Club History @dlooney
Dermot Looney
1942/43: “A Riot of Dance And Fun” amidst The Emergency Three full years into World War II, the administration of football in Ireland was becoming increasingly tougher. FAI Committee minutes from the time show difficulties on and off the pitch. In the close season, the finances of the Leinster FA, who governed the Leinster League in which Pat’s competed, were said to be at their lowest ever point. The FAI had to assist them with a £100 overdraft. Meanwhile, there were reports of extraordinary meetings in Sligo and Limerick about the perilous state of football in those counties. Many players at all levels were involved in the defences forces or had emigrated, while restrictions on fuel and travel during the Emergency, as the period of World War II was euphemistically called in Ireland, caused difficulties for teams. These restrictions were raised at one FAI Junior Committee meeting in early 1942 by one Mr RW Neville – the same Dick Neville who had founded the original St Patrick’s FC in Inchicore in 1898. The League of Ireland, won this season by the short-lived Cork United, struggled on valiantly. Before the war, twelve teams
44
had taken part, but this was reduced to eleven in 1940-41 and ten in 41/42. This number would fall to eight for the 1943/44 season. Junior football was being hit just as hard by the restrictions and rationing. Its blue riband, the FAI Junior Cup, was the source of much contention. On July 14th, the FAI Junior Committee agreed to go ahead with the running of the 1942-43 FAI Junior Cup despite the difficulties. But by September, there were again calls for the Committee to drop the competition. The Junior Cup eventually kicked off in January with St Pat’s, who had lifted the trophy two seasons previously, beating Pioneers 7-1 with five goals from McCarthy. The second round saw another comfortable win, this time against League rivals Midland Athletic on a 4-0 scoreline. At some stage, however, the competition itself changed, being rebranded “the FAI Area Cup,” with localised sections for different parts of the country. Restrictions on fuel and travel no doubt impacted on the previously-nationwide nature of the competition. St Pat’s were
placed in the Dublin and Louth Area competition. The Saints progressed through the following round with a bye and, in the quarter-finals, defeated the B team of Bray Unknowns, whose A team was competing in their final ever League of Ireland season. The semi-final saw Pat’s take on old rivals Mountpleasant, defeating them 2-0. The Athletic met Home Farm in the final on Sunday May 16th at Tolka Park. “Each holds high reputations in junior football,” wrote ‘Socaro’ in the Irish Press, “and the match should be well-worthy of patronage.” The cost of such was, as it had been for the semi-final, either 6d or 1 shilling. The final finished in a 1-1 draw, with Brogan the Saints’ scorer after 25 minutes despite Home Farm’s strong start. “It came as a surprise,” wrote the junior football correspondent for the Herald “when McCarthy dashed through to snatch the equaliser in the 85th minute.” He noted good performances from Murphy, Delamere, Mullally, Dolan and Brogan for St Pat’s, but they were beaten 30 by Home Farm in the replay the following Friday.
2021 Season • Vol. 33 • No.04 • St Patrick’s Athletic v Longford Town
Pat’s ended their 42/43 Leinster Junior Cup campaign in the third round with defeat by Queen’s Park, and they failed to defend their Johnson Cup title, being knocked out in the second round by Ierne. Coverage of the Saints’ League campaign in Leinster League Division II was sporadic in the wartime newspapers, which concentrated their rationed inches of newsprint on battles in Leningrad and Stalingrad rather than Richmond Park. St Pat’s squared up against familiar foes including Bohemians C, Midland Athletic, St Paul’s, Queen’s Park, GSR, Harmerne, Hammond Lane, Ierne, Drogheda Utd and Bradmola, along with newcomers Portobello. Pat’s had another decent League campaign, with players such as Brogan, McCarthy, Crowley, Keogh and Mullen regularly hitting the net. Bradmola ran out League winners with Pat’s finishing joint second with Drogheda United. The two faced
each other in a “test match” at the start of the following season for runners-up medals. This match took place in the neutral venue of Tolka Park on August 29th, with Drogheda winning 21. ‘Centre-Half,’ writing in the Drogheda Independent, noted that “both sets of forwards missed from close range repeatedly.” Off the field, the club continued to be ambitious, organising fundraisers and club events as it
would do throughout the war years and into the late forties. A St Patrick’s Athletic annual dance took place on May 28th at the Phoenix Ballroom, with entertainment from the Selma Follies Band with Johnny Keyes. Admission was 2 shillings. “A riot of fun and dance guaranteed” went the ad in the papers, and a cycle park was provided for those travelling by bike. The club also helped raise funds for other causes. Pat’s took part in a charity 5-a-side tournament in the off-season in August at the GSR Grounds in Inchicore, with rivals such as Harmerne, Rossville, Home Farm and some GSR and army teams involved in the fundraising for the “Children of Mary Oratory Reconstruction Fund, Goldenbridge.”
Season Statistics League position: 3rd (after losing runners-up play-off). Cup record:
2021 Season • Vol. 33 • No.04 • St Patrick’s Athletic v Longford Town
FAI Area Cup Runners-Up, Johnson Cup 2R, Leinster Junior Cup 3R
45
