Pat Dolan

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From yesterdays Sunday Independent (courtesey of GUFCT)

New place, same passion



LIFE as a child of Irish parents in an alien environment shaped the destiny of Londoner Pat Dolan. Conscious of the difference between himself and the other children at school and on his street, Dolan became a rebel, or, if you prefer, a non-conformist. At times he seemed to seek out opportunities to highlight his Irishness.

His father, Vincent, was "of hurling stock" from Ardrahan, so while the other children supported Arsenal or Spurs or West Ham, he always said he supported Galway hurlers. As an Irish Catholic, at King Edward VI Grammar School, he refused to say the Protestant Our Father at morning assembly or to stand for the British National Anthem. During the Falklands War, he even led a campaign in favour of the Malvinas Islands after seeing a fellow student wearing a 'Bomb the Argies' badge.

What spared him the aggravation which one might expect to follow from this behaviour was, first of all, the sporting prowess of himself and twin brother Eamonn, and secondly, the essential decency of the British, which enabled him to debate the issues afterwards.

On the Malvinas issue, he still recalls with delight: "I got a history professor to agree with me that if you took a pound from me, people will say it's your pound, but when can it ever really be your pound when you know that you have stolen it." Not surprisingly, one school report stated: "Pat is destined to be a trade union leader or a great politician."

It was their sporting prowess that really set the Dolans apart and that didn't just stop at soccer; it extended to cricket and rugby. Pat remembers opening the innings and knocking up a big score unbeaten to win an Essex County U14 final, while Eamonn recalled that Pat, in another match, twice bowled out future England captain Nasser Hussain, then regarded as the best young cricketer in the country.

The major influence on Pat's life was undoubtedly his father. From him he inherited his love of Ireland and things Irish, and his antipathy towards England.

"My father told me of the signs 'No blacks, no Irish, no dogs' which were on the rooms to let when he first came over in the 1950s. It was a different world.

"We were anti-England supporters - Republican in a controlled way - but really it stemmed from the insecurity of not being where you belong.

"We used spend the summer holidays in Donegal (with Pat's mother's people) and it was a relief for me to find that everyone went to Mass and that it wasn't cissy being an altar boy. That was important for me because I was searching for my identity. There was no love for England in my home, but I don't regret that.

"What had a huge impact on me was how hard it was for my father. He was an engineer, but there was no work for him in Ireland. He hated his job, but he did it to provide for his family.

"The sense of frustration he felt influenced me greatly. So I decided that I wanted to be involved in football. That was going to be my life, my career. And then, when I got involved in Irish football, I discovered it was the last industry where we are still exporting our people. We're so lazy and incompetent that we don't protect our kids." And he seems to have set as his goal in life to turn the tide in this area.

It didn't take the scouts long to flock to the Dolan household. Pat alerted them with a 10-goal spree for Titan United's U10s when he was eight. He was a central midfielder back then and Charlton Athletic were first to take note.

The Dolans did the tour - first Charlton, then West Ham, followed by weekends at Arsenal's training ground in London Colney and Tottenham, a week at Aston Villa, another week at Reading University for Crystal Palace. Pat wanted to sign for Palace because Terry Venables was there, they were the so-called team of the '80s, they had the glamour and Venables' coaching session made a big impression.

However, when it came to signing schoolboy forms, their father decided that West Ham was the best place for his boys. After breaking an arm and then a leg, which wasn't diagnosed properly at first, Pat decided the Hammers were not for him, and switched to Arsenal. It was the move he wanted.


FROM GREAT TO MAYBE
FROM the first time he visited Highbury, Pat regarded it as "the home of football", with its marble halls and heated dressing-room floors. And they also knew how to treat their apprentices.

"Unlike other clubs, we never did jobs or cleaning and all our kit was laid out for us. The day before the game was the one day we were asked to do anything other than train and play football and we were rewarded with a meal of fish and chips.

"As captain of the youth team I got the choice of jobs on Friday and that was to clean the manager's office, which was always spick and span anyway. So I got to talk to Don Howe about football and he got me interested in coaching.

"I did my first FA badge at 17 with Nicky Hammond, who is now Director of Football at Reading. We had to lie about our age because we were supposed to be 18. Pat Rice, who was the youth coach, said that if we got the badge we could coach the U16s. It was a learning experience.

"I was the first of my age group to play for the reserves. It was at Brighton, I marked Frank Worthington and had an excellent game. The next game was against Aston Villa at Highbury and I broke my leg in a tackle by Tony Daley. It was a bad time to break your leg because you lose your pace, and in the culture of that time it was all about pace.

"I wasn't one of those players who had to have first team football. I just felt lucky and privileged to be at Arsenal. But George Graham took over as manager and suddenly I'm at Walsall. I still don't know how I ended up there.

"After Arsenal, something died in me from a playing perspective. You feel you have failed. I knew that I wanted to play for Arsenal, I felt at home there and I don't like to fail - fear of failure drives you on.

"In three consecutive seasons I lost half a season through injury and I went from being thought a great player to a maybe player. I just wasn't strong enough mentally to make the right choices.

"I loved football but found the training tough. I was very dedicated but didn't know enough about nutrition and the science of the body. If I knew then what I know now I would possibly still be playing. So I can empathise with young players who feel they have failed."


NATIONAL PRIDE
IN Pat Dolan's view there is one prime reason for playing football - and that is to play for your country. "Pulling on the jersey and standing to attention for the National Anthem - that's what you dream about. That's the reality that never goes out of fashion. No matter what people say about winning the Premiership or the Champions' League, playing for your country is still the ultimate goal of every young footballer."

For the Dolans, there was the choice - England or Ireland. "We were picked on an England youth squad, but we went to Belfield instead in a yellow Transit van - it was like a Roddy Doyle movie."

Pat, who is a cinema buff, later described the Irish youth scene as "like a carry-on movie compared to the world I'd come from. From five star hotels with Arsenal to minus one star. One night they were short of a room and put Terry Phelan in a hostel. My first game was against the Welsh Schools at Turner's Cross and the pitch was diabolical. There was lovely green grass on top, but it was rutted and dangerous. That was the re-opening of Turner's Cross and it's amazing to think I'm now the manager here."

And then there were the cars. "In Arsenal you'd get a lift from a player and the car would be a Porsche or a Mercedes or a Jaguar, but I remember one time getting a lift from Brian Kerr and there was cardboard on the floor, and Brian said: 'Don't put your foot there'.

"The Irish set-up was a paradox. Liam Tuohy's team talks were better than those at Arsenal. I couldn't make sense of it. There was a brightness about the training sessions and a brightness about the intellect that wasn't in Britain where everyone was scared to challenge the tactic of lumping the ball forward."

One of the defining moments of his career was the bollocking he received from Tuohy when he played the Arsenal way, which was to hoof the ball down the right or left channels. Tuohy told him to cop himself on and to stop giving the ball away.

"I probably under-estimated what I was encountering. Coming from Arsenal, I felt I was going to influence these people but it was the reverse - they influenced me more than my time in Arsenal. They were good times too, being part of the first Irish team to play in the World Cup."

Tuohy's Tots, as they became known, packed Tolka Park as soccer fans, starved of success, realised that here was a team worth supporting. The big night, of course, was the 1-0 defeat of England. "Even though I was only a sub, that night the feeling on the pitch was one of the highlights of my career. It was a wonderful, wonderful occasion. And I remember going back to Arsenal with Niall Quinn the next day and that was the most enjoyable day I had there. The pride of beating England - it was a fabulous feeling."

And when they qualified for the World Cup finals, Dolan, delayed at Highbury, had to make the trip to Georgia in the Soviet Union on his own. It was some achievement for an 18-year-old.

There was always fun to be had when the Tuohy-Kerr-O'Reilly triumvirate was in charge, even if the football was serious. In Tbilisi, Dolan teamed up with O'Reilly to introduce the Georgians, who couldn't speak a word of English, to imaginary cricket.

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They played in the square in front oF the Intourist Hotel and so involved did the locals become that the crowds would part when the imaginary ball was hit and the fielder ran to catch it, and, on one occasion, someone actually leaned out of a third floor window of the hotel - prompted by the Irish lads - and caught the 'ball' to a round of applause.

"They were young lads with a lot of time on their hands," explained O'Reilly, "so we had to invent diversions to keep them from getting bored, and Pat was very good at that."

The end, when it came, was sad and sudden. Pat was captain of the team that night in Sheffield when Jack Charlton walked in at half-time and took over.

Tuohy, who had been giving his services gratis, felt he had no option but to resign. It was the end of an era.

"You can argue that Jack was ignorant," says Pat, "but it was the FAI people, who had got all the trips thanks to Liam Tuohy. They could have done more."

When Charlton selected Pat for the U21s the following year, another side to the manager was revealed. "On that trip to Belgium, Jack won my respect because he sat down beside me and said, 'you've got your hands full tonight - one is a full international and one has just been sold to Bruges for a big sum, but you'll do fine because you're a good player. Just give yourself a yard and give him a rattle early on 'cos the continentals don't like it up 'em.' It might sound crude but it worked.

"I didn't want to like Jack because of Tuohy, but the bottom line is that his team put us on the map as a nation, but without Liam Tuohy none of it would have happened because his success made the Association ambitious to be more than a third world soccer nation."

And so Pat's career with Ireland finished with just one regret: "That I didn't get a full international cap because I know under Jack I was close. He liked me and he told me to get into the first team (at Walsall). That's the only regret."


KERR'S BEST SIGNING
THE lure of Ireland was so great for Pat that, after Walsall, he signed for St Patrick's Athletic before moving on to Galway United and then Shamrock Rovers where he was on the losing side (ironically to Galway) in the 1991 Cup final.

He was having problems controlling his weight, but Brian Kerr still re-signed him at St Pat's where he became, in the view of one great clubman, "Kerr's best ever signing." Dolan's merits, however, lessened in the playing sense as they increased in his ability to maximise commercial opportunities.

At that time, Pat's had just been hauled from the brink of liquidation and were in need of the financial nous, vision and amazing energy levels which Dolan devoted to a club which he came to regard as family.

"Brian and I probably have a strange and complex relationship," says Dolan. "He gave me the passion for Pat's and I always felt responsible for delivering on that, but if he wanted a player for an international from Pat's I'd say 'how can you?' and he'd say 'how is it that you are the only one who gives me trouble?'

"I remember the first team talk he ever gave. We were playing Waterford. From my time with the youths I saw him as a lovely jovial guy who would help old ladies cross the road, but his team talk would nearly bring tears to your eyes. We lost 2-1 and afterwards in the Emmet House we had this tremendous party, and I said to myself, 'what's it going to be like when we win?'

"When he left it created problems for nobody except myself. I can see now that it was crucial that he took that job, but I wanted to work with him forever."

Kerr had run the football side of Pat's, while Dolan contributed to keeping the whole operation afloat with his money-making schemes. To the surprise of quite a number of people, chairman Tim O'Flaherty chose Dolan as successor to Kerr. "I remember driving down to Cork for Brian's last match, and Tim saying 'I have a plan - next week you're going to be manager'."

In his new role, Dolan found his true forte, but it was one which he had prepared for. "As a boy, the managers were my heroes, especially Bill Shankly - I cried when he died, I couldn't believe it. I never knew Stan Cullis or Bill Nicholson, but I grew up on their stories.

"I have this tape which I play again and again, and it's Shankly speaking. One day I will set out to collect everything he ever wrote and everything on tape and video about him. I would love to get to the bottom of what happened him after he left Liverpool."

Dolan used all his managerial wiles when Pat's drew Celtic in the Champions' League, with the first leg away. In an interview with The Scotsman, he spoke about how it was an end of season trip for the lads, they were all Celtic fans, and they were looking forward to sampling the night life in Glasgow. He also asked Celtic to leave some beer in the dressing-room so the players could enjoy themselves. The said beer was poured down the sink.

"It was our best chance ever of making the Champions' League proper," Dolan recalls. "With a midfield of Eddie Gormley, Martin Russell and Paul Osam, all we lacked was a cutting edge up front. I said at half-time 'we will get one chance and we've got to take it.' We did, but we didn't." It was still an honourable 0-0 draw, but the decision to allow Celtic fans practically unlimited access to the second leg in Tolka Park infuriated Dolan.

"It should have been a Celtic-free zone. Instead, when our players came out they saw a crowd full of Celtic jerseys." Celtic won 2-0, but at a dinner Dolan found himself seated beside Celtic chairman Fergus McCann, who was boasting about his players' fitness levels. "I asked him to show me the dossier on their fitness levels - and discovered that our players were fitter."

'It should have been a Celtic-free zone. Instead, when our players came out they saw a crowd full of Celtic jerseys'

With so much on his plate, Dolan decided to move upstairs and handed the reins to Liam Buckley, who guided the team to a second successive League title. However, when results started to go against Buckley, Dolan was induced to take over again.

Success was achieved again in the 2001-2 season, but was denied the club in the Council rooms when points were deducted due to registration problems, with the title awarded to Shelbourne. It is an episode which dogs Dolan to this day.

"Tim O'Flaherty was the wisest man I know, but I disagreed with the way the club handled that business and he obviously knew that. In the office one day we had a little bust-up - I disagreed with his strategy - so he walked away and I haven't seen him since that day. That had a huge bearing on my decision to leave St Pat's."

Cork City were first to sense that all was not well in the Pat's camp and their overtures proved successful in luring Dolan to the southern capital. Now a big fish in a smaller pond, he didn't waste any time in proving his worth, leading the team to a place in the Inter-Toto Cup in his first season.


FUTURE FIGHTS
ALTHOUGH it's a sought-after prize, Dolan doesn't see European participation as particularly significant for Irish clubs. "We can only do better," he reasons, "when we increase the financial turnover of our clubs. The team that wins the Champions' League is usually in the top five of clubs; in the Premiership in the top three in turnover. But there are some surprises.

"We can punch above our weight. We beat teams at Pat's which had turnover ten times ours (Rijeka) and Ghent had 50 times, so what's Manchester United's? Roy Keane's wages are ten times our wage bill in Cork.

"Failure in Europe is more complex. For instance, we can't get a pitch to train on. Imagine Alex Ferguson saying to Roy Keane 'can you make it to training, but we don't know where we're training yet?' It's a massive problem and one I like to think we cracked at Pat's.

"We have probably caught up to every Scottish Premier team bar Celtic and Rangers, and we can get a team in the Champions' League proper, but it's still a long way off. Let's plan to win, but not just weeks before the game.

"In my view, every club should have at least 20 acres of training facilities - you can't be a proper club without that. But then the clubs are under so much pressure to pay the wages.

"This country owes soccer a debt. The different sports are competing with each other like a beauty contest, but nothing has penetrated like soccer has - bringing the people out on the street and being relevant to so many young people. The Government's attitude to sport is an absolute disgrace, but we let them get away with it."

So, what does the future hold for Pat Dolan? His twin brother Eamonn has a vision. At present manager of Exeter City, who are fighting to regain their League status, Eamonn has shown signs of being a more than capable manager himself.

"Together we'd be a very good team," Eamonn says. "His strengths and weaknesses would complement mine. We're so close we know that at some stage we want to give it a go together. I'm looking forward to that day."

Pat doesn't disagree, but in all probability, if they are to get together it will be with an English club, completing the circle for Pat. When that day comes, Ireland's loss will be England's gain.

Seán Ryan