Hoops down and out
MARK O'NEILL-CUMMINS' EIRCOM LEAGUE FOCUS
Disaster has struck the most famous name in Irish soccer and from next season, Shamrock Rovers will be playing in the First Division of the eircom League.
It doesn't sound right does it?
'Shamrock Rovers' and 'First Division' just don't go together.
For the first time in their history, The Hoops have been relegated. But in reality, the risk of it happening has been there since the then owners of the club moved the side out of their former home at Glenmalure Park, Milltown.
I'm surprised relegation hasn't happened already.
It's thanks to the various management teams and board members since then that it hasn't.
Despite the events of the past week, you have to congratulate the 400 Club for keeping the club alive and kicking.
However, you also have to question the wisdom of suspending the manager ahead of the two most important games of the season, regardless of what he has done
It's important to remember that Rovers had a fine season and they wouldn't even be in this position if those eight points had not been deducted.
Why do the league punish off the field antics by deducting points? Thereby punishing the players who worked hard to earn those points.
Rovers now find themselves in the same position that Waterford, Limerick and Dundalk, amongst others, have been plunged into in recent times. Will they bounce back?
I hope they will and I think they will.
They will have a fighting chance if they can hold onto Trevor Molloy and Derek Treacy.
I thought they were outstanding this year.
There'll be no Dublin derbies and more traveling in the First Division.
They'll fancy their chances against the likes of Kilkenny City, Athlone Town and Monaghan United.
If Dublin City and Sligo Rovers can get out of that league, surely Rovers can.
At present, it looks like Roddy Collins will not be involved next season - but nothing ever seems to be definite with Rovers.
Personally, I would like to see Liam Buckley back in charge, backed up by true green and white heroes like, for example, Alan O'Neill and Noel Synnott.
The Tallaght situation needs to be sorted quickly. Rovers at present are just a name, a set of hooped jerseys, an illustrious history and super supporters.
But that's enough to build something special, again.
Life without Rovers, it makes no sense...it's a heartache...nothing but a fools game. S.R.F.C.
It's obvious from reading this piece of sh!t article that O'Neill is a Shams fan. He's trying to make us feel so sorry for them.
****ing gob****eOriginally Posted by sligoman
. Such a muppet, seriously. Such a stupid thing to say. The simple fact is, Shams lost to Dublin, so obviously they cant be that good and Rovers finished above Dublin in the league so what he's saying there is a ball of sh!te. I hope Shams rot in the FD just to annoy this cnut
Life without Rovers, it makes no sense...it's a heartache...nothing but a fools game. S.R.F.C.
Mark O Neill in fairness always writes a few decent pieces..so what if the guy is a Rovers fan...he has also wrote good pieces about lots of clubs in both leagues so credit where its due...Rovers have great history and tradition and that is why people come across like this..i honestly do not think he meant anything bad about your club whom also has a great tradition...just enjoy being back in the Premier...
Yes he does write some good articles, but in fairness he also comes out with a lot of sh!te too. I'm not criticising him for being a Shams fan, but to say that they've had a great season is crap(I'm sure most of their fans will agree?). Also, let him say what he wants about Shams but their was no need to come out with a sly comment about us and Dublin like that.
Life without Rovers, it makes no sense...it's a heartache...nothing but a fools game. S.R.F.C.
I must say they did not have that bad of a season considering what happened to them..they lost a massive eight points which would have kept them up...they have lost player after player and still nearly survived...and to end it all they had no manager for the most vital games of the season...
But to your point about what was said about Sligo and Dublin it does seem like a cheap shot...its now up to your club to prove this guy you are a decent team next season...
We had an *alright* season on the pitch given the circumstances..much to remember
The Model Club
Tell all the Bohs you know
that we've gone and won two-in-a-row
and it's not gonna be three
and it's not gonna be four
it's more likely to be 5-1.
Rovers had their worst season ever. Anyone who says different is deluding themselves
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
---
New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
As a club we had a bad season - you could easily say that last season was much worse because then we were not in control of our own destiny as we were this season.
On the pitch there were many many good moments with a lot of bad ones as normal.He is referring to on-the-pitch matters as far as I can interpret..It's important to remember that Rovers had a fine season and they wouldn't even be in this position if those eight points had not been deducted.
Off the top of my head:
Rovers 1-4 Finn Harps
Bohs 1-3 Rovers
Shels 1-2 Rovers with 9 men
Pats 3-1 Rovers (with a bit of help from Alan Kelly)
McCourt's goals against Bray and Sheridan's goal against Bray
Plenty of memorable moments on the pitch as ever.
The Model Club
Tell all the Bohs you know
that we've gone and won two-in-a-row
and it's not gonna be three
and it's not gonna be four
it's more likely to be 5-1.
Really??
Licence revoked,
8 points deducted,
Most points dropped to Finn Harps, (8)
Boss suspended 3 times
11 players dismissed
No less than 12 home defeats
Relegation by default to Home Farm
If that is not a bad season, I wonder what is????
NL 1st Division Champions 2006
NL Premier Division Champions 2010
NL Premier Division Champions 2011
Keep Tallaght Tidy, Throw your rubbish in the Jodi
Ten Years Not Out
Tell me Sligoman, when will your anti Rovers crusade end?
It's obvious from reading this piece of sh!t article that O'Neill is a Shams fan. He's trying to make us feel so sorry for them
****ing gob****e
i cant believe he said that
ya we got out,after 5 years...and we spent alot of money this year,we gambled..shams cant afford to do it..
they will rot in the 1st division...they wont be ready for it unless the get a new squad full of experienced 1st division players mixed with a bit of flair...
Yeah, obviously! The object of that piece there was to make you feel sorry for us, like every other pieces he writes...
get over your self!
Exactly! obsessed freak....
Last edited by Buller; 27/11/2005 at 11:49 AM.
Have a look at this one then sligoman:
I suppose your gonna tell me he's a rovers fan aswell?!!!Eamonn Sweeney
.....
I used to hate Shamrock Rovers. And I wasn't alone in this. In every town with a League of Ireland club Shams were public enemy number one. Long before ABUs were heard of, most followers of domestic soccer were ABSRs.
They were the team you loved to beat, largely because they were the team which usually beat you. In the 1960s, the great Hoops team of the time played my club Sligo Rovers.
Sligo missed an open goal in the first minute, Shams went on to win 7-0. After the game Liam Touhy, who I think had scored a hat-trick, was asked if the game might have turned out differently had Sligo scored that first chance. "It would have," he's reputed to have said, "we would have won 7-1." We chafed under their domination, resented what we saw as their arrogance.
So why am I not delighted this morning? Shams have been relegated for the first time in their history after losing a play-off to Dublin City.
I should have leaped from my bed and sang, "Can you hear the Shams boys sing? We can't hear a f***ing thing." But I didn't. Because the relegation of the one time kingpins of Irish soccer is just one more step in the horrible decline of a great club. We are all diminished by their failure.
Incidentally I must apologise for my use of the word 'Shams', which I know bugs the life out of the club's fans. But it's part of my culture, as far as I'm concerned there's only one Rovers. After all, who's the Premier Division club here? Sorry, a brief reversion to type there.
I was there the day the Hoops began their slide into oblivion. An outsider wouldn't have seen the doom clouds gathering on the horizon, the club were chasing a League and Cup double at the time, an assignment they successfully completed. But those of us who were at the FAI Cup semi-final between Sligo Rovers and Shamrock Rovers did have a feeling that a mighty era was coming to an end.
That was the day when Glenmalure Park, Milltown finally closed for business. Within a couple of years there were houses on what had been one of the great Irish sporting venues and Shamrock Rovers were forced to become football refugees, flitting from place to place like disinherited White Russians fleeing the October Revolution.
The heart and soul was ripped out of Shamrock Rovers that day and, though there have been moments of revival, it has been largely downhill since. The Hoops became just one more struggling League of Ireland team until, on Friday night, the extent of their decline was made horribly obvious.
The irony is that the team which played in that 1-1 draw back in 1986 was one of the finest to represent the club, one of the best the League has seen. Pat Byrne, Noel Larkin, Mick Byrne, Peter Eccles, Mick Neville, they were names to conjure with on the local scene. They had been brought to the club by the great Jim McLaughlin but, in that final season, they were managed by Dermot Keely, a fearsome centre-back in the Chopper Harris mould transformed into a boss of considerable substance.
That it was Keely who was at the helm of the Dublin City team which relegated Rovers (OK, I give in) is perhaps the unkindest cut of all. Keely was only at Dublin City because of his outrage at what happened last season when his old club poached Roddy Collins, then manager of City.
It was short-termism, it was cheap and it was nasty and Rovers did it in the name of staying in the top flight. How silly that reasoning looks now. Collins wasn't even in the dug-out for the play-off games; the club had suspended him.
Someone like Keely would have kept them up but Rovers are ace marksmen when it comes to shooting themselves in the foot. (They would have been safe had they not been deducted eight points for off the field irregularities, something which would normally elicit sympathy had it not seemed like just one more episode in the sorry saga.)
To see the Hoops ending up like this is akin to seeing a hero of your youth reduced to panhandling in a bus station. Because when they were good, no-one matched them for glamour and accomplishment in this country.
The six-in-a-row Cup-winning team of 60s set a record which will never be beaten. That team, of Touhy, Frank O'Neill, Johnny Fullam, Paddy Mulligan, Mick Leech and David Pugh, was good enough to come within a few minutes of a place in the Cup Winners Cup semi-final before a late Gerd Muller goal for Bayern Munich denied them.
The Johnny Giles experiment of the late 70s was not successful, but it's impossible to think of him at any other League of Ireland club. No-one else had the cachet.
It would be tempting to turn the decline and fall of the club into some kind of moral tale embodying a similar weakening of the league at large. But what must be most galling is that as Rovers have waned, other clubs have risen.
Once poor relations, Shelbourne and St Pat's, have made the opposite journey to their former superiors. But, try as they might, Shelbourne will never have the same magic about them as Shamrock Rovers. Money can't buy tradition. Tradition can, however, be tarnished by incompetence.
The spectre which has always haunted the big Dublin clubs is that of Drumcondra, the giant felled for good in the 60s. Shams look increasingly like Drums as the years go by (and not just because they're regularly beaten).
It took a considerable anti-talent to reduce them to their current state but the root cause of all their troubles is the move from Milltown. It's been sad to see them move from ground to ground, perpetual nomads.
You can almost hear that old Ewan McColl song about Travellers playing, the one with the chorus of, 'Get along, move along, go, move, shift.' It has been no way for a club to try and get by.
I remember back in 1994 when Sligo played Shams in a big cup tie in the RDS, the visiting fans eliciting a great deal of ire from the ostensible home support by singing, "You're **** and you have no ground."
The first part of the chant was unfair, the second undeniable. Whatever happens to Sligo, they always have The Showgrounds, as Dundalk have Oriel Park and Bohs have Dalymount. Pats spent a few years in exile in Harold's Cross but returned revitalised to Richmond Park.
But, nearly 20 years after being put out on the road, the one time kings are still wandering the highways and byways.
There are clubs which the Premier Division can do without, the likes of UCD, Bray Wanderers, Dublin City and Longford Town, who draw from the same pool of Dublin players and have little organic local support.
But it can't do without Shamrock Rovers. A home game against Shams was the biggest league match every season for Sligo, we've been robbed of that big day for the moment and so have the other clubs. That's a pity.
There may be tougher times to come for the faded aristocrats. Division One can be a bit like a crack habit, easy enough to fall into but pure hell to get out of. Next season, every club will be looking to take a scalp they can never have expected to be on offer, and it will take a good manager to motivate players for those trips to Kilkenny, Cobh and Monaghan.
Limerick and Athlone know just how hard it is to get out of the dead zone and the debilitating effect of a prolonged stay. The Premier Division won't be the same without those lads in the green and white jerseys strutting on to the pitch as if they were doing everyone else a favour by turning up.
Jimmy Dunne wore that jersey, so did Paddy Coad, Paddy Ambrose, Alan Campbell, Liam Buckley, Jacko McDonagh, Ray Treacy, it wasn't designed for trips to Monaghan and Cobh.
Rovers are at rock bottom now and the options are recovery or death.
I hope they recover. It amazes me, but I really do.
Last edited by Buller; 27/11/2005 at 12:05 PM.
Was fine up until this point - suddenly lost all respect for the guy. UCD draw from the same pool of players as the rest of the Dublin clubs? Get real. Bray's support is all local and why not mention Drogs at the same time?There are clubs which the Premier Division can do without, the likes of UCD, Bray Wanderers, Dublin City and Longford Town, who draw from the same pool of Dublin players and have little organic local support.
Foot.ie's entire existence is predicated on the average idiot's inability to ignore other idiots
What the fcuk are ye talking about? I rarely post things that are against Shams ye fools! Maybe your both thinking of someone else?
Life without Rovers, it makes no sense...it's a heartache...nothing but a fools game. S.R.F.C.
Wheres that Eamon Sweeney piece from?
Actually, he is.
.
Life without Rovers, it makes no sense...it's a heartache...nothing but a fools game. S.R.F.C.
irish examiner, I'd imagine. A regular columnist with them.
Today's Sunday Independent.
The only thing standing between every eL club and oblivion is its current set of supporters. Beyond that there is no loyalty in this country. Shamorock Rovers are no different and no more special than any other club playing on this island. All the talk of 15 league and 24 cups doesn't count for shíte when it comes to basic survival. Every club is teetering on the brink of extinction because Irish football is not what the masses care about. If history came into play, Shamrock Rovers would have been playing before sold out crowds in their newly refurbished 3-tiered stadium. As it is, they've struggled through the last few seasons at Tolka, Santry, Richmond and Dalyer cheered on by only a handful of dedicated souls - generally fewer and fewer souls each season. There is a huge gap between romance and reality, and Rovers' relegation is a double helping of bitter reality that can't be sweetened by any amount of decorative romantic icing.
Rovers have gone down and it's not going to be easy for them next term. Their crowds will dwindle further as next season progresses, revenue will decrease, interest will slide and before long they will be like any other 1st Division team. It will not be like Manchester United's or Chelsea's years in the lower leagues. There is no caring public to rally round behind them and follow them in their thousands up and down the country. There will be no significant difference between Rovers and the likes of Dundalk (another club with an illustrious history which doesn't double up as a safety net). For all their talk about Rovers BEING Irish football, Ireland doesn't particularly care any more. Rovers will have to compete on the same stage as every other 1st Division club and promotion will be decided on points earned, not teary eyed reminiscences and ballad sessions.
It wasn't too long ago that we at Bohs hoped to dominate Irish football Prior to that it was Pat's. Then came Shels, and now Cork City are the invincible champions set to rule for all eternity. Many of us still remember crowds of 400 turning up to Bishopstown to see City struggle through the muck and fog - that was rock bottom for the Leesiders and in realistic terms they're not too far above that now. A few bad decisions, a couple of bad seasons, a change of heart from Brian Lennox, relegation for City and we would soon see the mighty "rebel army" forgetting to go to Turner's Cross in their thousands. No one is above implosion in the eircom League.
This is the sorry reality of football in Ireland. On a terrace level I'm laughing myself to sleep and waking up laughing at Rovers' misfortune (I'd expect the same from them if the situation were reversed). On a rational level I know it could well be Bohs' turn next year and nothing will save us if the reaper comes a knocking.
Posting Permissions
Quote
Bookmarks