After 22 tortuous years of being homeless, I've been there for 13, for Shamrock Rovers Football Club (Cumann Peile Ruagairi na Seamróige), this Friday the 13th has all but good omens. They are Ireland's most successful club amassing 15 league titles and 24 cups since their foundation in 1901. For just over six decades, Rovers delighted crowds at Glenmalure Park in Miltown on the southside of Dublin (from 1926 to 1987). In the fateful year of '87, the Club's owners the Kilcoyne family controversially sold off Rovers' spiritual home to property developers and since then the famous green and white hoops have been on the road in adopted 'home' stadiums of the RDS, the 'Santry Siro', Dalymount Park (Bohemians), Richmond Park (St Patrick's Athletic) and Tolka Park (Shelbourne).
During the 1930s Rovers enjoyed crowds of up to 30,000 in Milltown. Now regrettably attendances in the League of Ireland have dramatically fallen off. The advent of Sky and the Premiership has not helped as they continue to suck up the potential Irish fan base and the younger audiences, not to mention the English clubs draining the Irish pool of playing talent. Regrettably the vast majority of Ireland's footballing public seem to have more affinity with Manchester United, Liverpool or Arsenal then with their local club down the road. It's easy to be a 'barstooler' but any footballing fan worth their salt should have no qualms in travelling he 155 miles from Dublin to a blustery Ballybofey to watch their team scrape a draw on a cold Friday night against Finn Harps! This is what real football is about, the highs (Roll on Friday!) and the lows (f**k you Kilcoyne and co). You can't really be a 'fan' if you're just drip fed success on Match of the Day or Sky down the pub. Paying extortionate amounts each year to travel across the pond to a couple of games won't qualify you in my book either.
In 1987, a fateful and emotive year in Rovers' proud history, Louis Kilcoyne, who with his two brothers purchased the club primarily for business purposes seeking personal financial gain, announced that Glenmalure Park was to be sold. This caused outrage among the Rovers faithful and fans called for a boycott of Rover's home games.
With the ground and the club itself sold off, Rover's enjoyed brief success (a league title in 1994) amidst a sea of defeat and misfortune. In the mid-90s nascent plans for a stadium to be built in Tallaght were mooted. Planning permission was indeed granted but what followed were years of local and organisational objections, lack of funds, contractor and chairman corruption, failed promises, legal battles and broken deals. The long suffering Rovers fans were dismayed and their dream of a new stadium in Tallaght seemed unreachable.
In 2005 the club went into examinership facing massive debts. The 400 club, set up and run by loyal Rovers fans bankrolled the club during this period. An incompetent chairman was replaced by true Rovers people but the club suffered further, first points deductions then relegation, the first time in Rovers illustrious history. The 400 club successfully took control of the club and have since radically transformed the Hoops fortunes. In 2006 they came straight back up to the Premier Division after a long season in Division One, winning that league. The 'glamour' trips to Station Road in Kildare really tested the metal of most fans, but true to form the loyal ones stayed.
After a two year dispute with local GAA club Thomas Davis, who wanted use of the Rovers stadium, building finally recommenced and the Tallaght stadium became a reality. Shamrock Rovers are a truly unique club being run by and financed by their fans. This commendable achievement is rare in today's football of commercialism, greed and lack of loyalty. After years of the half-shell of a stadium providing an eyesore in Tallaght, Rovers, so long homeless, but kept going by their truly great fans, now have a place to call home.
Coiméad ag Hoopáil!!
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