League shouldn't be pleased to see critic go

There will be plenty of people who won't be sad to see him leave, but Gary Browne's departure from Tolka Park last week after three years as the club's chairman is likely to mark a decline in the quality of debate that surrounds the league here and where it is that people think it is going in the future.

Since originally taking over from Finbarr Flood, who in turn reclaimed the chairman's post last Thursday, Browne has consistently been one of the league's most outspoken critics. As a business man, he has regularly expressed bewilderment at the finances of the leading clubs, as a former player he has more than once taken swipes at the attitude of players who, he believes, seek too often to take more out of the game than they are willing to put in and, as an official at one of the country's leading clubs, he never made any secret of his frustration at the lack of support provided by Merrion Square.

Browne, a man with a young family and successful business, was prepared to put a good deal of his own time and energy into attempting to improve things, a commitment that greatly overshadows that of the majority of his critics during the past few seasons.

Most of that criticism has centred on what he believes is a willingness to confront the harsh realities of life in the league here. That life, for the average National League club, consists of a long struggle to stay in business in which the good will of directors, sponsors and supporters is, by necessity, repeatedly pushed to the limit. His message has always been the same, that if we are not realistic about where the league, warts and all, stands now then there is little hope for bringing it forward.

Much of what he says is echoed privately by officials at other clubs but a great deal is also vociferously denounced, most often by Pat Dolan who will, no doubt, be reacting in his column in today's Star newspaper to Browne's observations last week regarding the controversy over the decision by Merrion Square to go easy on St Patrick's Athletic for playing an unregistered player in three league games.

He laughs at the prospect.

"I actually have quite a lot of respect for Pat in that I know that he always fights his club's corner, but I'm always amazed that for such a young man he seems to have such old fashioned views on how things should be," says Browne. "He's not the only one, there are all these other King Canutes who, instead of commanding the waves to stop, might be better off if they spent their time building themselves a boat."

For Browne, the possibility of a single team from Dublin competing in the English or some sort of European league is a possibility both he and Flood made clear last week they believe to be entirely realistic.

"Everybody talks about Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia and the way that the leagues there have progressed but the fact is that if you talk to the people who run Rosenborg and Brondby, they don't think that the leagues have changed at all. They simply reckon that their clubs have got on with it themselves.

"What we have here is too many clubs in Dublin for the number of supporters who are interested and too many in the country for the number of good players available. Now one obvious way of addressing that problem is to merge clubs, but the traditionalists go crazy and say that you can't do that. Well, I don't claim to have all of the answers, but how leaving things as they are at the moment is supposed to help is beyond me because the current situation simply isn't working."

In the absence of any signs of a reorganisation here, though, Browne and his successor are determined to position Shelbourne as this country's Rosenborg, Copenhagen or Brondby.

To get to that stage in the next few years will require the investment of several million pounds in the Drumcondra club and it is with the less high-profiled task of persuading people with that sort of money to climb aboard that Browne vacates the Shelbourne chair.

"Because of the way the economy has developed in the last few years that are a lot more people around Dublin who could provide the sort of funds that are needed to make this a reality. They're not fools, though, and you've got to show them that it can work." Browne and Flood remain confident future realignments of the European game will present opportunities for those in a position to seize them.

Even if they are right, though, it remains to be seen whether Europe's big clubs are as anxious to play in Dublin as Dublin is to see them play.

One way or the other, Browne will be out there selling the potential. "Yeah," he chuckles, "I'm not going away completely, but then being involved with this league is a bit like being in the Republican movement."