Originally Posted by
Emmet Malone
They may never entirely silence the critics, who tirelessly harp on about the club's lack of support, but by beating Derry in last Friday's FAI Cup quarter-final UCD provided another reminder of just what it is they bring to the table of Irish football.
It's only a couple of weeks since Pete Mahon's young side helped to keep the title race alive by beating Drogheda United away. By earning a place in the last four of the cup for the first time since winning the competition 23 years ago, they have now restored just a little bit of the magic that has been largely absent from the country's second-most-important competition in recent seasons.
Given the way in which the cup final, and the crowd it attracts, is used as a barometer of how the local game is performing, there will be those who hope that they fall at the next hurdle. Around Belfield, though, beating Derry will be viewed as evidence that a club of limited means but with almost boundless ambition really can elbow its way to the league's top table.
Currently the club operates on an annual turnover of just over €1500,000, with wages,including the management's, accounting for around 60 per cent of that figure. As you would expect from a club revealed a few months back to be the only one the PFAI have not pursued for its members' wages, that leaves them well placed to cope with the FAI's new financial regulations but, on the face of it at least, hopelessly adrift of where they would want to be in order to really compete for trophies.
"Well, you could argue that but we believe we can construct a model that will allow us to achieve success without moving dramatically away from what has made us distinctive in the past," says Brendan Dillon.
"We accept that it won't be easy but I don't think it's impossible either. If you look at the top four last year you might well have said they were getting away from everyone else and that no one would break into the group for at least a few years. Yet the next season, only Drogheda are still up there. Shelbourne are in the first division while Derry and Cork have both struggled to reproduce last year's form on a consistent basis.
"In effect, there is a pattern here of clubs enjoying a period of success and then entering a valley. We belief we can do things differently."
Funding is, of course, a significant issue and among the aims for the next three years are to double turnover and treble match-day income, with average attendances, they hope, reaching the 1,000 mark.
Still, their ability to use their unique array of resources in order to get much more out of their budget is what they see as potentially making the really big difference.
"Essentially the scholarship scheme has been the cornerstone of the club's success for years, but we've never got as much out of that or our links to the college or the facilities that we have as we could have and that has to change," says Keith Dignam, the club's chairman.
Dignam was himself the club's first scholarship student back in 1979 and went on to win the cup with the club in 1984 before joining Shamrock Rovers, where he won a double. A commerce degree, meanwhile, and a MBS put him on the road to a successful career in finance.
"Other clubs might offer young players a little more money than us," he says, "but what we are saying to them is that they can come here and have access to the best facilities in the country, benefit from a
highly developed support structure and probably get the opportunity to play at the highest level long before they would at other clubs.
"At the end of their studies they will then either be fantastic footballers capable of going on and playing in England or wherever with our blessing. Hopefully we'll get something back from having helped to develop them, so they can pursue a different career, while also playing football at a very high level here at home. I think it's a package that young players will view as very attractive."
In order to make it work, the club is intent on establishing an academy, which will start to play a part in the development of players long before they start working out their post-Leaving Cert options. The coaches will also play a central role in the club's plans to more fully immerse itself in the local community.
It is, among other things, this last goal that has helped to win substantial support from the college's authorities, who have provided substantial funding for the club's new home (from the start of next season) at the Belfield Bowl and help with the implementation of its other plans.
In the meantime, Mahon continues, by the way he has brought young players through (five have been involved with the Irish under-21s over the last 18 months), to prove an inspired appointment as the club's manager.
The steady progress made over the past few seasons in the league are the real measure of his achievement, but what a tale it would be if, after Friday's win, the former St Francis boss actually ended up topping his 1990 cup adventure.
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Students aim for a place at the top table
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