11Sept20-Sligo Rovers-FINAL_A5 11/09/2020 16:08 Page 21
The 1960’s Dermot Looney @dlooney
The Rise Halted Now back installed at Richmond Park, Pat’s began the decade successfully. 1960-61 saw the Saints finish as runners-up in the League, finishing just a point behind Drumcondra. In April, Pat’s lifted the FAI Cup for the second time with a 2-1 win over the League champs in the final at Dalymount Park thanks to goals from White and Peyton. Little did the celebrating fans know that this would be the last major trophy for the club for some 29 years. Nor did they realise that this would be the beginning of an FAI Cup hoodoo which lasted an extraordinary 53 years. That Cup win enabled the Saints to enter European football for the first time in 1961-62, becoming Ireland’s first ever entrants in the European Cup Winners Cup with a first round draw against Dunfermline Athletic of Scotland. The first leg in East Den Park saw a 4-1 defeat, with Ginger O’Rourke netting Pat’s historic first goal in Europe. Dunfermline won the return leg at Dalymount on a 4-0 scoreline.
Mid-table mediocrity loomed for the Saints during the rest of the sixties despite efforts of players such as Tommy Dunne, who spent ten years at the club from the mid-fifties, Ronnie Whelan Snr, Noel Bates and brothers Noel and Johnny Campbell. Noel Campbell scored 26 goals in 87 League appearances for the Saints, earning a full Irish cap at the end of his time at the club and a transfer to Fortuna Köln, where he spent eight seasons. A rare final appearance took place in the Leinster Senior Cup in 1963-64, in which the Saints were defeated by Shamrock Rovers. In 1966-67 Pat’s reached a fourth FAI Cup final, but were beaten by Shamrock Rovers on a 3-2 scoreline. The Saints also finished as runners-up in the Shield that season. Pat’s second European encounter was against Girondins de Bordeaux in the 1967-68 Inter-Cities Fair Cup, a precursor to the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League). The tie finished in a 9-4 aggregate win for the French side, with Pat’s
netting one at home in Dalymount and three away in the Stade Municipal. The role of manager became more and more important as the sixties rolled on, with the old Selection Committees consigned to the dustbin of history. There was a hint of the League of Ireland managerial merry-go-round even then. Pat’s bosses during the decade included player-manager Shay Keogh, once of the famous Coad’s Colts Shamrock Rovers side, Englishman George Lax, who had twice managed Bohemians and Gerry Doyle, who had a long association with Shelbourne. Peter Farrell, a playing star of the 40’s and 50’s with Shamrock Rovers, Everton and Ireland took charge in September 1967 but was gone by March. His successor was Scotsman John Colrain, famously associated with Glentoran and the Detroit Cougars experiment, who was player manager until 1971.
Honours FAI Cup (1960-61)
2020 Season • Vol. 32 • No. 5 • St Patrick’s Athletic v SLIGO Rovers
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