Part-Time Progress Or Full-Time Fiasco?

by Brian Kennedy

(first published in the August 2010 Shelbourne match programme)

A couple of weeks ago I found myself in Dalymount Park watching that most refreshing of pastimes – a pre-season friendly (I say this as I can do without the stress League & Cup football brings me, my family and my ever-greying head of hair). I was there as my brother is an Aston Villa fan but also to see my friend Glen Cronin, ex-Exeter City player and midfield dynamo for the Gypsies.
He was the main reason for being there.

I couldn’t wait to slag him off!

Bohemians’ result against Welsh club TNS was one of the most dreadful results in League of Ireland history and I’m glad manager Pat Fenlon called it that way even though the buck basically stops with him. The players let themselves, the fans and country down. Whatever rivalries we have with Dublin clubs, everyone wants to see an Irish club do well in Europe whenever they play there. But as much as I ribbed Mr Cronin the overriding emotion was one of sadness. A sadness at how well and how far we’d come as a predominantly part-time sport only to have a result like this knock every League of Ireland fan back on their asses.

Ireland ten years ago was ranked 49th of 53 teams in UEFA’s jurisdiction; it’s now 28th, so nobody can say that summer soccer hasn’t been good for the sport. Sure it’s a baby step process and cynical people still think a scoreless draw at home to Deportivo for Shels a few seasons back is the “flash in the pan” result any League could produce. Put simply only once in the last eight years have we failed to produce at least one result in Europe (OK AC Milan aren’t going to be shaking at the thought of playing Mervue United in the near future but nevertheless) which is why the Bohemians result was such a kick in the nuts.

Full-time football, however beneficial it may seem, is not the answer. For the perils of full-time football see Cork City. Or Drogheda. Or Shelbourne. It’s a romantic dream to have a full-time professional Football League regularly making the Champions’ League group stages but it’s a fruitless one. In real life you don’t see Rocky outclass Apollo Creed and Richard Gere doesn’t marry a hooker.

Take Sporting Fingal. They’ve made tremendous strides but the club is playing a risky game as a full-time outfit. Any club who depend solely on one benefactor in a country where it’s a secondary sport, and a part-time one at that, is playing with fire. However, even a club that’s new to the League such as Fingal gave a well established Portuguese club like Maritimo a run for their money in the first leg (losing to a 94th minute winner). Couple this with part-time Shamrock Rovers’ magnificent victory in Israel to set up the Juventus match and it shows that even clubs that were playing First Division football in Ireland a couple of seasons back have done their bit to mix it with recognised full time professional European clubs. We all want success in Europe, but going professional, paying outrageous wages and rocketing the club to the poorhouse is not the way.

Even in the UK, where the national sport is football, there are 92 professional clubs, yet England is responsible for over 56 per cent of the continent’s football debt in a recent UEFA survey. Even at that level clubs are going to the wall with wage demands, increased policing, and boardrooms spending their way out of trouble with money they don’t have. If professional clubs in Britain, with no GAA to contend with and massive television rights can’t survive, go millions into debt or simply fold, what hope do we have here?

There’s no stigma to being part-time. It’s just not acceptable to some people that a player can earn a weekly wage and represent his club at the same time. Better to whip out the old credit card and charge, charge, charge until hey presto your club’s gone or bailed out by the fans.
 
I’m glad Shelbourne are still a LOI club. They, like Cork, have experienced the highs and lows of Irish football off the field but are still here to tell the tale and I wish them well (apart from the obvious games this season).

So I had my fun with Glen. I said he was useless, he called me a hillbilly and we chatted over a pint after the game. And how did the League of Ireland Champions do against Aston Villa four days after the TNS debacle?
Typically, Bohs beat them 2-1.
Only in Ireland.