League of Ireland Monthy: March 2016

volume 3 / issue 01

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march 2016

INSIDE: MARK FARREN A LEGEND

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AN (ALL TOO) CONVENIENT ARRANGEMENT THE GRASS ISN’T ALWAYS GREENER

AN ALL-IRELAND LEAGUE - NEWSPAPERS & LOI - RYAN THOMPSON - 5 QUESTIONS AHEAD OF THE LOI SEASON

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CABINTEELY-BOOK: STORMING THE INTERNET

How the League of Ireland’s newest arrivals Cabinteely FC took the internet by storm, and getting fans through the turnstiles.

13 Co-editors: Kevin Galvin Dylan Murphy Designer: Kevin Galvin Social Media: David Downey Photography: Timmy Keane timtimmedia.com Contributors / David Kent Aaron Cawley Mícheál Ó hUanacháin Dave Galvin James Hendicott Colm Cuddihy Dylan Murphy Karl Reilly JP Fahy Cover Page / All set and ready to go: The League of Ireland is back in full-swing and the players are ready!

A tribute to one of the greatest

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ALL A BIT ODD! With the #GreatestLeagueInTheWorld showing the weird and wacky moments from our league, Dave Galvin reminds us that not much has changed!

DOMESTIC DISCONTENT Aareon Carley looks at our league’s many problems and asks if the solutions can finally be found having waited so long?

LOI ABROAD: RYAN THOMPSON The former Shamrock Rovers goalkeeper is the latest subject in our ongoing series.

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HOMESTERS FALL TO ‘HANDS’ Mícheál Ó hUanacháin looks back at a time when domestic soccer had its rightful place in the Irish media

JAYO’S CATCHING UP CAN HE DO IT? LOI Monthly’s regular stastician Karl Reilly looks at the career of Jason Byrne and if he really can overtake an increasingly worried Brendan Bradley for top spot on the all-time scoring charts.

Source: Goal.com The use or redistribution of any part of this magazine is strictly prohibited unless explicitly authorised by LOI Monthly

MARK FARREN: A LEGEND

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5 QUESTIONS FOR THE LEAGUE OF IRELAND

With the league getting back underway this month Dylan Murphy asks the big questions that need to be adressed this year in the league.

League campaign, while Karl Reilly asks if Jason Byrne really can overtake Brendan Bradely to become the League of Ireland’s all-time top goalscorer.

I was at Turner’s Cross last Saturday to see Cork City comfortably see of the challenge of a Dundalk side that have been on top for the past number of years, and it was strangely refreshing to see the Lilywhites struggle in a big game.

As we can see in Scotland a single team’s domination cannot be healthy for the league as a whole, and it was really interesting to see how City bullied the Louth outfit around in midfield.

Welcome back League of Ireland fans to the first edition of this year’s LOI Monthly, Volume 3 Issue 1!

It’s incredible to think that we’ve made it to our third year now, and we just seem to getting stronger and stronger, especially when it comes to our recruitment.

You’ll notice the new name of James Hendicott in this month’s first feature article. James is a journalist of some note and has been writing for papers for years; we’re delighted to have him as part of the tean and already his first piece is a fascinating one.

We’ve talked about Cabinteely before on this magazine but their promotion last year has been phenomenal, and we’re looking forward to seeing what they can bring to the table this coming season.

It seemed on Saturday that Dundalk were sorely missing the presence of Richie Towell, and their response to his loss is a key point in deciding the title race.

However, despite Towell’s dominance in Ireland he has found the going more difficult across the water, and David Kent asks whether League of Ireland players really have what it takes to make it across the water.

I’d like to take this opportunity to extend a massive thanks to our sponsors; FitDist Sports, GForm, and again from last year SP Sports & Leisure. Their sponsorship is absolutely integral to our magazine’s success, and they all distribute high-quality specialist footballing equipment.

Both are Irish owned and ran companies and we’d like to encourage you to consider them should you have any need in that area.

JP Fahy has a piece on Mark Farren which I urge you all to read, Mark sadly lost his battle to cancer in the new year, which sent a shockwave felt around the league and indeed around the world. Mark was an absolute gentleman off the pitch, and a fantastic competitor on it, and his loss will be sorely missed.

Finally I hope this year we can continue our fantastic growth from last year. In order to enable this we have gone back to a free-to-read version.

Unfortunately the takeup on our paid version wasn’t what we had hoped, and we’re happy to provide you with your content for absolutely nothing.

On a lighter note Dave Galvin’s piece is a fascinating look into how what we see on the #GreatestLeagueintheWorld hashtag is nothing new! Dave has uncovered some absolute gems of stories over the past years and after his extremely succesfull LOI Internationals series we’re confident that this will be at least as entertaining!

With that in mind I would also ask you to consider donating what you can to the magazine. There are various running costs involved in producing a magazine as well as countless hours of unpaid work. Donations, however small, would contribute to the expansion and development of the magazine for your enjoyment.

Mícheál Ó hUanacháin has once again impressed with a fascinating look at how newspapers used give deserved coverage to our league, when now especially broadsheets’ coverage leave much to be desired.

Colm Cuddihy looks over the career of Ryan Thompson, Shamrock Rovers’ Jamacian goalkeeper that starred in their infamous Europa

All that’s left for me is to wish you a very enjoyable beginning to the season, and I for one am buckled in for the inevitable rollercoaster ride that is this fantastic league.

Let the games begin!

Kevin Galvin Editor.

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opinion | david kent

IS THE GRASS GREENER? At last football is back. In the fourmonth gap (still the longest in Europe) we’ve seen new owners, new jerseys and new signings. Most importantly, Dundalk lost the league’s poster boy to Brighton and Hove Albion but the move hasn’t gone as smoothly as Richie Towell would have planned.

All League of Ireland teams know how good Towell is. He tore almost every team in the league apart over Dundalk’s three-year dominance. Many people will question just how strong Stephen Kenny’s side can be without him and we began to discover the answer last in their President’s Cup defeat at Turner’s Cross, but it’ll be the week on week impact that’ll be key. A lot of Towell’s goals were match-winners, or came at crucial times, and both Shelbourne and Cork City know how difficult it is to replace such an important goalscorer.

Presumably Towell has received a more lucrative contract at Brighton but does that make up for playing in the reserves. With just one first team appearance in two months and any ambitions of playing in the Euros fading, it not be surprising if Towell is back in the League of Ireland at some stage, in a similar way to how Gearoid Morrissey has returned to Cork City after an unsuccessful stint at Cambridge.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s got Chris Forrester, the shining star of St Pat’s but many thought he had missed his opportunity. However this has not been the case, as he’s now one of the most valuable midfielders in League One, and is tipped as an outside bet to make that European squad.

I preached about how a couple of years spent in the league can get you over to England faster than doing it when you’re sixteen, but now there’s a worry

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about leaving it too late. Towell is 24 which may not seem that old, but when you notice that this is his second shot at stardom in Britain.

If he fails now, he is unlikely to get another shot. Donal McDermott can testify to that.

As for who’s the next to make the journey on the magic airplane? Cork City fans are still raving about John Kavanagh, even though he appears to be permanently injured. The likes of Sean Hoare, Daryl Horgan and Sean Gannon have also been heavily tipped but no one has commanded the attention of the English clubs in the same way as Towell did.

And why would the English clubs take them when the best player in the League of Ireland from last season is struggling to get game time at Brighton.

In terms of competition this year it is likely to be a lot closer than it was last season. I think it’ll be the same top two, with Sligo Rovers sneaking into 4th place and a European spot. People are tipping Bray Wanderers to do really well, but they’ll need to avoid off-field difficulties that plagued them last season.

The First Division is set to be the most open in years, with Limerick, UCD (and a resurgent Jason Byrne), Drogheda United and Cobh all having an argument to finish in the top 3.

Enjoy the season. More prize money, trackchamp, the European championship, and some more nuggets that prove that our league really is the #GreatestLeagueInTheWorld

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CABINTEELY-BOOK How the League of Ireland’s newest arrivals took the internet by storm

James Hendicott 8

On March 6 2015, Cabinteely played their first game at League of Ireland level. They battled it out in front of a crowd of around 1,400 (amongst the highest in the first division all season) at their new home of Stradbrook, exactly 38 days after the club were granted their LOI license. Cabo, under the management of former St Patrick’s Athletic star and Bray Wanderers manager Eddie Gormley - announced themselves by shocking eventual league winners Wexford Youths with a 1-0 win.

That early notch wasn’t quite a sign of things to come, as a strung together Cabinteely side proved good enough to compete, but nevertheless came bottom of the First Division pack. Their 20 points from 28 games wasn’t a bad return under the circumstances, but certainly didn’t suggest a club setting the league alight. Nevertheless, a quick straw poll amongst friends tells me Cabinteely are better known than almost everyone else at their level to the general public; in fact marginally more recognised amongst casual fans than even LOI premier sides Longford Town and Finn Harps.

and our board working properly.” Toale also emphasized running the club as a business - well within its means - and admitted he’s likely to lose his better players.

By the end of 2016, however, Cabinteely’s online profile and promotions across social media had been read more than 3.5 million times directly (and multiples of that indirectly), and garnered coverage from FIFA, ESPN, the BBC and Yahoo, as well as in dozens of countries. The key came in their leftfield brand of social media marketing.

A tongue-in-cheek voice on both Facebook and Twitter - curated by lifelong Cabinteely club members at The Link Marketing, who summarized their expenses for the year as ‘one cake’ - has seen the club under the spotlight at international level on several occasions.

That cake, incidentally, was quite the coup. When Manchester City star Yaya Toure threw his toys out of the pram and threatened to leave the club over the absence of a birthday cake in May 2014, Internally, the 2015 season was very marketing man Dillon Foley must have much about establishing the club. When marked the date. When Toure’s next we spoke to chairman Pearse Toale a few birthday came around, Cabinteely had days before the season got underway, a cake ready. ‘Happy birthday Yaya from his aims were modest: “We want to Cabinteely FC’, the chocolate sponge consolidate our position, to make sure read, along with information about Irish we’re reasonable competitive, that the transfer windows and a ‘get in free’ ground that we’re sharing – Blackrock invite for the following weekends home College’s Rugby Ground – is in proper game against Cobh. Naturally, Foley then order, to get our structures in place ate the cake.

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The Southside club, based out of Blackrock College’s rigby pitch in Stradbrook Road, have been attracting fans young and old on the back of their brilliant marketing strategy.

Source: Paul Lundy

There’s method to the madness. “We wanted to get our name out there,” Foley told LOI Monthly. “Publicity leads to a fan base, and builds the club’s image. Later, we’d like the majority of League of Ireland players to have come from within the club, and obviously anything that gives us a bigger name will help with that.”

The ‘nothing to lose’ approach that seems to permeate almost everything about the south-Dublin newcomers, and came out several more times over the course of the season, as often poking fun at themselves as those around them.

When social media backlash from gamblers targeted the club after their It turns out the Cabinteely set up has late equaliser against title chasing Finn been mutually beneficial, too, with Foley Harps, for example, Cabinteely offered able to push his start-up Link Marketing. free entry to anyone who turned up “The club has been the biggest referral at the next game with a betting slip to my business, and it’s the only thing from a bet lost as a result. When one clients want to take about when I meet Finn Harps fan said he’d forgive them with them,” he explains. “I think it’s providing Harps went up, they even successful in part because people are remembered to reply the day Harps surprised by it. It’s about building our were promoted to check the forgiveness image, but we started with a blank slate offer still stood.

- essentially with nothing to lose.”

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There’s some cheeky promotion of the players, too. When Mario Balotelli’s Liverpool career wasn’t working out so well, for example, Cabo did up some stats on their players goalscoring records compared to the mercurial Italian, and asked him to ‘stop calling, we don’t need you’ ahead of a game against table topping Athlone Town.

Even in the postseason, a creative contest around being the first gamer to win the League of Ireland Premier with Cabinteely on cult management sim Football Manager gained huge traction, with international media coverage and the game makers themselves getting involved. The winner - whose prize was a Cabinteely season ticket - also got their name in the next edition of the game. The UK version of The Metro even ran a poll over whether Cabinteely are the best club in the world, in which both reply options were ‘yes’.

Cabinteely’s image is a large part of the reason they have one of the League of Ireland First Division’s highest average attendances, though the figure is admittedly skewed by that opening day 1,400 turnout.

Foley - for whom Cabinteely were the first client of his new business following graduation from UCD - accepts there was a certain amount of “not another Dublin club” to his team’s inclusion.

“There was a certain negativity because so many teams are from Dublin, even from those who knew nothing about 12

us,” Foley explains. “We really needed to build an image.”

“We decided at the start of the season to be different and try new things.

Having been confirmed with 38 days to go before the season started, it was about getting publicity and trying to build a fanbase. We ended up with FAI Marketing Award, so I guess it worked!”

Cabinteely will start their second season in the League of Ireland a little better organised, having had a proper close season and with something - in the form of national-level name recognition - to build on.

Ahead of the 2016 season, the positive feel around the club has only grown.

Cabinteely have put in place a deal that offers free grinds to their under-19 players. Season tickets for under-12s are priced at just €20 (or €2 to the opening fixture against Athlone Town), while adult tickets for the 28 game season come to €100, or €50 for concessions. A whole family ticket comes to €130.

The marketing’s great, then, but what stands out about Cabinteely is that the philosophy seems to run through the club, too. They might not be realistic promotion contenders for 2016, but with Toale’s stabilizing early objectives fully complete and the mainstream media more aware than they could possibly have hoped for, the south Dublin club are all set for bigger things.

MARK FARREN: A LEGEND Only the true League of Ireland fans of the first decade of the new millennium will truly understand and appreciate the talent that the legend Mark Farren really was. When I started following Derry City in the late 90’s Liam Coyle was the one I quickly began to idolise and when he announced his retirement in 2003 season I was devastated, I knew that it would take a special player and talent for me to idolise someone as much as I did ‘Coyler’.

That’s exactly what Mark Farren was, a special player, talent and person.

I could write a book about my memories of Mark Farren and all the memorable goals he scored but I simply haven’t got enough room or time in this article so I’ll try my best to keep it to a limit. My first memories of the man who ultimately became known affectionately as ‘Farrenso’ by patrons of the Brandywell was when he struck a hat-trick against Limerick in the play-off semi-final in 2003 to set-up a tantalising final against North Western rivals Finn Harps. With the first leg finishing 0-0, the return leg in Derry

saw my future hero put us in front before Mark’s best friend and future strike partner Kevin McHugh equalised in stoppage time to send the game to extra-time where my then current idol Liam Coyle bagged the winner to keep us in the Premier Division.

It is the only game I can remember the two linking up together and I like many Derry fans would have loved to see the pair spend a lot more time together on the pitch, but it just wasn’t to be. The 2004 season in terms of Mark Farren memories is a bit of blur but one game that does stand out is the Dublin City game at the Brandywell when what turned out to be a deadly strike force under Stephen Kenny of Mark Farren and Gary Beckett gave us a 2-0 half-time lead before three goals in the final ten minutes saw Roddy Collins’ men return to the capital with all three points.

It was the 2005 season onwards that Mark will be truly remembered for amongst City and League of Ireland fans when his 18 league goals fired

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City to within touching distance of ending their title drought before a final day winner takes all defeat at Cork saw the Leesiders take the coveted prize. The summer of 2006 saw the Candystripes embark on an unforgettable European run which ended at the Parc Des Princes, against

PSG in the UEFA Cup third qualifying round; surprisingly Farren only scored one goal from nine during this run, which was against Gretna at the Brandywell in a 2-2 draw; he was an unused substitute in the 5-1 thrashing of Gretna at Fir Park in the first leg of

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the second round as well as in Sweden against Gothenbourg during a 1-0 win, whilst making a 12 minute cameo in a 0-0 draw against PSG at the Brandywell and starting the 2nd leg on the bench.

Again, his 18 domestic goals fired Derry agonisingly close to a second historic treble in 2006 losing out to Shels on goal difference in the league whilst scoring the first equaliser at Lansdowne Road in the FAI Cup Final against St. Pat’s. There was also the famous goal against Galway in 2008 that sent us to another FAI Cup Final, the goal that clinched the league title in Monaghan to send us back to the Premier Division in 2010 at the first time of asking. This would be Mark’s last game for almost a year as he took time out to begin his fight against his illness. When he did return he was not as prolific but he still had the hunger and desire to go on and become City’s all-time leading goal scorer, completing that in the same way that I remember him begin it, with a hat-trick in a 7-1 thrashing of Mervue United in the FAI Cup. I thought it would take me a long time to find someone capable of replacing Liam Coyle as my idol but Mark Farren did that within a mere few years; sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever see someone grace the Candystripes shirt again that will come close to being idols for kids like those two were for me.

RIP Farrenso

ALL A BIT ODD!

Getting crowds in the game is the League of Ireland’s major problem

Source: Comeragh Photo

SOURCE: b

alls.ie IE LOIDOT

E: @ SOURC

With the #GreatestLeagueInTheWorld highlighting the weird and wonderful moments from our league, DAVE GALVIN reminds us that not a lot has changed!

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‘Wee’ Alex James as Irish Public House landlord:

being marked by a 1-5 home reverse at the hands of St James’s Gate in a Shield outing on 10thth September 1939. The game took place exactly a week on from Germany’s invasion of Poland and ironically, James had only just returned from a summer spent coaching with the Polish FA in Warsaw! Three days on from his debut, Alex again lined out against the ‘Gate’, this time in the Leinster Senior Cup only to find himself on the losing side once more, this time a 1-3 reverse at the Iveagh Grounds. Two defeats to the same opposition in less than a week must have proved all too much for ’Wee’ Alex James, he was back home in England before the week was out.

Described in the Official History of the Football Association as a little midfield genius and with the former Arsenal manager George Allison once grandiosely declaring: ‘no one like him ever kicked a ball’ , ‘wee’ Alex James, the diminutive Scottish International of the 1930s, is sometimes labelled the finest insideforward of all-time and the greatest player of his generation. Following an introduction to the English game with Preston North End, James found fame with Scotland’s Wembley Wizards Get us out of here- like: who humbled The League clash at the Mardyke between England 5-1 Cork FC and Sligo Rovers on 25th November in 1928 and 1934 was subjected to a rather unexpected later as a key hold up, as officials were forced into having component of Herbert to hastily find a replacement for one of the Chapman’s all-conquering linesmen. With the game under way Arsenal side of the 30s. for barely a quarter of an hour, the Rather less well known linesman in question flagged for however, is the fact that a corner kick to the visitors only Alex James, a decade on from being to be overruled by the referee who offered an audacious season long insisted that the correct decision contract here in Ireland with Drumcondra, was in fact a goal kick to Cork. did briefly play League of Ireland football with More than a little miffed, the the Tolka Park based outfit. It also appears lino strode forward towards that James could well have been, of all things, the ref, threw his flag on the a pub owner in Dublin if he so wished! In ground and exited into the his excellent biography ‘Alex James Life of crowd and back to the a Football Legend’, ‘Wee’ Alex James in his Arsenal days dressing room! Perhaps he John Harding briefly had just remembered he describes James’s Irish needed to be somewhere else that particular connection.’ On a less serious note there was afternoon! the genuine offer of public house in Dublin in exchange for a season with Drumcondra. The Sack the Board (well no, most the team Irish club would eventually get their man a more like): decade later when James played a couple of friendly matches for them at the beginning A new addition to League of Ireland ranks of World War Two’. In point of fact, rather for the 1934-35 campaign were Waterford than pre-season friendlies, James actually whose only previous appearance at this level made two competitive starts in the colours of in the very early 1930s had lasted just two Drumcondra, a somewhat inauspicious debut seasons. In a bid to get off to a strong start

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The Mardyke; the venue for a bit of an officiating dust-up!

this time around, the Suirsiders ‘imported’ a raft of cross-channel singings among them, the former Scotland international Charles ‘Ross’ Pringle, who had captained Manchester City in the 1926 FC Cup final, and ex-Northern Ireland international winger Bobby Irvine who had enjoyed a successful career with Everton, Portsmouth and Derry City, among others. Within weeks of the start of the league campaign however, disaster struck when following a thumping 2-8 defeat away at hands of Sligo Rovers, a post-match dressing room bust-up saw six of the ‘imports’ refuse to travel home with the rest of the visiting party, settling on their own alternative travelling arrangements back south. Livid with the player’s actions, the club immediately suspended all six and remained steadfast in the face of any attempts at resolving the impasse. In time, Irvine did return to first team action and went on to enjoy three successful years on Suirside however, none of the remaining five ever played with Waterford again. Pringle for his part, did briefly turned up at Cork FC later that same campaign, but Waterford’s season never recovered from the catastrophic loss of so many key performers and the club narrowly avoided having to seek re-election.

An (all too) Convenient Arrangement: Included on the roster of clubs to have only briefly graced League of Ireland venues down the years are Cork Bohemians, who spent just two seasons as a premier outfit in the

early 1930’s joining their more established neighbour’s Cork FC, the first time that Leeside had dual representation at senior level.

Unfortunately, the brave decision to step up did not prove a rewarding one for Cork Bohs and having run into insurmountable financial difficulties towards the end of their second campaign, the club resigned in March 1934 with four of their end of season Shield fixtures remaining unfulfilled and the points forfeited to their respective opponents. In early May that year, six weeks on from the resignation, neighbours Cork FC lined out in their final match of the campaign, a Shield encounter with newly crowned league winner’s Dundalk at the Mardyke. Incredibly, the County Louth outfit sent just five players south to Cork that Sunday afternoon, with the balance of the Dundalk side made up of players who just weeks earlier had been regular performers with Cork Bohs and who’s contracts had been prematurely terminated! Bizarrely, no one, not least the LOI Committee, appears to have had even the slightest difficulty with such a ‘convenient’ arrangement!

Desperate for a Nicotine Substitute: Jim McLaughlin, surely the most successful manager in League of Ireland history, in particular during spells at Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers and Derry City also numbered Drogheda United among his managerial posts.

In Brian Whelan’s hugely enjoyable book ‘DUFC-A Claret and Blue History’, ex United striker John Ryan recalls a dressing room story

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LOI legend Jim McLoughlin who won everything with Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers, Shelbourne and Derry City Source: dundalkfc.com

from the McLaughlin era. ‘We were all in the dressing room when Jim walked in and asked Mick Shelley to hop across to the shop to get him some cigarettes. Mick was only gone out the door when Jim announced the team, alas with no Mick Shelley in it! In fairness to Mick he took it on the chin, but let Jim know he wouldn’t be getting him cigarettes again’.

You know what you can do with your extra time lads: The very first all-Ireland competition, the Dublin and Belfast Inter City Cup, came about as a direct result of a much reduced wartime fixture programmes and the need for both the League of Ireland and the Irish League ( known as the Regional league during the war years) to generate much need revenue.

Dundalk were one of six southern sides who took part in the inaugural competition and following a relatively straightforward 6-3 twolegged win against Glentoran, the Lilywhites next opponents were another Belfast outfit, Distillery. In an odd arrangement that lasted throughout the five years of the competition, each of the League of Ireland teams, even the likes of Cork United and Limerick all played their respective ‘home’ legs at Dalymount Park in Dublin. For Dundalk

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meanwhile, a goal down following the first leg in Belfast, the return leg was destined for a sensational conclusion. Five minutes into added on time, some of which the referee informed the visiting captain had been added for persistent time wasting, Dundalk finally levelled to send the tie to extra-time. Unhappy with the amount of time added however, Distillery’s officials called their players from the pitch and refused any overtures to continue the game. After a protracted delay, and with no sign of the visitors returning to the fray, the ref blew his whistle, Dundalk ambled unopposed up the pitch, rolled the ball into an empty net to seal a facile win! Ironically, the Lilywhites, went on to defeat both Belfast Celtic and Shamrock Rovers in the decider itself, and were crowned the very first Inter City Cup champions!

Sources: The Cork Examiner/The Irish Independent/ John Harding-Alex James-Life of a Football Legend/Jim Murphy-A History of Dundalk FC-The First 100 Years/Brian Whelan-DUFC-A Claret and Blue History Special mention to Gerry Desmond for unearthing the Alex James connection

DOMESTIC DISCONTENT AARON CAWLEY is on a one man mission to solve the league of its woes!

The League Of Ireland has a problem.

Not a little or a medium sized problem; a €300000+ a year problem. It’s been well documented by not just this writer but by other people who support the League Of Ireland, that not just John Deleany but everyone in a position of power at FAI Headquarters that the league as a whole is being mishandled and mistreated by them. Fans flock to support their local team week in week out, put their hands in their own pockets if their club needs help.

Look at what happened with Sligo Rovers last season, when the club went looking for help from the fans to cover costs, they raised over €75000 in the Rally Around The Rovers appeal. And where was John Deleany and the fat cats at the FAI? No where to be seen. They were more than likely living of the proceeds of the ‘payment’ they received from FIFA after a certain French man cheated Ireland out of a World Cup place in 2010.

The topic of how can the League Of

Source: Timmy Keane

Ireland be improved is something I regularly think about. I regularly advocate on Twitter and Facebook for not only Irish people but anyone who lives near a League Of Ireland ground to go to at least one game, let them soak up the atmosphere and who knows they might actually enjoy the experience and become a fan of the league. I actually went as far as to offer to pay for someone to accompany me to the Showgrounds last season for the Sligo Rovers, Limerick FC match but unsurprisingly and disappointingly no one took up my offer. This is something the FAI must look at. Ireland are in the European Championships next summer in France and it’s the perfect time to promote the league to fans. I read that over two hundred thousand people applied for tickets for Irelands group games. Can you imagine if over two hundred thousand people attended League Of Ireland matches every weekend. Imagine the boost that would give to clubs financially.

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Every weekend thousands of Irish people flock across the Irish Sea to watch Premier League matches and when asked why don’t they attend League Of Ireland matches, they say the quality of football is rubbish, the facilities at some clubs are terrible and most disappointing of all they just can’t be bothered going.

Is there something the FAI can do to improve the league and get fans flocking to League Of Ireland grounds country wide? In my opinion yes there is. The league as a whole could be marketed better. Grants should he made available to clubs to improve facilities and bring them up to a standard where fans who attend matches aren’t exposed to the elements, which in turn decreases the enjoyment factor of attending games especially if you attend with young children.

The FAI should make national and local media aware of games that are going on each weekend and make sure that those games get the coverage it deserves, not just a thirty second clip on a sports bulletin as an after thought once the Premier League results are given and discussed at length. At least one game a week should be broadcast live on television whether it be on RTE or Setanta Sports and any money made from these rights should be pumped straight back in to clubs. It’s not as if there’s no 20

cameras at most League Of Ireland games on a weekly basis.

I also think that the FAI should look in to selling the rights to games to countries that have a big irish ex pat population.

Let those living abroad feel like they have a sense of home by watching their local team on television and for those fans who’ve moved away, it could be a way of rekindling a long forgotten love affair with their local team.

One other thing I think the FAI could do to promote the league and maybe get fans going through the turnstiles is, give each club an allocation of Ireland match tickets and let the club sell them.

That way when it comes to the International competitions fans might be able to get their hands on much sought after tickets.

I’ll just finish off by throwing this out there.

Would football in Ireland get more support if say the FAI and the IFA got together and joined up the two leagues currently playing in Ireland. Form a couple of different divisions and had more so called meaningful games per year than what’s happening currently in both leagues. For me that is a big yes. It could give teams from north and south of the border more publicity and this in turn could lead to more money coming in to the game as a whole.

LOI ABROAD: RYAN THOMPSON COLM CUDDIHY catches up with the former Shamrock Rovers goalkeeper who starred in Rovers’ famous victory in Belgrade.

The last two players I looked at in this series were current Central Coast Mariners and ex-Cork City forward Roy O’Donovan, and current Sabah and ex-Bray Wanderers, Drogheda United, Derry City, Shamrock Rovers, Sporting Fingal and Sligo Rovers forward Eamon Zayed. This month, as it is the final edition of LOIMonthly before next March, I’m going to mix it up a little a talk about a player who, while they have played in the league, didn’t start their career here. I’m talking about Pittsburgh Riverhounds and current Jamaican international, Ryan Thompson.

Ryan began his career in his home country of Jamaica with Harbour View,

he only played reserve games for the Stars of the East until he left Jamaica to follow up on a soccer scholarship with the University of Tampa in Florida, he played 57 times for his college side.

During his time in Florida, he played a total of 12 times for Bradenton Academics in the USL Premier Development League. Following his graduation, Thompson signed with MPS Portland Phoenix in Maine for the 2010 PDL season. He played a total of 13 times for Phoenix, helping them finish as runners up in the Eastern Conference Northeast Division.

After the 2010 season, the custodian wasn’t kept on as a Phoenix player, and was given a two week trial period 21

by Shamrock Rovers that September.

Thompson was offered a contract, which he signed in December 2010, but the move wasn’t finalised until February 2011 after him receiving International Clearance. Alan Mannus was Michael O’Neill’s number one until his transfer to Scottish side Saint Johnston.

During his time with the Hoops, the goalkeeper became the first ever Jamaican to play Champions League football, when he played against Copenhagen in the Third Round.

Rovers lost the first leg 1-0 in Denmark, and 2-0 in Tallaght, qualifying them to the Play-Off round of the Europa League, where they played Partizan Belgrade.

Rovers drew the first leg 1-1 thanks to a late goal from Rovers legend Gary Twigg, and won the second leg 2-1 after extra time, meaning they were the first Irish club to qualify for European competition proper; the Jamacian made a very important first half side to prevent the Dubliners going 2-0 down in the first half. Thompson started the first game of the group stages against Russian side Rubin Kazan, who beat Spanish giants Barcelona the season before in the Champions League group stages.

Rovers may have lost the game 3-0 but goalkeeper Thompson saved a penalty from Nigerian international and current Seattle Sounders star Obafemi Martins.

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Thompson played another three games in the group after that. During his time with Rovers, he helped the club win the 2011 league title as well as the Setanta Cup. Despite all that he had achieved with the Dubliners, Thompson was released.

His next move was to Väsby United (now known as AFC United) in the Swedish Third Division, he played a total of six times for the club before moving back to America to play for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the NASL, he only managed one appearance for the Rowdies. At the moment, the Jamacian is currently back in the USL, playing for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, he’s played 8 games as of the time of writing for the club.

Thompson’s most recent adventures have been with his national team though. He was on the roster for both Jamaica’s Gold Cup and Copa America campaigns this year. While he may have only made a substitute appearance in the Gold Cup, in a 1-0 win over El Salvador, after Dwayne Miller had to be taken off with a head injury, he was part of the squad that progressed all the way to the final of the Gold Cup, knocking out the United States in the semi-final.

They may have lost the final 3-1 but it was certainly a tournament that will go down in the history of the Reggae Boyz.

HOMESTERS FALL TO “HANDS” Mícheál Ó hUanacháin looks back at a time when domestic soccer had its rightful place in the Irish media Apart from the style and the old-fashioned clichés (the headline above means the home team went behind when a penalty was awarded against them for hand-ball), one of the most surprising aspects of sports coverage in the newspapers a century ago, to us who are used to being blinded by page after page of tabloid English premiership, is the dominance of the domestic game in the parts of the sports pages reserved for “Association Football”.

Open any paper, and the coverage of weekend sports is impressive. Hockey, Rugby, GAA, Cricket, Racing – it’s every bit as comprehensive as anything you will get today. Except for foreign games, and by that I don’t mean what the GAA described as such. I mean games not in Ireland.

bottom of a column of mixed news including a Northern Cup tie, transfers, The Free State Qualifying Cup draw and other bits and pieces, with the following: “Glasgow Cup Final (replay) – Rangers, 4, Celtic, 0.”

Similarly, in the Freeman’s Journal (on 28 October 1907, to be precise), the corresponding fixture is stuck between Irish Junior League and Irish Junior Cup results in a parallel laconic manner: A little later in the same paper, in January 1913, the English League First Division is routinely reported simply as a series of ten results, at the bottom of a half-column of “Results at a glance”.

Freeman’s Journal,: A page of A real shock to the system, football (Jan 1913)

Papers varied, and some gave English results, and even brief reports, but they are clearly secondary.

On one notable occasion, at the foot of a column of Irish league and cup fixtures in the Independent in January 1912, is the single line “English Cup – Third Round – 32 matches”.

On another, in the same paper almost twenty years later, the old firm’s annual joust for the Scottish Cup is dismissed, again at the

however, is the outstanding coverage of Saturday matches in the Sunday Independent, in contrast to that paper’s current policy, which almost totally ignores the Irish game.

Illustrated is an edition from January 1923, when the FAI was still calling itself that before it backed down to the compromise Football Association of the Irish Free State in order to get into FIFA. True, the fledgling League shares space with an English results listing (but

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no reports) and Rugby news on this occasion, but what we would now call Intermediate and Junior competitions are also well covered.

A couple of years later, in October 1926, with more than five of seven columns devoted to Irish soccer, including brief reports on the Irish League, as well as the Free State League, and also the Leinster Senior League matches in both Divisions, but most notably, however briefly, the subsidiary league matches, right down to Metropolitan League, Junior Combination League and Juvenile League.

Few other papers indulged in the range of reports the Sunday paper carried at that time.

And in the early years, coverage can often be thrown onto an unrelated page: match reports can be found on page 13 – but the Junior Cup Draw is on page 4, and without any cross-reference, sandwiched between a report on the Bacon Trade and an advertisement for sale of greyhounds.

passing at times only to emphasise how well the team did in the circumstances.

But although reports are printed of the meetings of the disciplinary committess of the leagues, usually adjudicating on protests by one team against another, there’s little analysis of the game, and even less opinion is printed until much later on, into the 1950s and 1960s.

By that stage, too, the coverage of the English League had dramatically increased. I am tempted to suggest that the popularising of the new “Treble Chance” football pools system from 1946 on had something to do with that, though the pools had been in operation in England since the 1920s.

Newspaper coverage of the English game grew exponentially in a two-phase explosion, first in the late 1950s with the growth of television viewing in Ireland just before and after the establishment of RTÉ, and especially the Irish public’s access to the BBC’s new Grandstand programme, and secondly with the establishment of the FA Premier League in 1992 and the subsequent expansion of TV coverage to newcomer Sky and the BBC’s Match of the Day.

Some of the paper, and not all of the time, carry probable team lineouts, especially for the League matches, but they don’t appear to be Fixtures from the ‘Press’ (1934) particularly concerned with giving actual lineouts as part of their reports, and the times given for events during a match can be very approximate. We’re more As you rove around the earlier newspapers, fussy about that sort of thing now, and possibly though, little anomalies crop up. to no particularly positive effect.

The Cork Examiner (as it then was) appears Having to play some or even most of a game to have been a fundamentally “little Munster” below strength, if a player was injured, or (as in Little Englander) publication. Year sometimes even when a player (or players) after year it publishes national cup draws with didn’t turn up, was treated as a normal hazard, reference only to the Munster sections. Its relatively unremarkable, and mentioned in match reports rarely feature any fixture that

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doesn’t involve a Munster team, and in those early years when there were only a few teams in Munster (the Munster Senior League was largely played out between Army teams like the Royal Engineers (Camden), the Kings Royal Rifles and the Highland Light Infantry, and in the pre-First World War years it wasn’t alone in that – they were present in all competitions, but dominant in Munster), that meant their choice was severely limited.

And even more locally, sport was hardly on the radar before the 1920s. The Wicklow NewsLetter, Arklow Reporter & County Advertiser (1858-1926), and just as much the Bray Herald & Kingstown and Dalkey Advertiser (which ran under a number of slightly different titles between 1876 & 1927), were dominated by lengthy, sometimes verbatim, reports of meetings of the local councils, the Poor Law Union Boards of Guardians, the local courts and scandals if any.

Together with funerals, and pages of jokes and “interesting facts”.

not at all. In a November 1909 issue, you find hockey fixtures sandwiched between a report of the meeting of Rathdown Guardians and cases from Arklow Petty Sessions.

Eventually the News-Letter established a sports column, but even then the content was strikingly inconsistent. Having flagged a forthcoming match as a very important event for one of the Bray teams of the time, it quite often ignores the outcome entirely. It didn’t help, of course, that the results were a week old by the time the paper appeared.

The daily papers didn’t have that excuse. Even if they didn’t appear on Sunday (and the Sunday Independent acxcordingly had first dibs on the Saturday matches), the fact that the Times, the Freemans Journal and later the Irish Press gave such comprehensive fixture lists on Saturday’s led one to expect similarly complete results after the weekend. But not so.

The Journal was the best A January 1900 edition of the of them, though the daily News-Letter was completely Independent gradually took devoid of anything we would over that role, especially now consider news, and as for as its Sunday stablemate’s sport, well, that was surely enthusiasm began to wane beneath notice. A few years later in the century, with the later, the paper noted the exploits of the Irish adding a forthcoming Captain’s medal further level of interest in the ...and the ‘Independent’ (1928) competition in Greystones Golf English game.

Club, and the results of a St Stephens Day competition in Bray Golf Club, on separate All in all, the readers of a century ago had both pages. Hunt meetings, like Bray Harriers, more and less of what they might want in a always had a mention. paper. We may be frustrated today about the limited coverage of the League of Ireland and Even when sport became somewhat more other domestic competitions – but what we do regular, one never quite knew where to find it. get is much higher quality reporting than back Sometimes in “Wicklow Notes”, sometimes then, as when the Examiner’s reporter gushed as a separate item – and sometimes, if there that a particular match was a “fine exhibition of was anything else more worthy of the space, the code”.

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source: echo.ie

JAYO’S CATCHING UP

By Karl Reilly

The record holder for the most goals scored in the League of Ireland has admitted he is getting “a bit jittery” that his feat will be surpassed.

Former Finn Harps and Sligo Rovers player Brendan Bradley scored 235 goals in his LOI career and he paid tribute to the man second on the list – Jason Byrne.

“For him to score 200-odd goals, he’s done great, and deserves credit”, Bradley told BBC Radio Foyle. Byrne has found the net 217 times and recently moved from Bohemians to UCD, dropping down a division.

In an interview with The Sun in August 2014, when Byrne was 25 goals behind, he had said that it wasn’t really about the record any more. However, despite only scoring seven since then (once last season) the Dubliner seems to have changed his tune.

“Normally when I’m talking to players

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about signing they want to know about money or other things but with Jason absolutely what he wanted to talk about was playing and that record,” said UCD manager, Collie O’Neill at Byrne’s official unveling. “He really wants to beat it.”

The question is, will he do it?

O’Neill reckons his side missed a huge number of chances in games last season that Byrne would have scored. Byrne’s first team opportunities at Dalymount Park were limited thanks to the form of Ismahil Akinade but this year he’s the mature student on campus with Ryan Swan as his strike partner.

Bradley was 35 years old when he scored his last ever league goal, for Derry City in a 3-0 win over Cobh Ramblers at St Colman’s Park on 2 March 1986. Byrne is now 38.

Since he scored 18 goals at the age of 31 in 2009, when Bohs last won the title, only two 30 year olds have scored 15 goals or more in either division. Philly Gorman (31) scored 17 times for Athlone Town in 2013 and Philly Hughes (30) scored 20 for

Shelbourne in 2011.

The most goals scored in one season by a UCD player is 15 - Willie Doyle in the 2004 First Division and Ciaran Kilduff in the 2010 Premier Division - and those weren’t 28 game leagues either. It’s a big ask, and as you can see from the results of a poll I put up on Twitter, not many people believe he can catch Bradley.

There are some similarities between the two men as they have the same number of First Division goals (7), they’ve played for four different clubs in the same number of seasons (17), and both spent one season in England, although Bradley scored 12 times for Lincoln City in the 1972-73 season and his rival just once for Cardiff City in 2007.

It took the Derry native 14 seasons to reach the 200 goals mark; Byrne accomplished it in his 15th season. In all competitions for League of Ireland clubs, Bradley netted 307 goals including 22 in the FAI Cup and one Cup Winners’ Cup

strike in 1974. Byrne is on 276 overall, with 28 FAI Cup and 10 European goals.

Byrne has scored a league goal against 22 different league clubs with one new team for him to face this season (Cabinteely). He has scored in 23 different stadiums and is set to visit three grounds where he has never found the net - Market’s Field, St Colman’s Park and Stradbrook.

One man who might not be impressed

by Byrne adding to his tally against easier opposition at a lower level is Pat Morley, the third highest scorer of all time. Morley famously took to Twitter in 2013 in his belief that First Division goals shouldn’t count.

They obviously do, but what would really be a statto’s nightmare would be if Byrne finished level with Bradley or just one goal behind him, because one of his goals was expunged from the record in 2012 when Monaghan United withdrew from the league mid-season!

5 QUESTIONS FOR 2016

With the League of Ireland getting back underway DYLAN MURPHY has outlined some of the key questions we need to ask ourself after March 4th

WHAT WILL THE IMPACT OF THE CONROY REPORT BE? A decade ago, the Genesis Report was commissioned by the FAI to make improvements for the Eircom League which then sat in 40th place in UEFA’s rankings, today the League places at 41st and the FAI have release another report to cure our ails. The dust has now settled on the controversial Conroy Report which made many suggestions but will ultimately depend on the League of Ireland clubs’ support before anything can be implemented. Would the tweaking of the Premier Division back to 10 teams and the addition of a Europa League 28

play­off prove to be more than merely rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic?

HOW WILL DUNDALK COPE WITHOUT TALISMAN TOWELL? Last year’s top marksman has finally risen from our league to play for Championship side, Brighton. Robbie Benson and Patrick Mceleney from UCD and Derry respectively have been signed to fill the void left by Richie Towell’s departure but can they replace the 29 goals that the midfielder provided last season.

The bookies seem to think that the champions will still have enough to win the league and have instilled

the Town as 4/5 favourites to retain their trophy with Shamrock Rovers (3/1) and Cork City (4/1) next most likely to be crowned the best team in Ireland.

is for Dundalk who will again be unseededin the Champions League but will hope for an easier draw this year than Belarusian giants, BATE Borisov.

GROUND IMPROVEMENTS OR JUST PRE­-ELECTION GUFF?

RTÉ V LEAGUE OF IRELAND CLUBS.

One of the issues reference in the Conroy Report was the absence of adequate facilities throughout the League. Progress is expected this year with Dalymount and Finn Park; meanwhile, the all­too­familiar rhetoric heralding the start of work in the Brandywell has been given its annual airing, what remains to be seen is how much progress will actually be made this year and how much was merely pre­election verbiage?

WILL 2016 SEE EUROPEAN GLORY FOR IRISH SIDES? As we approach the 5 year anniversary

of Shamrock Rovers’ historic participation in the Europa League group stages it seems less and less likely an Irish team will emulate their achievements. With €2.5 million now guaranteed for any team who can accomplish this feat, European success undoubtedly has the potential to change the landscape of domestic football but after a largely disappointing year last time around, and with the Irish teams now all starting in the first qualifying round, the only realistic prospect of group stage participation

Last season RTÉ’s insistence to alter kick­off times of live broadcasted matches adversely impacted crowds and has left clubs demanding compensation for the damage done to their gate receipts. Shamrock Rovers even went as far as writing to RTÉ to ask them to refrain from showing their matches due to the impact it was having on match attendance. With tension between the national broadcaster and the League clubs at an unprecedented high towards the end of last year, it remains to be seen how this issue, which was referenced in the Conroy Report, will be prevented from happening again.

More welcome news on the issue of televised coverage of League of Ireland matches also came during the off­season when it was announced that every league match this season would be streamed online. Following from Niall Quinn’s assertions that the League can benefit from selling its TV rights overseas the FAI manufactured a deal with Austrian firm, Trackchamp, who will show every game to viewers outside of the country and provide each club with €10,000 per annum.

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