Doolo gone

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Originally posted by CollegeTillIDie
The second potential bit of good news is that Shamrock Rovers have now become homeless and may look to rent Belfield Park from the club. That would be another source of sheckles for the club coffers. Even of only for one or two games .

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No hope of that apparently, except for our game with them.

Incidentally, did we really lose that many players under Doolo? We have stemmed the leak of players to a decent degree in the last few years, which has led to a very successful last couple of seasons. Since Doolo took over, first-team players I can think of who've left are -

Clive Delaney to West Ham - any club in Ireland would have lost him to West Ham.
Barry Ryan to Scum - disappointing, but he was with us for seven years; can argue he wanted a new challenge.
Richie Purdy to Kildare - wasn't playing anyway; not a huge loss.
Robbie Doyle to Bohs - fell out with Doolo.
Barry Andrews to free transfer - wasn't playing.
Derek Swan - retired. Not a huge loss as he'd only have lasted until the end of that season anyway.
Greg O'Dowd - wasn't playing.
Ciarán Martyn - got a job in Derry. Was being played out of position by Doolo.

Anyone else?

In that list, really only Bazza was disappointing; the rest weren't regulars, fell out with Doolo or got offers too good to turn down. After finishing seventh in the league in Doolo's first season, we lost only Ciarán Martyn and yet were bottom of the table for 2/3rds of the season. It could be argues that Doolo had his chance with the arguably the best UCD team ever and, though we could have qualified for Europe if the season had been full-length and given the way we finished it, we didn't really come anywhere near to fulfilling our potential. Although I thought we were very unlucky in some games, surely not bringing out the best in a team is the manager's fault??

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Originally posted by Schumi
An ode to Doolo :D

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"Captain Doolin, won't you linger?"
His old crew wailed, confounded.
The Captain raised his middle finger,
Which left them all dumbfounded.

:) Great poem.

I heard that Doolo has taken Tommy Dunne with him to Drogs. That leaves him out of the reckoning.

Pete Mahon named UCD boss, good luck to him

http://www.fai.ie/NR/exeres/A456756B...CDFFE7EC37.htm

Pete Mahon and Eddie Wallace. It'll be interesting to see how Mahon does, he started very well with Bohs but they were hopeless for most of that season. He seems to have done well with Belgrove though.

At least it's not Roddy Collins!

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Originally posted by Schumi
At least it's not Roddy Collins!

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Amen to that!

Best choice I think - certainly a big name compares to some of the others being mentioned. Always tried to play football at Bohs and, although they had a nasty slump at one stage, there was a fair bit of bad luck involved - I remember one game against Rovers where they had 36 shots on goal, Rovers had one and Bohs lost 1-0!! He also got a lot of serious abuse from idiot Bohs fans, which can't have made the job any easier.

I reckon he's been told that his job is safe even if he takes us down and that we're not likely to lose too many of our first teamers if we do go down. We've a few decent youngsters in the U-21s, so with Mahon certainly having half a season with no pressure on, he could develop the team and the players into a very decent side.

Eddie Wallace is our old goalkeeping coach - don't know what he's been up to (might even have been with UCD all along, although I know Jody Byrne is our keepers' coach). He was joint manager for one game only - our 3-0 win over Rovers in 1999!

Just read that report on the FAI website - forgot he was the manager of the St. Francis side which got to the Cup Final in 1990! If anyone has any doubts about his ability, that should surely quench them! St. Francis played league teams all the way, I think - Cobh, Newcastlewest, Kilkenny (?) and Bohs before losing to John Ryan in the final.

Interesting article on soccercentral.

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Pete Mahon
I would not have left Belgrove for any other club.

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He sounds well up for it alright - could be around for a while, with some success too I'd say.

By the way Schumi - what happened to your managerial application? Did the board not believe you?!:D

Great appointments I have to say. Pete Mahon has been watching us regularly since Alan came to play for us in 1997
Eddie Wallace has been here before and knows the club and most of the players inside out. He was here from 1998 to 2000 when Martin Moran dispensed with his services as goalkeeper coach.

I was interested to see him referring to 1997/98. That was the first season we won a promotion/relegation playoff but we also won the old Reseve League of Ireland B Division by a street.

If we can make the playoffs this year and stay up via that route, I for one will have no complaints. However in order to do that we need to start winning away from home , starting this Friday. :D

I suppose we can't be too surprised that Doolin left. We wouldn't be getting many offers by the end of the season when UCD have been relegated. I think he'd lost interest with the job.

Wasn't Mahon the one who signed all those New Zealanders?

Doesn't sound too bad anyway, I would've like Gannon though.

UCD_4_Life

No that was Joe Mc Grath the Bohs manager before Roddy Collins!

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Originally posted by CollegeTillIDie

I was interested to see him referring to 1997/98. That was the first season we won a promotion/relegation playoff

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That't right. I had almost forgotten 'The Battle of Belfield'.

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Originally posted by CollegeTillIDie
UCD_4_Life

No that was Joe Mc Grath the Bohs manager before Roddy Collins!

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Oh, good.

I was scared there for a minute.