in the clash. It’s not going to be easy, and it would probably be one of the largest upsets in the history of the Cup, but imagine. The local pubs can, and it’s probably a pretty picture. The club were founded in 1997, and spend their weekends in Senior 1A.

If we want to see football grow as a local, community game – a Glenville F.C victory wouldn’t be a bad thing!

Sunday June 6 @ 3.00 in Richmond Pk. FORZA PALMERSTOWN!

The Silver Granite pub, image taken from http://www.glenvillefc.com

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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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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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