Póg MMo Goal Issue 3

PÓG MO GOAL

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Tom Beary The Dublin photographer captures an amazing image at Dalymount Park.

Hana Asano LA Galaxy’s resident photographer shoots Steven Gerrard.

Eastern Promise Matthias Sammer was a star for both East and West Germany.

The Immortal Captain A profile of the East End’s favourite son, Bobby Moore.

At First WE WERE FIGHTERS, AND ONLY THEN FOOTBALLERS Football and Algerian independence.

Copa90 An interview with the biggest football channel on YouTube. from belfast celtic to a dublin barricade Oscar Traynor, Irish football’s Easter rebel. hoop dreams Where to now for Shamrock Rovers, Ireland’s most successful club? jp peer Stunning artwork by the illustrator from Phoenix, Arizona.

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martijn mureau The Dutch photographer captures the fans in the stands. dimples, kangaroos and bohemians An expat in Prague adopts a new team. the curse of the square crossbar Saint-Etienne have been haunted by Les Poteaux Carrés for more than forty years. northern exposure Examining the pitfalls that face the upcoming Canadian Premier League. the rebels & the blond arrow The story of the legendary Alfredo Di Stefano’s kidnapping in Venezuela. the language of the number 10 The number takes on iconic status around the world. taxi for carey, everton’s irish Merseyside’s blue half has always been a home for Irish footballers. the fall & rise of the socceroos Football Down Under has had many false dawns that preceded the current success.

ISSUE 3 / 2016

Contributors: Hana Asano Tom Beary Matteo Cuccato Dr. Vincenzo Felici Felix Whitlock Nicole Selmer Donal Fallon Keisuke Yamada Macdara Ferris Samuel Bono George Kelly J.P. Peer Martijn Mureau David Toms Nils Gustafsson Jeremy Smith Dorothy Devon Rowcliffe Douglas Portz Cian Manning Ruckspiel Richard Furlong Andy Beller Kevin Daly Editors: James Carew Kie Carew Contact: hello@pogmogoal.com Copyright 2016 Póg Mo Goal. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, without permission from the publisher.

Tom Beary is a photographer based in Dublin covering games at Dalymount Park, Tallaght Stadium and Richmond Park. www.tombearyphotography.com

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Hana Asano is the resident photographer for LA Galaxy. www.hanaasano.com

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ISSUE 3 / 2016

EASTERN PROMISE Born in Dresden, East Germany, Matthias Sammer occupies a unique place in German football history, a reminder of a nation divided and a hero of a country united.

A decorated club player, he won a Bundesliga title with Stuttgart, and two with Borussia Dortmund along with a Champions League crown and the 1996 Ballon d’Or. As manager of BVB, he added another league pennant and now serves as sporting director of Germany’s biggest club, Bayern Munich.

Sammer represented East Germany at every age group and was part of the squad which won the European Under-18 Football Championship in 1986, the same year the defensive midfielder-cum-sweeper made his senior debut for the East in a Euro qualifier against France.

East Germany had failed to reach a major finals since they shocked the football world beating their neighbours at the 1974 World Cup in West Germany.

Despite the loss, the West went on to win the trophy, a feat they’d repeat in 1990.

East and West were paired again in the qualifiers for the 1992 European Championship. This time events of history would overtake them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the country was set to be unified. The East’s opening fixture away to Belgium was therefore played as a friendly while the game against the West, scheduled for November in Leipzig as a celebration of the unification of the DFB and DFV, was cancelled due to rioting in East German football grounds.

On 12 September 1990, Matthias Sammer captained East Germany in its final match scoring both goals as the Germans beat the Belgians 2–0 in Brussels.

Sammer had earned 23 caps with East Germany but within six years he would be named player of the tournament as the united Germany were crowned champions of Europe.

Matteo Cuccato is an Italian illustrator and character designer. His recent collaborations include projects for Nickelodeon, Foot Locker, Wacom Europe, Adobe Italia, Microsoft Italia, Yahoo Sports and Huffington Post UK. www.matteocuccato.com

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THE IMMORTAL CAPTAIN

Words: Dr. Vincenzo Felici Illustration: Felix Whitlock

Jackson certainly had a love for his inspiration as the sculptor of a statue even more beautiful than this, placed in 2001 beside the home of the ‘Hammers,’ Upton Park, or for the romantics, the now vacated ‘Boleyn Ground.’ It is surrounded by many pubs IMMACULATE FOOTBALLER. IMPERIAL carrying the name Moore. There again is Sir Bobby but DEFENDER. IMMORTAL HERO OF 1966. FIRST this time in the company of other heroes of that World ENGLISHMAN TO RAISE THE WORLD CUP Cup triumph: Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Ray Wilson.

ALOFT. FAVOURITE SON OF LONDON’S EAST It’s a place of absolute contemplation for local fans, END. FINEST LEGEND OF WEST HAM UNITED. not only to remember the contribution made by West NATIONAL TREASURE. MASTER OF WEMBLEY. LORD OF THE GAME. CAPTAIN EXTRAORDINARY. Ham to that historic victory, but as a possible good omen for the future.

GENTLEMAN OF ALL TIME. The words engraved on the statue of the most famous English footballer of all time, placed outside Wembley, are carved in the collective imagination of all football fans. When you leave the London Tube stop Wembley Park and prepare to take the Wembley Way, the famous avenue through which thousands of fans pass, eager to watch the final episode of the FA Cup, there’s a sense that this is perhaps no longer the British temple it once was. The glorious towers pointing to the sky are just a vague memory and you face a stadium, ultra-modern, hugged by an arching bow but devoid of the charm which oozed from the old ground.

Yet a figure stands out; elegant, rousing respect, guardian of football. The work, 6.10m in height, in bronze, commissioned by the Football Association to the Royal sculptor Philip Jackson and inaugurated in May 2007, is a portrayal for a proud sporting nation. Breathing in one stroke the aura of legend that surrounds the statue of the unforgettable Bobby Moore with his arms folded and ball placed under foot, he scrutinises the curious visitors who come here.

Felix Whitlock is an Edinburgh-based illustrator who has produced artwork for clients such as Puma, Brewdog and Danone. www.felixdrewthis.com

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While the Second World War raged, the young Bobby Moore played football in the streets. Having subsequently come through the youth ranks, Moore’s debut for West Ham came at seventeen when taking over from the defender Malcolm Allison, who was forced to retire with tuberculosis. After 544 appearances in the district of Newham, came a move to Fulham, South West London where he served from 1974 to 1977. He decided to take in the American experience towards the end of his career with the San Antonio Thunder in 1977 (24 appearances and one goal) and then the Seattle Sounders in 1978. Having hung up his boots, Moore went into management with Oxford City, then the Eastern AA in Hong Kong, and finally Southend United from 1984 to 1989. Highly respected as an analyst and commentator on radio and television, Moore appeared in the movie Escape to Victory in 1981, alongside Pelé, Ossie Ardiles, Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone.

In 2002, he was duly inducted into the English football Hall of Fame. None other than ‘O Rei’ Pelé called him the greatest defender he had come across, while the ‘Kaiser’ Franz Beckenbauer, said he was proud of having played against Moore. West Ham dedicated a stand in his honour at Upton Park and in 2008 they retired the number 6 shirt, certain that no one could again wear it to his level.

Moore’s life was not all rosy though. He endured divorce and was unlucky in business, which almost resulted in bankruptcy, and he also clashed with London’s East End underworld when a pub he owned was destroyed by arson. During the build up to the World Cup in 1970, while in Bogota, he was accused of theft at a jewellery store, but was finally cleared after a few days causing a considerable stir so that a member of the British parliament declared that he was committing a serious affront to the nation. His health woes began with a diagnosis of testicular cancer and Bobby Moore passed away at just 51-years-old in 1993. Shortly after his death, his former wife Stefanie founded the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK, an association committed to the fight against bowel cancer, the second leading cause of death in Britain. In his honour a match was organised at Wembley between England and a Rest of the World selection. The urn with Bobby Moore’s ashes is kept in the Garden of Remembrance in the cemetery of Ilford, London Borough of Newman, home of West Ham. “But I still see that tackle by Moore and when Lineker scored, Bobby belting the ball”: the words from Baddiel and Skinner’s 1996 anthem Football’s Coming Home but still the piercing scream of English supporters who, after so many years, bestow the most vivid honours on their immortal captain.

Dr. Vincenzo Felici is an Italian sports and lifestyle writer.

He promotes fundraising for children with diabetes through Football Aid www.footballaid.com, and is the author of two books Traitor for a day and Royal Blue.

ISSUE 3 / 2016

AT FIRST WE WERE FIGHTERS, AND ONLY THEN FOOTBALLERS

Words: Nicole Selmer

THE STRUGGLE FOR ALGERIAN INDEPENDENCE SPREAD TO THE FOOTBALL PITCH WHEN, IN 1958, NINE PLAYERS LEFT THEIR CLUBS IN FRANCE TO REINFORCE THE PROPAGANDA MESSAGE OF THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT. “Algerian footballers disappeared” read the French sports daily L’Equipe on 15 April. The names behind the headline were familiar to the French public: players like Mustapha Zitouni and Abderrahmane Boubekeur from AS Monaco, Sahid Brahimi from Toulouse and Rachid Mekhloufi of Saint-Etienne were among the stars of the league. Zitouni and Mekhloufi could also be expected to be called up to the French national team for the approaching World Cup in Sweden. Instead, they left France behind them to play for the national team of a country that did not officially exist. In 1958 Algeria was a French colony and for four years the Front de Liberation Nationale, FLN, had been fighting for independence. But while the conflict in North Africa was felt little in France, the disappearance of the footballers would change all that.

“With that ‘exodus’ we had indicated to the French people that there was a war in Algeria and that we were primarily Algerians who, in this way, wanted to draw the attention of the world to ourselves,” said Rachid Mekhloufi in a 2008 interview with FIFA.com on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the FLN team. Mekhloufi, who was born in Setif where French troops bloodily suppressed independence rallies in May 1945, described himself in retrospect as a spoiled child of football. In 1954, the attacking player came as an 18-year-old to Saint-Etienne who became champions three years later and since 1956 he had played for the French national team.

For the eight years older Mustapha Zitouni, his club Monaco had received an offer from Real Madrid at the time he left the country. “I have many friends in France, but the problem is bigger than we are. What do you do when your country is at war and calls you to arms?” he was quoted in April 1958 in a TIME magazine article.

The call had been prepared over several months by the FLN, secret contacts being established with numerous players active in France. The departures of individual footballers for the cause of Algeria did not come without consequences, as the journalist Michael Nait-Challal wrote in his 2008 book Dribbleurs de l’independance. The FLN team gathered in Tunisia where it was welcomed by the political leadership of the country which had won its independence from France two years earlier. The reaction of the French clubs promptly followed: all players were immediately sacked.

The team’s first game took place on May 9, 1958, in Tunis against Morocco. In this, as well as the following encounters, the liberation song “Kassaman” was played, which later became the Algerian national anthem, and the flag of the FLN was flown, which became the Algerian flag. The FLN team aimed to represent a new nation, although Algeria’s application for membership of FIFA and the African Union had been rejected.

The FLN selection toured the world in the following years, making contacts and collecting money for the revolution. “It was a propaganda team,” said journalist Nait-Challal in the TV documentary Rebels on the ball.

“They wanted to demonstrate that the country had a national team, that could play and could even put on a good show.”

But at first the team had other problems, namely to find opponents. FIFA had announced sanctions for those associations that competed against the FLN selection. Games with western nations did not take place, therefore the Algerian footballers travelled through the countries of the Warsaw Pact, to China and to Vietnam, which was independent of France after the Indochina War. There, as Mekhloufi told FIFA, the team was invited to breakfast with Ho Chi Minh.

Sportswise at least the matches against the likes of Yugoslavia, Hungary and the Soviet Union proved to be of value. The Algerian team was considered an attacking one with plenty of goal threat and boasted some big wins. There is no definite information about the number of matches played – Nait Challal writes of 83 games between 1958 and 1961.

In March 1962, the Evian agreement ended the war between France and the FLN. Two months later, Algeria was independent. And that meant the football team of the liberation movement had had its day. Mekhloufi explained in a later interview: “At first we were fighters, and only then footballers.” The French association raised the barriers against the players under the condition that they were again available for their former clubs. So Mekhloufi returned to Saint-Etienne and won three more titles. About half of the players of the now 30-member squad were playing in France – one reason being that for decades Algeria did not allow professional football. Founded in 1963, the new Algerian national squad contained several players of those FLN selections, including for a first ever game against a team from western Europe. On January 1, 1964, now admitted to FIFA, Algeria defeated West Germany 2-0 in front of 17,000 spectators in Algiers.

Nicole Selmer is assistant editor-in-chief of Austrian football magazine Ballesterer where this article was first published. She splits her time between Hamburg and Vienna and supporting Borussia Dortmund. www.ballesterer.at

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COPA90

WITH OVER 1 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS, COPA90 HAS BECOME THE HOME OF FOOTBALL CULTURE. TRAVELLING THE PLANET TO TELL THE STORY OF FOOTBALL THROUGH THE FANS, THEY HAVE, AS THEY SAY THEMSELVES, BEEN WELCOMED INTO PEOPLE’S HOMES, BARS AND STADIUMS, MAKING FILMS THAT CELEBRATE THE GREATEST GAME ON EARTH.

How was Copa90 created?

Copa90 started in 2012, and was born out of a Google initiative to create a series of YouTube channels making quality original content. As we’ve got to know our audience, we’ve gone from making more viral-style content, to following major tournaments from the fans’ perspective, and creating the films which we’ve become known for - longer form documentaries about supporter culture that focus on why football really matters on a deep level. We want to show that this is a world game, and give people a reason to unite under their identity as football fans.

Copa90 is made up of filmmakers, social content creators and people with a more traditional media background. We’re constantly evolving, and our staff reflect that. We come from all over, speak more than 10 languages in our offices, and maintaining that kind of environment is crucial to bringing a diverse and unique look to our football content.

You’ve covered the biggest teams and tournaments from World Cups down to non-league. How do you decide what stories to tell?

We come up with our stories very collaboratively. Obviously we know that certain things have to get covered because the entire football world is interested, but for some of the smaller or more niche stories it’s about finding an engaging hook. We want to feed our audience what they want, whilst also bringing them stories that they otherwise would not have known about.

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There are individuals on the Copa90 team who have more of an eye towards reactive social content, some who are more interested in fan activism, and others who are obsessed with active support. We put these ways of looking at football against each other, and collaborate to balance the greatest possible reach with a narrative that fits our philosophy; that football should be for the fans.

In recent years we have seen the ways in which people consume football dramatically change. Where do you see this evolution going?

With the world of smart phones, instant content, and blurry copyright laws around content that comes from fans at the game, we are constantly looking to push the boundaries. We see traditional media, where ex-players in suits analyse the game as increasingly antiquated.

The more football becomes a globalised phenomenon, and people continue to have 2nd and 3rd clubs in other parts of the world, the more they will want to be able to form their own opinions through direct interaction with local fans. In the future we want to develop our network and audience, so that they become more than passive viewers, but rather are active storytellers of their local game.

ISSUE 3 / 2016

The Derby Days films have toured the globe. What is the most enjoyable, least enjoyable and most dangerous derby?

The derbies are always a blast, although we have something of a Copa90 curse with many ending 0-0. The most enjoyable may have been Bohemians versus Shamrock Rovers in Dublin actually. We usually have great experiences with smaller clubs, who appreciate our coming out to tell their stories. This was also the case in Sarajevo. It really makes the difference when you feel like everyone is truly happy to have you. And of course we can’t leave out the Belgrade derby.

Anyone at Copa90 who has been will tell you it’s as good as it gets.

Most dangerous was probably the Rome derby. We never truly feel in danger, as we always have the agreement on the part of the local fan scene to come and film, however in Rome this was a bit more difficult to arrange. The match day environment was so intense and having our cameras around certainly didn’t help.

Fan involvement, whether helping to save a club like Real Oviedo or ticket price protests are a big focus.

Can you see a future where these problems are addressed?

The only way these problems will get resolved is if fans can stand together and demand a resolution to these issues. We are seeing more and more messages of solidarity between fan groups at games, and it really feels like there is a growing movement. For Copa90, it’s about how we facilitate that movement, and be a platform to amplify the voice of those fans.

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The way we see it, there are 4 major tenets that all fans can agree on that go beyond political ideology: 1. Fans should have the option to stand.

2. Ticket prices must be capped relative to local wages.

3. Fans should have some sort of stake in their club.

4. Fans should be treated equally in a court of law.

There are no countries that follow all of these ideas. Germany and Sweden are the closest to it, but even there, fans are fighting for changes.

Do you see the rise of ‘punk football’ and the birth of clubs like FC United of Manchester as a reaction against the commercialism of football? What can be done to save the soul of football?

Fan ownership is a natural step for football clubs. Supporting something you have a direct stake in makes you more committed, more passionate, and you take better care of it. Since Germany and Sweden have adopted the 50+1 rule, you see more and more fan owned clubs popping up all over the world. Sandlanders FC are a collective of clubs in Africa, Wellington Phoenix in New Zealand, Ancona, Poli Timosoara, and Austria Salzburg in Italy, Romania, and Austria.

It’s unlikely that all clubs will move in this direction, but so long as they exist and continue popping up, the soul of football will remain very much alive.

Travelling the world has given you a first hand view of the growth of the game in places like Australia and the US. Are you excited to see how football is developing in these countries?

The rise of fan culture has been unbelievable in both countries.

Our partner channel KICK TV is based in the US, and we are constantly blown away by some of the scenes they capture at MLS games, but even more so at the lower league level. Clubs like Nashville FC (which is fan owned) or Detroit City which get great attendances in the 3rd/4th division equivalent. That is truly exciting to see.

In Australia, we have a particularly great insight as Eli, our host is from Melbourne.

He has really given us some amazing perspective on how football is growing out there, and we are thrilled to see what the future holds.

As football breaks into these big markets, brands are doing most of the development, and the fan culture is following. Traditionally it’s been fans who develop a club and brands then come in and take it over. This makes the rise of active support all the more important in Australia and the US, as it’s what makes the sport legitimate and genuine.

Can you give us some background on the Copa Collective?

The Copa Collective began just over a year ago. We kept getting inspired by the remarkable work of independent football magazines, fan rights organisations, and unique blogs who all believe, as we do, that fans should lie at the heart of the game. When we see a football story come out in one country, it may be told completely differently in another. Through the Collective, we can bring together international perspectives on events in football and broaden the understanding of our viewers.

The Copa Collective is not just a network for us to source from smaller publishers, it is a space where we are able to bring together some of the most innovative minds in football and fan culture, and open up a dialogue between them.

What have you seen that shows how football around the globe brings fans together from the smallest to the largest clubs?

It’s the rituals we all share.

The pre-match traditions, the corteo to a game, singing, chants, raising our arms, jumping in unison, the emotion of a goal.

These exist for every active fan. And let’s also acknowledge, despite everything wrong with the highest level of the game, every football fan follows it. Even if it’s a guilty pleasure. Whether you are on a bus to a non-league game, or taking the escalator to your seat at the Etihad, you will talk about that Messi dribble, or the Cristiano Ronaldo hat-trick.

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ISSUE 3 / 2016

FROM BELFAST CELTIC TO A DUBLIN BARRICADE the story of Irish football’s Easter RISING rebel, Oscar Traynor.

Yet the truth is never so straightforward; what of GAA men who fought in the First World War, or ‘garrison game’ aficionados – football being associated with Irish towns housing British When we think of sport in the context of revolutionary army barracks – in the ranks of the Volunteers? Certainly, GAA athletes Ireland, the Gaelic Athletic formed a significant part of the Association – governing revolutionary forces of Easter Week 1916, body of Ireland’s national when a rebellion was staged against games hurling and Gaelic British rule, and after, but there was football – comes to mind no monopoly when it came to sporting instantly. Founded in 1884, allegiances. Proof of that could best be the organisation nailed found in Oscar Traynor, a 1916 participant its colours to the mast and later Commanding Officer of the in approaching nationalist Dublin Brigade of the (old) IRA. Born on leaders Michael Davitt, Dublin’s Upper Abbey Street in the heart Charles Stewart Parnell of the city in March 1886, Oscar was the and Archbishop Croke to son of Patrick Traynor, a bookseller with serve as honorary patrons a Fenian history that influenced his son of their new body. and his political outlook. Traynor, an obituary noted at the time of his passing Croke was anything but a voice of in 1963, played football as a young man moderation, once lamenting that the “for the simple reason that he liked it Irish were daily importing from England best.” As a youth, he was goalkeeper “her fashions, her accents, her vicious for Frankfort and Strandville in Dublin, literature, her music, her dances, her before taking to the same position for mannerisms, her games and also her Belfast Celtic in 1910. pastimes, to the detriment of our own grand national sports…. as though we Established in 1891, Belfast Celtic are ashamed of them.” No doubt, the was a club synonymous with the Falls GAA often sought to align itself with Road. Donald Taylor-Black, director the nationalist revolutionary forces of of a documentary about the club, has early twentieth century Ireland. In 1923, noted that “they were obviously seen it claimed brazenly that “in 1916, when as the archetypal representatives of the (Padraig) Pearse and his companions Falls Road. They represented Catholicism unfurled the flag of liberty, the men and nationalism, and the fact they played of the hurling and football fields in green was no accident - although the rolled in from far and near, and it is team had no sectarian beliefs.” In many no exaggeration to say they formed ways, organised association football in the backbone of that company.”

Ireland was dominated by Belfast in its earliest years, both on and off the pitch.

Words: Donal Fallon Illustration: Keisuke Yamada

Keisuke Yamada is founder and designer of City Boys FC, an amateur futsal team and creative football brand based in Sendai and Tokyo, Japan. www.cityboysfc.com

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Sectarian tensions in the city could spill into the terraces; though after Traynor’s time with the club, a particularly horrific clash between Glentoran and Belfast Celtic in 1919 has been described as dissolving “into disorder complete with rival flag-waving, anthem singing and gunshots.” The club was ultimately a victim of the tensions of life in the fractured north, folding after a vicious sectarian onslaught against them at Windsor Park in the winter of 1948.

Traynor’s time there, between 1910 and 1912, was one of great success. The team succeeded in winning the inaugural Gold Cup and Charity Cup against Cliftonville, and in the aftermath of this success toured Europe in a series of exhibition games, winning five of six clashes in the city of Prague.

Were it not for the events of the revolutionary period, perhaps Traynor would have found his fame as a footballer and not a politician.

In his statement to the Bureau of Military History, he claims that it was in the aftermath of the Howth gun running, when rifles were delivered by boat to the Irish Volunteers, and the Bachelors Walk Massacre of innocent civilians in July 1914 that he joined the Irish Volunteer movement. Traynor told the Bureau that he “was connected with football up to that and I broke with football when I saw that there was something serious pending.”

Traynor’s account of the Easter Rising, which he spent in the vicinity of O’Connell Street, is thrilling. He describes Padraig Pearse telling the rebels that “if they did not do anything else, they at least had redeemed the fair name of Dublin city, which was dishonoured when (nationalist leader) Robert Emmet was allowed to die before a large crowd of its people.” He also described the great inferno that took hold of the street on the Thursday, recalling that “I had the extraordinary experience of seeing the huge plate-glass windows of Clery’s stores run molten into the channel from the terrific heat.”

Traynor remained a significant figure in the republican movement in the years that followed. O/C of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA, he was involved in the seizing of buildings in the vicinity of O’Connell Street during the Civil War, in an attempt to provide support to the Anti-Treatyites (those who opposed the recently-signed treaty with Britain) who had occupied the Four Courts. He was among those to join Éamon de Valera’s Fianna Fáil party in 1926, allowing a historic break with the policy of abstentionism, and putting republicans into the Dáil, the Irish Parliament.

Were it not for the events of the revolutionary period, perhaps Traynor would have found fame as a footballer and not a politician.

In 1928, Traynor reflected on the “crimes of playing football” in an article for Football Sports Weekly. His claim that football should be viewed as a “Celtic game, pure and simple, having its roots in the Highlands of Scotland” may be disputed by some historians of the game. Yet his article also presented a spirited defence of Irish association football players, adamant that “some of the highest executive officers of the Republican movement, from 1916 onwards, played the despised foreign games and I never heard any of them apologising for doing so.” He evoked the memory of Kevin Barry, the teenage revolutionary hanged by the British in 1920, which historian Brian Hanley has noted was “an astute move”, linking one of the most revered figures of the revolutionary period to foreign games.

Barry was a rugby and cricket player, and the later sport was also played

by Traynor’s Civil War comrade Cathal Brugha. Beyond Brugha and Barry, other participants of the revolutionary period with alignments to ‘garrison games’ include Michael Noyk, a Jewish Dublinborn republican activist and solicitor who was prominently involved in Shamrock Rovers following independence. Todd Andrews, active in the IRA throughout the War of Independence and Civil War, was another who chose association football over Gaelic games. He would joke of the frustrations of life as an interned prisoner in the Curragh in 1921, as the only code of football the prisoners’ leadership allowed was not to his choosing.

In post-revolutionary Ireland, there was time for association football once more.

Though serving as Minister for Defence, Traynor managed to also serve as President of the Football Association of Ireland from 1948. Before this, he had utilised his government position for the benefit of sporting liberties; in 1942, he was responsible for amending national army policy that afforded the GAA a privileged status. As historian Barry Sheppard has detailed, this didn’t enamour him to the GAA, with the association’s President claiming it to be a “retrograde step.” Four years previously, Traynor had sat beside

President Douglas Hyde when he attended an Ireland fixture in Dalymount Park, something that led to Hyde’s expulsion from the GAA’s list of patrons as playing or attending non-Irish games was deemed against their rules.

The language around the notorious GAA ‘ban’ on foreign sports had, in some ways, become more extreme post-independence, as the sporting authority sought to establish itself firmly as the official sport of the new state.

A Vigilance Committee ensured that members did not dabble in Anglophile kickabouts, with a report on a 1930 disciplinary meeting bizarrely noting that “One player admitted attending the [association football] match in question, but said he did so at the request of his club, to see if other members or players were present.”

It was in the capacity of FAI President that Traynor defied the much-feared Archbishop John Charles McQuaid in 1955, taking to the pitch of Dalymount Park to welcome the Yugoslavian team in a friendly against Ireland. Amidst anti-communist hysteria, McQuaid had attempted to discourage Dubliners from attending this fixture (though more than twenty thousand ignored him), and commentator Philip Greene declined to cover the match. Traynor refused to be drawn into the Archbishop’s squalid debate, stating afterwards that “we have nothing to defend. Our actions have been above board, friendly and will continue so.”

Oscar Traynor died in December 1963, at the age of 77. Less than three years later, the Golden Jubilee of the Easter Rising would see veterans of the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers parade on the pitch of Dalymount Park before an FAI Cup Final. It was, to quote one journalist, “a truly historic occasion…. which would have brought joy to the heart of the late president of the FAI, Oscar Traynor.”

Donal Fallon writes for Come Here To Me, a group blog that focuses on the life and culture of Dublin City. Music, history, football, politics and pubs all feature. www.comeheretome.com

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ISSUE 3 / 2016

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ISSUE 3 / 2016

HOOP DREAMS SHAMROCK ROVERS’ BREAKTHROUGH AS THE FIRST IRISH TEAM TO QUALIFY FOR THE GROUP STAGES OF A MAJOR EUROPEAN COMPETITION WAS SUPPOSED TO HERALD AN ERA OF DOMESTIC DOMINATION. HOWEVER IT HASN’T WORKED OUT THAT WAY. Words: Macdara Ferris Illustration: Samuel Bono Photography: George Kelly

Samuel Bono is a Brazilian illustrator based in São Paulo. www.samuelbono.blogspot.com

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F

or Shamrock Rovers, 2016 marks a number of anniversaries in their recent history. This year it’s 30 years since the club went into its final season in their spiritual home of Milltown. The controversial sale of Glenmalure Park by the owners left the Hoops without a permanent home of their own for decades as they moved from ground to ground – even playing a home game in Cork. Ten years ago Rovers were renting off their rivals and were playing in the First Division having been relegated from the top flight of the League of Ireland for the first time ever.

Their only success since leaving Milltown by that time was a solitary league title won in 1994 during a relatively stable sixyear spell for the club playing in the RDS. So it really is remarkable that 2016 also marks a more recent and momentous anniversary – five years since Rovers’ incredible 2011 season. That was the amazing year when the Hoops defended their league title, won the Setanta Sports (All Ireland) Cup and most significantly qualified for the Europa League, the first Irish club side ever to reach the group stages of a UEFA competition.

By 2011 the Hoops were playing in front of sell-out crowds in their new home of Tallaght, winning back-to-back league titles; an incredible achievement for a club that had come through financial meltdown in 2005 to become a supporters-owned entity. The 400 Club group, along with Australian-based Shamrock Rovers fan Ray Wilson, had put €500,000 into the club to save it during a High Court Examinership process when Rovers sailed close to going out of business.

The board, voted in by the supporters, put the structures in place to get back to the top of Irish football with the team securing promotion to return to top flight football at the first attempt in 2006. By the end of that year Rovers were forced to take on the might of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in a battle over Tallaght Stadium. Local GAA club Thomas Davis, backed by the hierarchy, had gone to the High Court to gain access to the stadium as they objected to South Dublin County Council’s plans to finish the venue with Rovers as the anchor tenant. The GAA ultimately lost that court battle, allowing the council to complete the stadium as planned with Rovers finally playing their first game in Tallaght in March 2009 – 13 years after the stadium plan was first mooted .

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Within three years, major trophies had returned in quantities not seen since the days of Milltown when the club had won four league titles in a row in the final years playing in Glenmalure Park.

In 2011 the bank coffers were swelled by a Europa League qualification windfall.

It seemed like Ireland’s most successful side were on the cusp of dominating Irish football once again. However it hasn’t turned out that way for the Hoops. By the end of 2011, manager Michael O’Neill was gone from Rovers and the club haven’t challenged for a league title since. O’Neill has proved himself on the international stage since then, qualifying Northern Ireland for France 2016 – their first major tournament qualification in 30 years and the first ever appearance at the Euros.

So how did Rovers seemingly squander the opportunity that the miracle season five years ago brought and what is the club doing now to ensure major trophy success in Tallaght in both the short and the long term?

Seeing Michael O’Neill at the top table of international football is a reminder of the heady days for the Hoops fans of 2011 when he brought Rovers to European competition. In the Autumn of that year the club was closing in on the league title – the League of Ireland season running as it does from March to October – whilst they were also in the middle of an exhilarating Europa League campaign. The Hoops had acquitted themselves excellently against Spurs at White Hart Lane, taking a second-half lead before eventually losing 3-1.

They travelled to Greece, when both countries were in the depths of an economic crisis, and were unlucky to lose 2-1 to PAOK. Within days of their return they would retain their domestic title in dramatic fashion when Michael O’Neill brought on Dean Kelly late in the game away to UCD. Deep in stoppage time with a deft finish Kelly scored to win the game and secure a 17th league title for the Hoops – Rovers remain the most successful ever League of Ireland club with 17 championships wins and 24 FAI Cups. That night Rovers fans clambered onto the pitch in celebration and sung not just about winning two-in-a-row but emulating the four-in-a-row side. Destiny awaited the Hoops it seemed but that night turned out to be ‘Peak Rovers’.

SO HOW DID ROVERS SEEMINGLY SQUANDER THE OPPORTUNITY THAT THE MIRACLE SEASON FIVE YEARS AGO BROUGHT AND WHAT IS THE CLUB DOING NOW TO ENSURE MAJOR TROPHY SUCCESS IN TALLAGHT IN BOTH THE SHORT AND THE LONG TERM?

Michael O’Neill would manage Rovers in only one more league game following that title win in Belfield and the Hoops haven’t gotten nearer than nine points off the champions in the final league table since that time. It was a fractious departure, with O’Neill only confirming on the eve of their final Europa League group game in December 2011 that he would leave the club. By then both he and the board seemed quite happy to see the back of each other. The seeds of a lack of high end success for Shamrock Rovers in the following seasons were sown with O’Neill’s late departure. Rovers had plucked the Northern Irishman from the relative obscurity of the Scottish Second Division for their inaugural season in Tallaght in 2009. Having gambled so successfully with that appointment, for his successor Rovers went with the tried and tested, headhunting Stephen Kenny from Derry City and handing him a three year contract.

However by the time he was appointed in Christmas week of 2011, much of the transfer business in the league, which had finished two months previously, had been done, limiting how Kenny could shape his squad. The lack of an experienced goalkeeper would haunt the short Kenny ‘era’. There is no doubt about the Dubliner’s managerial talents, proven both before his time at Rovers, where he won the League of Ireland with Bohemians, and after where he has won back-to-back titles with Dundalk. Kenny is a deep thinker about the game but the soft spoken manager, almost ponderous in his manner at times, couldn’t galvanise a Rovers squad that felt they had been there and done it. Kenny had been most successful when he gathered a squad around him, instilling a belief that they could take on and win against any team. A series of heavy away league defeats (5-1 to St. Patrick’s Athletic, 3-0 to Sligo Rovers and 4-0 to fierce rivals Bohemians) gave opponents the view that Rovers were a brittle team and put Kenny under real pressure by the time Europe came around.

Following that incredible Europa League run in 2011, the following season the manager presided over an embarrassingly early exit from Europe at the hands of Ekranas from Lithuania. Another Dublin derby defeat against Bohs in September meant Kenny had sat in the home dugout in Tallaght for the last time, with the resulting monetary consequences for Rovers that comes when a manager leaves his position early. The Hoops would suffer further financial woes by failing to qualify for Europe by season’s end.

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With their next permanent appointment in 2013, Rovers reverted to an unproven manager but one with an excellent reputation as a coach. Trevor Croly, who was number two to Michael O’Neill in Tallaght until June 2011, won three trophies in his first season with the Hoops. However that success was in reality more a reflection of the size and strength of the squad in Tallaght.

In those competitions the opposition often brought less experienced players including youth team members into the team whereas the analytical Croly could bring many established players into his starting XI as he rotated across all competitions. Croly also didn’t have the benefit of talismanic Gary Twigg who had left in 2012 following a spell at the club where he was the league’s top scorer in three of the four previous seasons. While Croly secured that trio of trophies – dubbed the treble minor – the Setanta Sports Cup, EA Sports (League) Cup and the Leinster Senior Cup, the Hoops crucially missed out on Europe. They finished in fifth place 19 points behind St. Pat’s but, with no European qualification, significantly it was a second season missing out on the six figure bonus that comes with entry into the continental competitions.

By the time that season was over, Croly was gone and Pat Fenlon was in charge.

The appointment of ‘Nutsy’, a Rovers fan who had played for the club for one season in 1997, brought a coach with a CV as good as any of the very best League of Ireland managers. His managerial palmarès include five league titles. Fenlon steadied the Shamrock Rovers ship in 2014, securing European qualification, and in 2015 oversaw a moderately successful season guiding the Hoops through one round in Europe and achieved third in the table – their best league finish since 2011.

However, by the summer of 2016, the Dubliner also fell foul of the board and was dismissed.

When Stephen O’Donnell stood over the penalty spot in Belgrade in August 2011 deep into injury time in the Europa League play-off against Partizan, the prize for scoring was a ticket for Shamrock Rovers into the group stages.

O’Donnell was the coolest man on a sultry night in Serbia as he slotted it home sending the small pocket of 43 Rovers fans in the stadium into delirium. The door to the Europa League had been opened.

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That penalty alone, following the distribution of the prize money, would eventually earn Rovers over €1.1 million on top of the €500,000 they had secured from UEFA in the earlier Champions League qualification stages. Not an inconsiderable sum for a club whose annual turnover in 2012 was close to €2.5m. It was a significant amount of money but not the game changer that many thought it would be.

In Norway, Rosenborg had used the combination of domestic and European success to dominate their league winning the title 13 times in a row from 1992. The difference was the Norwegian club had made their breakthrough into the group stages of the Champions League and continually qualified for Europe. In 2012, the prize money for making it to that level was four times that of the Europa League. The bumper payout of five years ago is now a distant memory, and only Gary McCabe remains in the squad from that play-off win in Belgrade. Missing out on Europe in 2013 and 2014 had major financial implications.

When in 2005 Rovers came through a High Court examinership process when they were within a judge’s ruling of going out of business, it was the 400 Club fan group and Ray Wilson who put the money in to save the club. In early 2016 the Rovers board outlined to their members a proposal for Wilson to arrange significant funding for the club for future development of the youth structures – both for facilities and coaching support – for their academy at Roadstone. In 2017, South Dublin County Council, who own the municipal stadium in Tallaght, plan to expand the ground with the construction of a new 2,500 seater north stand. The project, which will cost €0.75m in total, will bring the stadium capacity to 8,500.

If the Hoops are to fill that new north stand in seasons to come, top level success needs to return to Tallaght. European football in 2016 was short lived – a rather embarrassing first round exit to RoPS Rovaniemi of Finland – which ultimately resulted in Pat Fenlon’s dismissal. If a title challenge doesn’t materialise, demanding Hoops fans can only be satisfied by ending their cup famine. Winning a fabled 25th FAI Cup on the anniversary of their last successful run 30 years ago would be another chapter for the history books.

Macdara Ferris is a Shamrock Rovers fan and co-author of Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012.

He is a senior reporter with Extratime.ie reporting on Irish football stories from the domestic and international game.

George Kelly is a photographer from Dublin who has been with Shamrock Rovers for over 35 years.

www.extratime.ie

www.georgekellyphotography.com

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JP PEER

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JP Peer is an illustrator from Phoenix, Arizona whose interests include boxing, Korean food, Brazilian football in the 80s, all you can eat sushi, and Arsenal. www.jpeerart.com

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MARTIJN MUREAU

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Martijn Mureau is an explorer, keen on travelling and discovering the world with his camera. A big part of his work is to photograph old and forgotten stadiums and to capture fan and football culture. Martijn is photographer and editor of Staantribune. www.martijnmureau.nl

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A TRANSPLANT IN A NEW CITY ADOPTS A football CLUB IN HISTORIC PRAGUE. Words: David Toms Illustration: Nils Gustafsson

Nils Gustafsson is a Gothenburg-based designer. In the past he has worked with BK Häcken on campaign material and on their Bravida Arena stadium. www.nilsgustafsson.com

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ISSUE 3 / 2016

O

ne of the main tram routes in Prague is the 22. This goes all the way from Bíla Hora, the site of one of central Europe’s most famous battles, to Hostivař. For a long time, this wasn’t a route I had any great familiarity with but since moving to Vršovice in Prague 10, it’s one that I take daily. Going from my starting point at Krymská and heading just a few stops to Vršovické Námĕstí, when I step off the tram I can see floodlights just down the hill.

These lights poking up into an otherwise fairly unremarkable horizon in this part of the city, spring from the ground of Ďolíček – the dimple, in English – home of Bohemians Prague 1905.

Football began in the Czech lands in much the same manner it did in many other European countries. An Englishowned textile factory in Náchod, near to the Polish border, where English workers were sent, was amongst the original sites to embrace the game in the 1880s. In Prague, a regatta club was amongst the first who were good enough to play the game in public.

In 1892, SK Slavia Prague were founded.

A year later, their great rivals, AC Sparta Prague formed. The Czech Football Association came in 1901, to administer the game in the region. This was on the back of an authorised translation of the Football Association rules in 1897.

By 1907, the Czech FA was a member of FIFA. From these beginnings emerged a footballing culture that grew in the Czech region over the course of the twentieth century. In Prague, football grounds began to spring up – usually on vacant lots in the city centre or on the suburban edges. The football stadium comes in many shapes and sizes, from bowls like SK Slavia Prague’s recently renovated Eden Arena to lop-sided efforts like Bohemians 1905’s home ground.

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I’ve been visiting the Czech capital for several years now and have sampled many of its footballing delights. Initially I took a shine to Sparta but now that I live much closer to Ďolíček, and having discovered a fairly unsettling right-wing element in the support of the more famous club, Bohemians increasingly seemed like the team for me. I took myself down to the Dimple to shell out the very reasonable sum of 1,300Kč (roughly €48) for a season ticket.

I moved to Prague to begin teaching English and to live in this wonderful city. Bohemians have a reputation for being an open, friendly club with an international support drawn from locals in the Vršovice area and many expats too. On all previous visits I’ve had to Ďolíček I found it a lively, entertaining and welcoming atmosphere; frenetic, but not threatening.

One thing which appealed to me about Bohemians is that they are very much the underdogs of Prague’s bigger clubs, very much the fourth team among Sparta, Slavia and DUKLA in terms of prestige. Aside from that, like my beloved Waterford United back home in Ireland, they’re frankly a little bit crap, thus following them means I won’t be spoiling myself with success any time soon. Their ground, this dimple of theirs, has a certain League of Ireland charm about it. It only has three stands for a start – a terraced end, section B1, where the ultras go and where the party happens at games, a large covered stand to the right of this, and a small open bank of bucket seating to the left of B1. Another appealing element of Bohemians is that the club was very nearly made extinct a number of years ago due to poor financial management by its previous owners. Their story in fact is reminiscent of many in the League of Ireland in this regard, and they are, in a country utterly fanatical about its football, the only professional club in the top tier with a supporter’s trust. Thus the ethos is one which very much chimes with my own views on how a football club should be run and to what purpose.

The club is inclusive, many of the fans actively anti-fascist, with links to St. Pauli of Hamburg.

Expat life being what it is, however, having a football club to claim as your own is a kind of access to the sort of instant imagined communities which all football fans thrive on.

Choosing a team as an expat is a weird business, trying to find a club that suits your particular needs i.e. one that doesn’t spoil you with success, reminded me of course of Nick Hornby’s relationship with Cambridge United in Fever Pitch, but I think that if you are a football fan, it is as important a part of helping you to settle into a new city and country as just about any other activity. Most fans are one club fans for life. But that’s much easier if you’re also a one city person for life too. Expat life being what it is, however, having a football club to claim as your own is a kind of access to the sort of instant imagined communities which all football fans thrive on.

On the opening day of the season, Bohemians took on FC Fastav Zlín on a glorious morning – between 23 and 25 degrees Celsius, not a cloud to be seen. Exactly what we dreamt summer soccer in Ireland would be but rarely is. The curious thing is that this isn’t summer soccer, but the Czech winter being especially cold and hard, there’s an extended winter break, so the season starts late in summer and ends early the following year. As I ambled to the ground I spotted the usual array of Bohemians fans in their green and white, sporting kangaroos on their t-shirts, scarves and hats. The animal is on the crest of this curious club because of a tour undertaken by Bohemians in 1927 to Australia, when the team were gifted one to bring back to Prague Zoo. Thus the club are known as the Klokans, or Kangaroos. Near the ground, on match day, you’ll find the U Klokana (at the Kangaroo, literally) packed with fans grabbing pre-match pints.

Not that this is strictly necessary. Like every ground in the Czech Republic, Bohemians have plenty of beer stalls where you can get draught lager which can be enjoyed in view of the pitch.

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Prague is a city of smells. Standing on the open terrace, sun-blazing, there was the smell of beer being poured from the taps, piles of sausages sizzling on the grills, cigarette and marijuana smoke drifting across from various parts of the stone steps. Most of all, there was that smell of anticipation of a new season.

And for me, the nervy start of a new relationship with a football club I’ve only had a passing acquaintance with until now. As the match kicked off, the Bohemians Rude Boys (this is what the ultras call themselves and ska, two-tone and mod insignia are present throughout the ground), began in fine voice led by their capo. But then disaster struck, his loud speaker failing him within five minutes. After banging it a few times in vain, he smashed it off the ground in front of him, and with renewed vigour, began leading the crowd again. This was a capo going acapella. Although this made his job difficult, he persevered admirably and ensured, especially in the second half, that the crowd got fully behind the Bohemians performance. At half time, emerging onto his stand with a fresh pint in the still hammering sun, he guzzled about three-quarters of the pint in two gulps.

This was thirsty work.

Around me the fans sung with barely a break, arrayed not just in their own club colours, but in those of Celtic, Shamrock Rovers and even St. Patrick’s Athletic. At times frenetic, farcical, and full-blooded this was a solid opening performance from Bohemians, even if an equalizing goal remained elusive.

After the game, as I waited for my tram to start the trek to Riegrovy Sady for a pint in Prague’s most well-known beer garden, the chant ‘Bohemka do toho’ ‘Bohemians above all’ rang in my ears.

I had a feeling I was going to like it here.

Standing on the open terrace, sunblazing, there was the smell of beer being poured from the taps, piles of sausages sizzling on the grills, cigarette and marijuana smoke drifting across from various parts of the stone steps.

In The Winter’s Tale, one of Shakespeare’s later works, Bohemia – which corresponds roughly with modern-day Czech Republic – was famously given a coastline. This despite the fact that the Czech Republic is (and always has been) landlocked. One of the problems of being from Ireland and living in a landlocked country is the lack of a sea. This is difficult for two reasons: first of all, having grown up not ten minutes drive from beaches in Waterford, not to be near the ocean in the summer is agony. The nearest beach is in Croatia.

The other killer is a lack of fresh seafood.

The Czech Republic is not renowned for the quality in this culinary regard.

With most fish coming from fresh water sources – carp is something of a Czech specialty – the rest tends to be frozen and has to have come a long distance.

Some days, all you want in the world is fish and chips. There is at least one establishment in Prague, aptly enough called Ryby and Chips, which serves the dish that if not exactly the equal of what’s on offer at home, is as good an effort as I’m likely to get within a few hundred miles and so ahead of my first experience of a Prague derby with my newly adopted club I decided to sample the fare.

Not just a city of smells, Prague is also a city of squares. These open public spaces are important not just in terms of providing a place to sit and chat, to encounter people – but they are important as places of congregation.

They are sites for protest and debate.

Václavské Námĕstí is famous for the images of it throughout twentieth century Czech history: the Nazis made use of its great boulevards for marches; under Communism, May Day parades passed through here; in 1968, when socialism with a human face was crushed by the arrival of Soviet tanks, their presence on Václavské Námĕstí was part of the theatre of takeover.

It was here that Jan Palach, in January of 1969, seeing no other way to register his disgust at what happened after the Prague Spring was crushed, burned himself alive on the steps of the National Museum that stands at the top of the square. And, in 1989, when the Velvet Revolution climaxed, it did so in the same spot. The squares of Prague are heavy with the weight of history.

On derby weekend, the march began at Námĕstí Republiky. Ahead of the tussle against Sparta Prague across the river in Letná, Bohemians supporters congregated on this famous square to begin our long march along Revolucní, and across Stefanikuv Most, through the Letná tunnel to emerge by Sparta’s ground – deep in hostile territory.

From here around the corner from Obecní Dům we began our march to Letná Stadion to face Sparta. On Štefáníkův Most, we were joined by a substantial contingent of riot police before entering the Letná tunnel, and when we emerged on the other side, we were brought the long way around to the away end of the ground. We had allocated seating, but more or less treated it like the section behind the goal in Ďolíček – the array of Bohemians stickers on seats and railings attesting to the fans’ frequent presence here.

At the beginning, in memory of recently deceased vice-chairman and one of the architects behind the saving of the club in 2005, Vladislav Suchy, a black banner was displayed with his initials and a cross in his memory. This was solemn, but the fervour displayed by the fans during the game was as much memorial to him as the minute’s silence that started the match.

The game got underway but a little after twenty minutes it was turned into an uneven affair thanks to David Bartek’s sending off following a second yellow.

The class that earned Sparta a deserved 2-2 draw in the Europa League the previous Thursday night away to Schalke 04 was on full display here. Rather than that midweek fixture’s exertions causing fatigue, Sparta seemed energised by their successful adventure abroad. and by sheer weight of pressure they racked up the goals to inflict a heavy defeat in my first ever Prague derby.

Despite going down 3-0 to Sparta, the Bohemians fans rarely let up the noise.

It was agony to watch at times, but the party atmosphere – the sheer defiance that seemingly comes with being a Bohemians fan never let up. The Rude Boys, Barflies, and everyone else smoked, drank, sang and ate in the face of impending defeat. So it was, from Námĕstí Republiky early in the afternoon to Stadion Letná under the cover of the floodlights – whatever else the score might have said, onwards we chanted: “Bohemians: Nejlepší Praze!” (Bohemians: The Best In Prague!)

David Toms is a sport historian from Waterford now based in the Czech Republic’s capital city of Prague and is the author of Soccer in Munster: A Social History, 1877-1937.

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ISSUE 3 / 2016

THE CURSE OF THE SQUARE CROSSBAR

Words: Jeremy Smith Illustration: Dorothy

Some sporting events become so ingrained in the public consciousness that a shorthand has developed, whereby a two-or three-word phrase immediately conjures up a wealth of images. For American football fans, The Catch will forever mean Montana to Clark for the San Francisco 49ers in 1982.

For English football fans The Russian Linesman summons images of Hurst’s shot against the bar, the ball coming down onto (and clearly not over....) the line.

One such shorthand, which has haunted Saint-Étienne fans for almost forty years is Les Poteaux Carrés – the square posts. Saint-Etienne arrived at Hampden Park on 12th May 1976 as underdogs. The first French team to contest the European Cup final since Reims seventeen years earlier, they faced the behemoth of Bayern Munich – Beckenbauer, Muller, Rummenigge et al – the two-time defending champions who had defeated Les Verts in the semi-finals a year earlier.

Saint-Etienne had little cause for an inferiority complex, however: the dominant team in France at the time, they had just won their third straight league title and fielded a team laden with internationals, including Yugoslav goalkeeping legend Ivan Curkovic, Argentine manmountain Osvaldo Piazza, and home favourites JeanMichel Larqué and Hervé Revelli. The only setback for Robert Herbin’s men was that the season’s revelation Dominique Rocheteau, was on the bench with an injury sustained in the semi-final win over PSV Eindhoven.

Despite all the talent on show, however, the star of the match was destined to be an inanimate object.

The team containing six reigning world champions should have taken the lead early on, as the ultimate foxen in der boxen Gerd Muller slotted past Curkovic, following a brilliant run and through-ball by Durnberger.

However, he was wrongly flagged offside. The letoff seemed to spark Sainté into life and they quickly responded; Hervé’s brother Patrick Revelli hustling Beckenbauer off the ball and future France coach Jacques Santini hitting a fine shot narrowly wide.

Suddenly Saint-Etienne were taking control of the game, but needed a goal to show for it. Just after the half-hour mark, young midfielder Dominique Bathenay collected the ball in the centre circle and embarked on a jinking run, embarrassing Kaiser Franz with a cheeky sidestep, before letting fly from 25 yards and beating goalkeeper Sepp Maier. But to the dismay of Saint-Etienne’s 20,000 fans – and the majority of the neutrals in the stands – the ball hit the underside of the crossbar – part of the square goalposts that were a famous quirk of Scotland’s national stadium for more than eighty years. The ball bounced out, and Revelli headed the rebound straight into Maier’s arms. On English television, commentator Brian Moore and pundit Jack Charlton wondered aloud whether the ball would have gone in, had the crossbar been round.

The West Germans responded quickly, Hoeness going close, and a trademark Beckenbauer venture upfield setting up Roth for a blistering shot which Curkovic needed two attempts to palm away on the line. But again Saint-Etienne came back. First a dangerous Revelli cross from the right caused momentary panic in the Bavarian area. Then Santini leapt at the near post to meet a Sarramagna cross from the left. Unbelievably, for the second time in five minutes, the ball came back down to safety off the underside of the bar. Undeterred, Herbin’s men attacked again, winning a free kick wide on the left, which Sarramagna sent directly towards goal hitting the side netting. Half-time came with the French side well ahead on points but cursing Hampden’s quadragonal goalframes.

In the 57th minute Hungarian referee Karoly Palotai blew for a soft Piazza foul on Muller. Roth stepped up to power the ball past Curkovic. Thereafter Bayern, who had won the previous year’s final at the Parc des Princes with a highly controversial 1-0 win over Leeds, were able to use their experience to control things, reducing Saint-Etienne to a couple of pot-shots and hitting them on the break. In the 83rd minute Les Verts’ fans hopes were raised when Rocheteau replaced Sarramagna. A couple of brilliant dribbles sowed panic in the Bayern ranks, one of them putting Patrick Revelli clean through on goal, only for him to scuff his chance to be a hero. However the West Germans’ professionalism (read time-wasting) saw them through to match Ajax’s achievement of three straight wins, whilst the vanquished team left the pitch in tears, wondering what might have been.

Although they won the Coupe de France the following year and one more league title in 1981, led by Michel Platini, the club never managed to come close to those halcyon days of the mid-70s. That lack of success has only served to increase the legend of those square goalposts. Had they been round, would Saint-Etienne have scored, one or maybe two goals? Would the class of Bayern have told anyway? Are the poteaux carrés a convenient way to ignore Sarramagna’s missed sitter and Revelli’s bottle-job, or to absolve Herbin of any blame for not bringing on Rocheteau earlier? Is this simply yet another case of French sport’s fetish for fitting the Raymond Poulidor role – destined always to finish second, but to do so with style?

Whatever one’s view, those goalposts have attained almost celebrity status. Guided tours of Hampden Park would begin with an enquiry whether any Saint-Étienne fans present would like to see the posts. They always said yes, and some have been reduced to tears on seeing the cruel crossbar. In 2013, members purchased the accursed artefact and it now resides in the club museum on display to visitors.

Dorothy are a UK based design studio

Jeremy Smith co-runs French Football Weekly, where this article first appeared.

www.wearedorothy.com

www.frenchfootballweekly.com

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NORTHERN EXPOSURE

WILL THE FORTHCOMING CANADIAN PREMIER LEAGUE THRIVE OR FAIL? Words: Devon Rowcliffe Photography: Douglas Portz

A little over 150 years ago, around the time the rules of association football were being drawn up, a team of enthusiastic Irishmen laced up for a game against a side from a charitable institution offering support to immigrants, known as St. George’s Society. However, this match did not take place in Dublin or London, but rather in a young colonial city on the shores of Lake Ontario which just a quartercentury earlier had been christened ‘Toronto.’

From this humble beginning, the nascent sport of football spread rapidly across the land of Canada, finding eager participants as far away as Vancouver on the Pacific coast of British Columbia just a few years later. Despite its notable soccer history, Canada curiously lacks a domestic national league, making it one of the only countries of its stature, population, size and wealth anywhere in the world to go without.

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Although Canada today lacks a national A previous endeavour to create a soccer league, the country’s professional Canadian league in 1987 was a financial clubs have competed at a high level for disaster, and folded after just six at least 45 years. Toronto Falcons and turbulent seasons. A second attempt Vancouver Royals fielded sides in the looms at manufacturing a professional early North American Soccer League soccer league out of the elusive ether (NASL) in 1968. They were joined that encircles Canada’s most popular or succeeded by other Canadian teams participatory sport. Whether this effort – such as Toronto Metros, Montreal will be a success that creates a passion Olympic, and Calgary Boomers – over for club football in such urban outposts the next decade. The NASL’s demise after as Regina and Saskatchewan, or instead the 1984 season, along with Canada’s becomes yet another footnote in an participation at the 1986 Mexico World ultimately doomed quest for a national Cup, was the ideal epoch to launch the league, is occupying the minds of Canadian admirers of the beautiful game. Canadian Soccer League (CSL) in 1987.

Sadly, after several seasons of growth, CSL clubs began to fold due to poor What we know thus far: the proposed attendance and tenuous finances, and Canadian Premier League is likely to the league dissolved after only six years. begin in 2018, and will initially involve This short-lived venture marked the only between six to eight clubs. Most period that Canada had a truly national of the prospective club owners are league of its own. corporations already involved with either Canadian gridiron football (CFL) Following the brief CSL era, Canadian or ice hockey (NHL or junior leagues). clubs began to gravitate back toward The league’s business plan was due US leagues, which is where they to be released by summer 2016. There presently remain, more than two has also been an acknowledgement by decades later. An eight-year flurry of those building the league that revenue activity between 2007 and 2014 saw from attendance won’t be enough to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal join sustain the league financially – likely Major League Soccer (MLS), as well meaning that corporate sponsorship as Edmonton and Ottawa enter the and television revenue would both be US second division. Today, these are necessary to eventually turn a profit.

Canada’s five professional soccer clubs.

ISSUE 3 / 2016

Despite the growth of professional Canadian soccer in recent years, dissatisfaction persists regarding the lack of a national league. Most of Canada’s professional clubs field a low number of Canadian players, partly thanks to MLS allowing Americans to have domestic (rather than foreign) status on Canadian MLS squads. While Canadian players aren’t granted the same favour by MLS clubs based in the US – there they are considered foreign players, and have to fight for one of a club’s limited number of international squad places. While this overall scenario is beneficial to Canadian clubs by expanding the pool available to them, Canadian players find their opportunities impeded by these MLS restrictions.

The relative plight of the Canadian men’s national team can also be partly blamed on the absence of a national league.

Canada’s international line-up often doubles as an esoteric guide to some of the more obscure European lowerdivision football clubs, with the tonguein-cheek ‘Unattached FC’ often featuring prominently on the squad list. And while the Americans have qualified for the last seven consecutive World Cups, Canada is still pitifully clinging onto memories from its sole trip to the international competition some three decades ago.

The proposed Canadian Premier League will need to overcome five significant challenges if it intends to survive and ultimately flourish.

The first – and perhaps most significant – challenge is that professional clubs already exist in five of Canada’s six largest metropolitan areas. The three MLS clubs will not entertain moving to the proposed Canadian Premier League – a switch that would essentially be a drop downward – and seconddivision Edmonton has already publicly rejected such a change. While Ottawa might be willing to swap leagues, that would still leave four Canadian clubs playing in prominent US leagues. The Canadian Premier League would either have to leave these cities out of its plan, or create second clubs in these cities that would compete for attendance and attention. Given that ice hockey is Canada’s most popular spectator sport, and no Canadian city has more than one top-flight ice hockey club, it would be optimistic to expect Canadian Premier League sides to coexist with MLS teams in the same cities. On the other hand, if the Premier League was to decide not to put clubs in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, it would risk decreased media interest and sponsorship revenue.

A second challenge is whether it can generate sufficient interest from prospective fans and the news media.

One of the greatest contributors to the quick demise of the Canadian Soccer League was dismal attendance in several cities. Can it garner regular media attention – even if some of the country’s largest cities are left out of the league?

Canada curiously lacks a domestic national league making it one of the only countries of its stature, population, size and wealth anywhere in the world to go without.

A third challenge is whether the league can generate significant revenue from a television deal. For the sake of comparison, MLS did not receive rights fees during its initial three-year television deal. Although that was back in the 1990s when the sport was much less popular on this side of the pond, is it realistic for the Canadian Premier League to expect to fare better during the early seasons?

A fourth challenge is travel costs. Canada is massive in size. For comparison, the distance between Victoria and Halifax (two previous CSL clubs) is only slightly less than the journey between Dublin and Tehran. The price of repeatedly flying across such a large country was a challenge during the previous Canadian Soccer League, and eventually causeded the creation of an uneven league schedule.

And finally, a fifth challenge is whether the league and its member clubs can secure enough corporate sponsorship to cover expenditures. With much fewer corporations based in Canada than the US, would the country’s private sector be willing to contribute to a Canadian soccer re-launch?

With these challenges in mind, will the proposed Canadian Premier League be able to achieve its vision?

One considerable advantage already mentioned is that soccer is Canada’s most popular sport for participation. The gap between the popularity of playing soccer and watching soccer is still significant, but what was once a chasm has shrunk considerably over the past two decades, thanks to an abundance of European football on Canadian television and an increase in the number of professional Canadian clubs. It’s also worth noting that Canadians bought the 11th highest number of tickets for the 2014 World Cup – more than any other non-participating country. The sport of soccer undoubtedly has a sizable following in Canada.

Another advantage that the Canadian Premier League will enjoy is the numerous new stadia recently constructed across the country. These stadiums were admittedly built primarily with gridiron football (CFL) in mind and will have much larger capacities than soccer clubs require, possibly diminishing match atmosphere. However, playing in pristine, modern venues will be a notable improvement over some of the incredibly modest grounds employed by the former Canadian Soccer League.

Given that the forthcoming Canadian Premier League and its member teams will be concocted artificially rather than stem from pre-existing clubs, prospective fans will lack any historical or visceral attachment to these new creations. It is vital that the unveiling of the league and its member clubs is well orchestrated to maximum interest from the onset. Unfortunately, the release and presentation of league information has been sloppy at best so far: dribs and drabs have inadvertently been made public in recent months, and a planningpermission presentation to Hamilton City Council quietly unveiled key aspects of the league in one of the most nontriumphant methods imaginable.

Perhaps more importantly, does the league have a sound business plan and the appetite to endure losses for the first few seasons? The MLS is a lesson that creating a top-down soccer league adorned with newly assembled clubs is a project that will take many years before reaching maturation, stability and profitability.

What is certain is that few if any players will get rich from toiling in the upcoming Canadian Premier League.

It will be a modest venture, especially at the beginning. But its mere existence will be a welcome relief for Canadian soccer players who are currently offered scant domestic opportunities to play professionally.

Within the next few years, fans of the Canadian men’s national team may no longer have to acquire an encyclopedic knowledgeable of obscure clubs in the Finnish second division and the fourthtier of German football to know where their squad members earn a living.

But whether that will still be the case two decades from now is a reasonable concern for even the most optimistic of Canadian soccer supporters.

Devon Rowcliffe is a football writer based in Vancouver, Canada. www.devonrowcliffe.work

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ISSUE 3 / 2016

THE REBELS & THE BLOND ARROW Regarded as Real Madrid’s greatest ever player, Alfredo Di Stefano’s passing on the 7th July 2014 led to renewed analysis and reflection on his legendary career.

The story of his life also includes the remarkable episode of the Blond Arrow’s kidnapping in Caracas in 1963.

Words: Cian Manning Illustration: Ruckspiel

The death of Di Stefano saw eulogies from figures across the soccer world including Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Bobby Charlton. Most obituaries highlighted his outstanding record for Real, scoring over three hundred goals, winning eight La Liga titles and five consecutive European Cups. Furthermore, Di Stefano had the distinction of playing international soccer for three different countries; his native Argentina (winning the Copa America in 1947), Spain and Colombia (though his four caps for the latter are not recognised by FIFA).

One could argue that despite being such a nomad in his international career, Di Stefano suffered the ignominy of never gracing a World Cup. Former Leeds United and Republic of Ireland international Johnny Giles, who himself never managed to reach the highest stage, has stated that Di Stefano was one of the greatest players never to play in FIFA’s showpiece.

However, a glittering career aside in both South America, with River Plate and Colombian side Millonarios (the club he would leave to join Real in 1953 aged twenty-seven), and of course in Europe, it is an event in 1963 which has received considerably less attention. While on a pre-season tournament with Real Madrid, Di Stefano was kidnapped in Caracas on 24th August by the FALN, the Armed Forces of National Liberation, a Venezuelan revolutionary group who tried to rebel against the perceived corruption of their national government. It was suggested the group were pro-Communist and pro-Castro – the Cuban Revolution of four years previous had inspired many across South America to follow such endeavours. President Romulo Betancourt formed strong opposition to Castro’s Cuba and forced left-wing groups in Venezuela to perform their activities in secret.

The operation by the FALN was codenamed ‘Julian Grimau’, in reference to the Spanish journalist Julian Grimau Garcia, who was executed in Spain under the Franco dictatorship in April of the same year.

Grimau was arrested, tortured and accused of armed rebellion for his activities during the Civil War by state authorities and sentenced to face a firing squad by a military tribunal, an incident which received much international attention. Posing as narcotics agents, four members of the FALN abducted Di Stefano from his hotel room at gunpoint. The leader of the kidnapping group Maximo Canales was reported as saying: ‘There is nothing personal against Di Stefano’ and that they had also attempted to capture a Real Madrid director but failed.

Ruckspiel are a Vienna based design collective made up of LWZ, Typisch Beton and Zwupp. www.ruckspiel.com

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For over two days, the Real star was held captive before he was released close to the Spanish embassy in Caracas, unarmed and with no ransom having been paid. It appeared that the FALN were simply looking for publicity over financial gain in their kidnapping of Di Stefano, aiming to raise the profile of their cause against the electoral fraud that the FALN believed was being perpetrated by President Betancourt. A day after his release, Di Stefano lined out for Real Madrid against FC Porto and received a standing ovation for what he had endured.

In fact, the player stated that he was not mistreated by his kidnappers and even noted that he played dominos with them.

Yet Di Stefano was not able to shed further light on his captors. For the fifty-six hours in which he was held hostage, his eyes were taped and covered with dark glasses. He elaborated that they “gave me everything I asked for food, newspapers, messages to my family.... I passed the most difficult moments of my life because I thought they were going to kill me.”

However, Venezuelan security forces were still on high alert. The singer and actor Maurice Chevalier was also in Caracas five days after the kidnapping of Di Stefano and was considered to be a possible target of the FALN. He received a police escort from the airport to his hotel with guards continually monitoring his location. The leader of the group which orchestrated the kidnapping, Maximo Canales, would later become the artist Paul Del Rio, who in 2005 was again in the presence of Di Stefano for the premiere of the film Real: The Movie which included the story of the abduction.

It was a publicity stunt of the highest order, similar in its intention to create awareness of the film as the FALN had tried to achieve with their kidnapping of the Argentine striker over twenty years previously.

At the event, it was said Di Stefano chose not to greet his former captor.

Alfredo Di Stefano retired three years after his kidnapping at the age of forty bringing to an end a twenty-two year career which included 216 goals in 282 league matches for Real Madrid. Now merely a footnote in the story of the legendary player, his kidnapping was nevertheless a reminder of the political issues of the time in South America and the movement of militant organisations which still pervade our society to this day. It also served as a lesson for many, from the history student to the sports fan; Di Stefano’s action to play the day after his release demonstrated not only the universal power of football, but also the strength of his own character.

Cian Manning is a writer from Waterford, Ireland who has contributed pieces concerning sports history to Ireland’s Own and League of Ireland side Cork City’s match day programme.

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10 THE LANGUAGE OF THE NUMBER 10 Words: Richard Furlong

Backlit and shrouded in dry-ice, the number 10 is football’s star turn. Well, in certain parts of the world anyway.

There are footballing cultures in which the number 10 represents ideals, myths and shared history, and it has the unique language to match. Then there are those who place their affections elsewhere, and describe the role in altogether more terrestrial terms.

In either case, there’s really only one place to start the journey through the language of the number 10.

O camisa 10 The Brazilians reserve a particular tone of reverence for the verve and dash of ‘O Camisa 10’ – the number 10 shirt. What’s less documented is that, instead of 10, it could just as easily have been any other number from across the front line. At the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, Brazil had neglected to allot their players numbers, so FIFA did it instead. Pelé, being a forward, was randomly allotted the number 10 and went on to star as Brazil won the World Cup – their first – besting their opponents with unprecedented speed and creativity. The legend was born. The 1960s was marked by political turmoil for Brazil, but throughout the decade the Seleção asserted an identity which refused to be defined by instability and unrest. Football, and the spirit of the number 10 shirt, gave an outlet to the country’s yearning for celebration amid the repression imposed by successive military governments. Nowhere was this more evident than at the 1970 World Cup, when Brazil elected to play – and win – the tournament with five players who wore the number 10 for their clubs: Rivelino, Gérson, Tostão, Pelé and Jairzinho.

Just to confuse things, the position is also known in Brazil as ‘O Um’ – The One – after its position in the 4-3-1-2 formation devised by legendary coach Mário Zagallo.

The enganche and the pibe If there’s one team willing to duke it out with Brazil for all things number 10 (and much more besides), it’s Argentina. And the Albiceleste’s ace in the hole is their unique take on the role: ‘El Enganche’ – The Hook. The Enganche is the creative fulcrum of ‘La Nuestra’ – our way – a historically non-European style of possession and passing, relying on the guile of short, skilful attacking players. In an unswervingly Argentinian approach to the game, the use of the word Enganche paints the number 10 as the essential link between midfield and attack, the hook that joins everything together and imposes a style on proceedings. Juan Roman Riquelme is the archetype here, and is still lauded as ‘El Ultimo Diez.’

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The 10 is often also worn by The Pibe – the impish, impudent child who never grew up, playing football as he learned on the potreros (strips of ground between tower blocks), blazingly unencumbered by rules. The Pibe has quite the lineage, being embodied by Héctor Rial, Ricardo Bochini, and the ‘Pibe De Oro’ – Golden Boy Himself – Diego Maradona. While the Enganche is the figurehead for a belief in how the game should be played, the Pibe encapsulates a state of innocence, joy and potential. Both find a home in the Argentinian number 10 shirt.

The proliferation of Argentine coaches means the word Enganche is now widely used in Latin America, with the more prosaic ‘Mediapunta’ (attacking midfielder) also used both in South America and across Spain.

It’s been debated whether Spain has a real affinity with the number 10, but it’s telling that when the Real Madrid players wanted to highlight that Rafael Benitez was not fit to coach them as he’d never played at the highest level, they sarcastically named him after the home of the most talented position on the pitch – ‘El Diez’ – the ten.

The stuff of fantasy So in Brazil and Argentina the unique terminology around the number 10 captures a spirit of independence and cultural pride. In Italy, the 10 is quite literally the stuff of fantasy.

The Fantasista is granted free reign to crop up wherever the mood takes them, and the word itself speaks to a romanticism that demands football be more than an everyday pursuit. Their job is to bring invention and inspiration, and they are supposedly capable of elevating the game into the realms of imagination.

The holy touch to Roberto Baggio’s nickname ‘Il Divin Codino’ – The Divine Ponytail – says everything about how Italians view their fantasisti. Like a more disciplined fantasista, the trequartista plays three-quarters of the way up the pitch, drifting between the lines, probing, assisting and providing a goal threat. It’s a celebrated position that children in Italy are groomed for and aspire to, and another reason why the number 10 is held in such high esteem.

Earthly arts As we skittle from South America, Spain and Italy towards northern Europe, football moves to being a more earthly art (but an art nonetheless) over which the number 10 is manipulator-in-chief. Germany, for example, has the flamboyant ‘Regisseure’, meaning ‘director’ (in the sense of film or theatre), while the French describe a game’s playmaker as being ‘Á La Baguette’ – holding the conductor’s baton.

Although not strictly a number 10, a noteworthy addition to the AM canon has come with Germany’s Thomas Müller and the ‘Raumdeuter’, or ‘Space Investigator/Interpreter’. The Raumdeuter is charged with seeking out and exploiting space in opposition defences. Depending on whether this is translated as ‘interpreter’ or ‘investigator’, the role is artistic and erudite (floating through the game and interpreting events in one’s own unique manner) or it carries just a whiff of the sinister in its non-specific, authoritarian undertones.

Uniformity in northern Europe In the UK, as well as in Scandinavia and Holland, the language becomes more uniform, reflecting the comparative lack of emphasis on the role. It’s notable that one of the most iconic and innovative players of northern Europe, the late Johan Cruyff, wore the number 9 before returning from injury to find his favoured shirt taken and switching to 14. Similarly, in the UK the number 9 has often been the more iconic position, while describing a player as ‘in the hole’ between midfield and attack reflects our now waning obsession with the rigid lines of 4-4-2. The negative connotations of the word ‘hole’ perhaps even represent a certain mistrust of all that falls in between those lines.

Meanwhile, back in Communist Russia....

We finish our journey in Soviet Russia, and there are similarities with South America and the number 10 reflecting values beyond the game, albeit manifested very differently.

In an interesting echo of the collectivist ideals of Russia behind the iron curtain, the playmaker in the Soviet east was known by the rather proletariat nickname – ‘The Dispatcher’. While this term has now fallen out of use, one notable dispatcher was Anatoli Zinchenko, the first Soviet player to play for a Western football team. As Soviet players then were amateurs, when he signed for SK Rapid Wien, Zinchenko had to register himself as being a technician at the Soviet embassy in Vienna.

All of which completes the number 10’s linguistic path from representing the beautiful and defiant, to the artistic, to the collectivist. More than anywhere else on the pitch, though, the number 10 – and the language behind it – shows football’s power to excite, empower and transcend its own boundaries.

Richard Furlong writes for The Language of Football, a blog exploring the links between two of mankind’s greatest achievements. www.languageoffootball.com

ISSUE 3 / 2016

TAXI FOR CAREY, EVERTON’S IRISH

Words: James Carew Illustration: Andy Beller

“He’s English on the outside, but, pure Irish on the inside.” The elderly woman in the Western pub in Liverpool was referring to her grandson, Wayne Rooney. Most are Toffees in this part of Merseyside and SÉamus Coleman’s status as a current fan favourite at Goodison Park is a reminder that traditionally Everton were the Irish club in the city. The common football phrase “Taxi for” even owes its origins to a former Irish manager.

Patricia Fitzsimons sat at a small table in the Western Approaches near Scotty Road in Liverpool with economist and author David McWilliams researching for his book The Pope’s Children. She took him through a journey of the Irish names in the area, names that were reflected in the footballing giants in the city, like Murphy, Carragher and McManamen. Wayne Rooney’s family boasts Irish connections on both sides stretching back four generations.

The area around Scotland Road close to the city’s docks became a home for the Liverpool Irish. In the late 19th Century, they consistently voted an Irish Home Rule MP into the House of Commons. The influx of emigrants following the Great Famine meant Liverpool boasts the oldest Irish community in Britain. Despite the popularity in more modern times of their red rivals on the western shores of the Irish Sea, the Everton area in particular became a district populated by these migrants, the majority of whom were Roman Catholic. However, the two football teams in the city were never really divided along religious lines. The original Everton, from whom Liverpool FC sprouted, were formed as St Domingo’s from the Methodist Church, but the blue side of the city became noted for attracting Irish support.

Andy Beller is an American designer living and working in Dublin, Ireland. He enjoys Arsenal, Bohemians and India Pale Ale.

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During the 1950s and 60s the Toffees gained a reputation as the ‘Catholic club’ as a result of popular Irish players such as Tommy Eglington, Peter Farrell and Jimmy O’Neill as well as manager Johnny Carey.

Goodison Park has been home to many Irish players through the years. Billy Lacey played for both Liverpool and Everton. International manager Martin O’Neill’s goalkeeping coach Séamus McDonagh, and Ireland’s first international manager Mick Meegan also lined out.

Others like Terry Phelan, Lee Carsley, Kevin Kilbane, and Richard Dunne have appeared for the Toffees along with more recently Séamus Coleman, James McCarthy, Aiden McGeady, Darron Gibson, and Shane Duffy.

In September 1949 Goodison Park was the setting for one of Ireland’s most famous victories. A 2-0 win marked a first ever defeat for England on home-soil by a foreign side. A Con Martin penalty and a second half goal from Peter Farrell, scoring on his club’s home ground, sealed the triumph.

As a side-note, Dixie Dean, the most prolific goalscorer in English football history, reversed the trend of players crossing the Irish sea, with a famous cameo in Sligo, still talked about to this day. Dean played 11 times for Rovers in 1939. His presence inspired the Bit O’Red to their first FAI Cup final, and his ten goals fired them to runners-up spot in the league.

The legendary Jackie Carey was a former player who managed Everton from 1958–61. Despite leading them to fifth place in the league, their highest post-war position, rumours on Merseyside suggested that the recently-resigned Sheffield Wednesday manager Harry Catterick was being lined up as Carey’s replacement.

During a London taxi drive with director John Moores, Carey requested clarification on his future and Moores infamously told the former Irish captain he was being replaced. The phrase “Taxi for (insert name),” now part of football parlance, is believed to have derived from this episode.

It was Ronnie Whelan’s arrival at Anfield, along with other Irish internationals like Steve Heighway and Mark Lawrenson, that coincided with a phenomenally successful period for Everton’s rivals from across Stanley Park. Liverpool became the dominant force in English football and a heavyweight in Europe. More Irish flocked to the club as the sons of those emigrants such as Ray Houghton and John Aldridge became stars in an all-conquering Reds team, and subsequently in the history-making Republic of Ireland side that made its bow on the world stage. Jack Charlton became synonymous with exploiting the ‘granny rule’ by significantly tapping into that resource of the Irish diaspora in Britain.

Another key-member of Big Jack’s pioneering Boys in Green was the son of a Clare man, Kevin Sheedy. He’s considered by many as the best left-footer in Everton’s history, playing 223 games and scoring 62 goals for the club from 1982-1988. In fact Sheedy initially signed for Liverpool from Hereford United and made five appearances for the Anfield club, scoring twice. Sheedy was then at the centre of a transfer tribunal in August 1982 that valued the player at £100,000 and he was sold to Everton. The midfielder appeared 46 times for Ireland forever etching his name in the history books for his equalising strike against England on June 12, 1990 in Cagliari, the Republic’s first ever goal at a World Cup finals. Sheedy was also on the scoresheet in the famous penalty-shoot-out victory over Romania, bravely stepping up to fire Ireland’s first spot-kick emphatically to the net. Sheedy was a two-time league winner with Everton, also winning the European Cup Winners Cup, scoring in the final, and the FA Cup. Having won his battle with bowel cancer, Sheedy is a coach at the Everton academy and in February 2013 he was inducted into the Republic of Ireland Hall of Fame.

It was another famous goal at a major tournament from a former Anfield star that stuck in the mind of an aspiring young Evertonian footballer with Irish roots.

The Glasgow Celtic-supporting Wayne Rooney recalled watching Ray Houghton’s winning strike against Italy in 1994 while gathered with his family around a television. “I have always remembered that goal.

It was my first World Cup moment. Never forget it.”

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S O C C E R O O S

THE FALL & RISE OF THE SOCCEROOS Words: Kevin Daly

The last decade of unprecedented success for football in Australia was sparked by a moment that galvanised and empowered the country’s hardcore football fans and recruited a whole new generation of devotees.

Australia is a confusing place at times. A country completely and utterly obsessed with sport, it has a complicated relationship with its teams and athletes.

Winning is everything and if you’re not winning, you’re nothing. This attitude prevails throughout all professional sporting codes Down Under with ‘player bashing’ now pretty much a national pastime. Both fans and media alike demand ridiculously high standards as well as a conveyor belt of success, no matter the sport. Ten years ago, the Australian football team made only its second ever World Cup finals appearance in Germany. What preceded was 32 years of almost unparalleled heartbreak, drama and disappointment as well as the ostracisation of its small band of hardcore fans.

In 1974, in what was then West Germany, Australia’s inaugural appearance at the great feast of football had ended in disappointment as its entirely amateur team exited the tournament without so much as a goal to show for their efforts. A 0-0 draw with Chile was the highlight of a group campaign that also included games against East Germany and hosts and eventual world champions West Germany. It should have been the tournament that inspired a generation and marked the beginning of Australia’s love affair with the beautiful game. Instead, what followed was seven failed World Cup qualification attempts, an eroding of the sport’s credibility as well as open ridicule of the Socceroos despite a series of defeats that were scarcely believable.

Despite qualifying in ’74, they slumped to ignominious qualification exits for the 1978 and ’82 World Cups while the ’86 journey concluded with a 2-0 intercontinental play-off defeat to Alex Ferguson’s Scotland side. The Italia ’90 quest was a bitterly disappointing one for the Aussies as the team surrendered meekly in the group stages and allowed New Zealand and Israel to progress at their expense. As the failures mounted, the path to the promised land appeared to become more precarious with each passing four year cycle.

The USA ’94 campaign was a prime example. In order to qualify for the tournament, Australia would be required to win one group stage as well as three subsequent play-off rounds. Remarkably, and contrary to all expectations, they successfully negotiated the initial group as well as two knockout rounds to set up a winner-takes-all final play-off clash with Diego Maradona’s Argentina. Despite a more than credible 1-1 draw in the first leg in Sydney, the Argentinian’s proved too strong for the Aussies in Buenos Aires eventually winning a hard fought game 1-0 and clinching a place in the finals. In the aftermath of another false dawn for Australian football, the great Maradona consoled the distraught captain of the Socceroos, Paul Wade, by assuring him: “Your tears of pain, will one day be tears of joy.” Suddenly, and almost in the blink of an eye, it had been 20 years since Australia had graced the World Cup. With spirits at their lowest ebb, and the qualification campaign for France ‘98 just around the corner, Aussie football needed a lift. Enter Terry Venables. Fresh from leading England to the semi-finals of Euro ’96, ‘El Tel’ took up the position of manager in late 1996. With the emergence of a golden generation of players such as Bosnich, Kewell, Viduka and Lazaridis, Venables knew a good thing when he saw it. Incredibly, in 1997 he led Australia to their first ever Confederations Cup final. Despite losing to Brazil on the night, it was a real sign of progress and following a spectacular World Cup qualifying campaign in which they swept aside all before them, it appeared that the scene was finally set for a return to the big time for Australian football. All that stood in their way was a two legged play-off against Iran.

After securing an invaluable 1-1 draw in the first leg in Tehran, it appeared to all and sundry that the famine was about to end. The second leg of the tie was held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of 95,000 expectant fans and when the home team raced into an early 2-0 lead, a carnival atmosphere ensued.

Jubilant fans rejoiced as a European summer in France loomed large on the horizon and payback for all those years of hurt beckoned. With 20 minutes left to play, Australia led 3-1 on aggregate and were by all intents and purposes home and hosed mate.’ What happened next was to become the stuff of legend and one of the most infamous incidents in the history of sport down under. Out of nowhere, a fan entered the field of play, sprinted towards the Iranian goal and ripped a part of the net from its stanchion. Pandemonium ensued as play was halted and the intruder, serial publicity seeker Peter Hore, was restrained. A well-known offender, Hore had previously made uninvited appearances at INXS frontman Michael Hutchence’s funeral as well as running onto the racetrack at the Melbourne Cup, and interrupting the Australian Open men’s tennis final.

As the stoppage in play dragged on and the players tried to remain focused, it appeared that the magnitude of what they were about to achieve had finally dawned on them. All momentum and concentration was lost.

The Socceroos froze. Within four manic minutes of the restart it was 2-2. Ten minutes later, another goal and it was all over, Iran were on their way to the USA. In a crazy few moments in their own backyard, one of their own had sabotaged any World Cup dreams.

To a man, it crushed the team and their fans and made everyone connected with Australian football question everything, including Venables who, despite an undefeated qualification campaign, departed shortly afterwards.

The trauma of the defeat did irreparable damage to the Socceroos’ reputation and engendered in the national psyche a notion that the team were ‘no hopers’ and destined to remain in the international football wilderness.

A play-off with Uruguay spelt further heartbreak in the next campaign. Then, following a relatively straightforward Oceania group stage in World Cup 2006 qualification, Australia were drawn against the same opposition for the two-game shootout. With Guus Hiddink now at the helm, no stone was left unturned as the Aussies sought a return to Germany where it had all begun for a bunch of amateur players 32 years earlier. The first leg in Montevideo ended in a 1-0 victory for the Uruguayans but saw a much smarter approach

by Hiddink’s side. This time there was no Uruguayan greeting party at the airport - on the previous visit the squad were pushed and spat on when they landed in South America - and no hanging around after the game either. It was straight out of the Centenario (some players still in their match kit) and on to a Qantas flight bound for Sydney. A mere 80 hours later, it was time for round two. As more than 80,000 fans crammed into Sydney’s Olympic Stadium on 16 November 2005, there was a sense that it was now or never for this generation of players. Having levelled the tie early through a Mark Bresciano strike, the tension grew to almost unbearable levels. Naturally, it went all the way to penalties.

Captain Viduka fluffed his lines early in the shootout but two spectacular saves from Schwarzer left Australia just one kick from history. Having scored six from six at training in a deserted stadium the night before, it was former Coventry City striker John Aloisi’s turn to make the long walk from the halfway line.

In a professional career that spanned 20 seasons, he was the first Australian ever to play and score in La Liga, the Premier League and Serie A. This is the type of man that breaks curses and rewrites history. What happened next became central to football folklore in the country. One swipe of Aloisi’s left boot ended 32 years of hurt, pain and failure for Australian football. It was the moment of liberation all Socceroos had dreamed and redemption for the game Down Under.

Kevin Daly is a Melbourne-based football writer.

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ISSUE 3 / 2016