Where now for Dundalk and Collie O’Neill 

Last Friday the beloved Jimmy Dainty was laid to rest.  Unfortunately circumstances prevented me from being there.  But I would like to extend my sympathy to Helen and all the family.  Jimmy was one of the English men who came to Ireland(Dundalk) and loved it.  Dundalk also loved Jimmy and like Ritchie Blackmore and myself took us into the Dundalk family.  I cannot put into words how it felt when I heard of his untimely death.  Jimmy was the most likeable of men and will be remembered by the people of Dundalk for a long time to come.  R.I.P. DAINT

Jimmy’s sad demise got me reflecting on Dundalk Football Club and its current owners – Peak 6.  I presume these are a group of venture capitalists who are looking  for a return on investment.  I have no problem with that but the failure to ensure the Wednesday night European match was shown on TV quite frankly deeply disturbed me.  I believe EIR made an offer to show the game, but this offer was turned down.  Now this could be because the T.V Company’s offer was so small that it could not be accepted or was it that the current owners wanted to ensure that people had to travel if they wanted to see the game.  Methinks this was the motive of the club.  They were able to stream the match for people outside of Ireland.  Keely’s Bar was one of the businesses to benefit from this.  But why can you watch the match if you are on holiday and not if you could not get time of work to travel to Dublin or if you genuinely could not get to the game.  The attendance was not I believe any greater than usual attendances for European matches.  Let me say that Dundalk people will travel to a European game.  They will not sit at home and watch it on television.  My own son who does not travel to games  but went to this one with his daughter.

The problem here is not supporters; the problem is that we haven’t got a stadium that is capable of showing a European game.  May I say to Peak 6 – you may own the infrastructure of Dundalk FC but you do not own the club.  It is owned by the people of Dundalk past and present.  So I understand your priority is to improve the standard of the players so that they can be serial winners of the League and hopefully in the near future progress to the knock-out stages of a European competition. But along with this we must also have a stadium that reflects this great club.  For too long we have been boom and bust.  My fear is that this will happen again to our great club.  If the owners cannot get a return on their investment, that they feel is appropriate then they could depart.  Leaving us with a load of memories and a stadium that is a disgrace in this day and age.

I repeat it is time for everybody to get together and put plans in place for a proper stadium to be built.  Let that be the legacy of Peak 6 NOT just the desire to get a financial return on investment.  We have already been down that road, and it was left to the ordinary supporters, the Maxi’s of this world, Andy Connolly and Paul Brown and all the people who put money in to save the club, let’s not let that happen again.  C’MON THE TOWN

UCD were beaten 10-1 by Bohs last Friday, what exactly does it mean for the LOI structure.  The people running our League have no interest in our League.  The First Division is a joke and teams that get promoted from it invariably go back down almost immediately.  I have long called for a larger Premier Division with a Regional League to back this up.  The winner of this Regional competition would then play off against the last team in the Premier Division.  But to play in the Premier Division you should have to meet a fixed set of criteria.

      1.  To have a ground available that is up to standard

      2.  To have the financial capability to survive the Premier Division e.g. Sponsorship, proper        budgets etc

      3.  To have a fan base or potential fan base that will allow the club to survive.

There are many more basic standards that could be applied.

So when we get results like the last weeks gone – Bohs v UCD and the recent result against Rovers what do we see? We see a club with one of the best coaches in the country struggling in the Premier Division.  So it is not his problem.  UCD are different to all other clubs, they use the football team to promote Academic excellence, it does not matter what division they are in.  Their model is not conducive to winning League and cups.  They do however produce fantastic players.  These players are then cherry-picked by League clubs.  If UCD were able to keep their promotion team together then they would not be in the position they are in now.  They had two 5^th year students and two 6^th year students in their team last week.  Alex Ferguson couldn’t coach this team successfully so having a brilliant young coach will not help when half your team wouldn’t get in to see an over 18 movie.

Since I wrote the above, events have overtaken me.  UCD took the decision to sack Collie O’Neill, a decision that defies logic and is an insult to a really good coach.  What do they expect to achieve by this outrageous decision.  Where will they get a coach who is prepared to build a team and have it whipped away from under his feet.  To the people who run UCD – shame on you.  I thought you were different. I thought you were smart.  I thought you had the education of players both academic and football at the heart of your club. You don’t, you have become just another second rate club.

To Collie O’Neill I say, you have performed a minor miracle with this team.  You will be appreciated over the next period of time. You are a man slight in stature but huge in integrity.  I have had the pleasure to work with you and see your ability and character.  You will be a huge loss to UCD and more importantly to our League.  Take a break, you will be back soon. Our League cannot afford to be without people as good as you.

I have stayed quiet about Shels in the first division.  I have been afraid to say anything in case things went belly up.  But their win over Longford puts them in the driving seat.  I hope they can now finish off the job and get back to their rightful place in the Premier Division.  Shels tick all the boxes as far as eligibility for the Premier Division is concerned.  I hope this year they finally make it.

Why no TV coverage??

Dundalk, the last team standing, play tonight in Tallaght, a beautiful stadium, which I believe shows our League at its very best, but the match is not on TV.  WHY??  This match is very much alive and the winners will probably play AJAX - what a prize to play for.

You have to wonder what does a League of Ireland team have to do to get on RTE, our “national” broadcaster.  We’ve had the situation before this season, when the Rovers European tie was not shown, what do we have to do to get proper coverage of our game.  I believe there are only two reasons for the game not to be televised.

          1        RTE just don’t want to and don’t have to.

2    2          The owners of Dundalk for some reason don’t want it to be shown.

To deal with the first point you must look at what RTE are contractually obliged to broadcast every year. Easy you might think NO! Nobody knows details of the broadcasting contract because the FAI won’t tell us.  Part of the secrecy for which our great leaders are responsible.  We know already that the FAI have no interest in supporting our League, so it might be fair to assume that they sold the TV rights for International football and have not included the League in this deal.  But we don’t know because it is a SECRET.

We should be promoting League of Ireland.  There should a Friday night match on every Friday and probably a follow up on another night. The FAI should be able to ensure this happens, offering a package that includes LOI to RTE or another broadcaster. The belief in RTE is that viewing figures are too low for broadcasting the LOI, but we can only grow these numbers by showing our product every week.  RTE have not shown a League match for at least two months.  This is a public service station set up not only for major events but to help develop the Arts and Sports area.  Last Friday night there was no mention of the FAI Cup, our major Cup competition on the 9 O’Clock news – no mention!!.  Today while Dundalk is representing Ireland, we can instead watch a programme on Vitamin Pills and a British programme on cars.  I don’t imagine the numbers will go through the roof for these mouth-watering programmes.

The second scenario, the one I hope is not the case, is that the owners of Dundalk FC, Peak 6 are not allowing the game to be shown because they want people to go to the match in Dublin.  I hope this is not the case.  The people of Dundalk are the most generous people in the world.  They will go to see Dundalk whether the match is televised or not.  They love “The Town”, as much as they are generous and welcoming they are also capable of withdrawing their support if they think they are being used and abused.

We should have our own stadium, one to match our team.  Nothing has been said about developing a stadium.  It is now time for everybody to sit down and discuss how we go about getting one.  Or is it the case that Peak 6 invests in the team only, win the League year after year, simply for a return on their investment.  I hope not.  For someone who was adopted by the lovely people of Dundalk I would not like to be Peak 6 and incur their wrath should this be the case.

Tonight I will be watching the Dundalk game which we purchased and is available to supporters outside of Ireland. This is great for us but it is a shame that supporters in Ireland who cannot travel to Tallaght to see the match will have to listen to it on the radio like I used to do when I was a child 60 years ago, surely we should have progressed from this.

 Club Funding ( or lack of) 

A week on and Dundalk are out of the Champions League and Rovers are out of the Europa League.  Doom and gloom.  NO WAY.  These two clubs are improving year on year.  They have raised the bar for League of Ireland football.  Dundalk was beaten by a superior side in Qarabag.  A club with far more economic clout and most importantly better players.  Dundalk has exited the Champions League where they should have.  The important thing is, I believe, that they were competitive with a team that were superior to them.  They played like a team that believed in themselves and the way they play.  They are really up against it next round and realistically they should depart the scene.  This is not important.  What is important is that the team’s performance is improving every year, that means the standard in our League is also improving.

I felt the same watching Shamrock Rovers.  The days are gone when we can look down on a League like Cyprus.  Back in the day if you got a team from Cyprus you thought you were into the next round.  This is not now the case.  These “lower” leagues have grown and developed over the years and are now at the same level or higher than our teams.  This match was 50/50 and I think either team could have won.  The most important thing is that our League needs to improve.

This really brings me to the nub of the matter all of these “foreign” leagues have been helped by their own associations. 

In our League all our clubs are left to their own devices.  5 years ago Dundalk was on the verge of going under.  Only local businessmen Andy Connolly and Paul Brown stepped in the club was dead and gone.  Rovers have also had a long time in the wilderness until they found their home in Tallaght.  They have a beautiful stadium and a wonderful team but have had huge backing from South Dublin County Council.  I don’t believe Dundalk have received any help from the council in Louth.  Let’s face it, Dundalk might be the best team in the country but they must have the worst stadium in the country.  The work the club do in the community, the love the people of Dundalk feel for their club is huge.  It must be the only town in the country where you see more kids with Dundalk tops rather than the English Premiership tops, this is all done locally.

This brings me to my Bete Noir – the FAI and John Delaney and all of the executives of whatever they were called in times gone by.  Their job is to promote our League, to seek government funding for our League teams, to develop our infrastructure.  I have been banging on about this for 20 years to no avail. I don’t believe the Government department responsible for sport even know there is a League of Ireland.  I have just read about John Delaney’s “Golden Handcuffs”, where it is alleged that he doubled his salary to close to €1M a year and nobody knew, it didn’t appear in the accounts.... Same Old, same Old.  Maybe if the old fashioned handcuffs were used for the guilty parties, whoever they are, we might get a change in culture, not a change in the status quo.