Local people should back Dundalk

QUESTION: Which club has been the most successful in the National League over the last decade? Answer: Dundalk. Another teaser: which club attracted what is believed to be its lowest league attendance for roughly 20 years in its game with Cork City earlier this month? Answer: Dundalk.

Something, clearly, is amiss around Oriel Park yet, in ways, there's more to recommend the place now than for some time.

Watching the Dundalk Shelbourne game from the main Oriel Park stand last Friday night brought back memories of the last time I had been in that stand. May 21st, 1988, was a night when the hairs stood on the back of your neck for 90 minutes and more. A crowd of eight to nine thousand crammed into Oriel to witness Dundalk's stirring 1-1 all draw with St Patrick's which clinched the title.

The vast majority were home supporters, yet the next time they clinched the title, to seasons ago, there were about 2,500 - at a push - to witness the 2-0 defeat of Galway United. It was memorable too in its own way, local radio commentator Gerry Malone placing a transistor next to the public tannoy to relay the dramatic denouement from St Mel's. where Athlone held Derry to a 1-1 draw.

But you couldn't help but notice that local apathy had already set in. So it was that Dundalk, struggling in the relegation play off place, could only attract less than 1,000 for Friday's visit of Shelbourne.

Even Tom McNulty's testimonial between a Dundalk selection and a fairly undistinguished Celtic selection at the same venue on Sunday afternoon reportedly only attracted a crowd of about 1,200.

Before Friday's game, Gerry Malone couldn't fully explain the current apathy or come up with a solution to attract the absent fans of yore. No one can, it seems.

In all of this, you sense that current manager John Hewitt is paying for the sins of his predecessors and others. Dundalk, it would be fair to say, have always had something of a dour image. A hard to please, ultra critical local press and by extension, a hard to please, ultra critical local public haven't helped. At times in the recent past it seemed all that would satisfy them was a team of 11 locals, managed by a local man, winning the league.

Yet the current directors and manager alike are clearly trying. The team has several local based players, and Hewitt himself is a full time manager based in the town. The football they are trying to play is a bright, tactically flexible game played to feet. The pitch assists them for, as Felix Healy correctly describes it, "it's like a carpet."

This is worth mentioning. This reporter, among others, has been critical of it and last season was rewarded for a description of the surface as akin to a potato field with a pre match presentation of, yes, a spud. But it couldn't be better now, allied to which the floodlights are, as Damien Richardson admitted on Friday, "first class". Ditto their training facilities.

Enlivened by a few hundred travelling Shelbourne fans, as was the case in Tolka Park a week beforehand, the game was a good, absorbing contest with more of a flow to it than some, staccatolike National League contests.

With a bit more confidence understandably something in short supply at the moment Dundalk might have won. Indeed the thought occurred that had there been five or six thousand present along with TV cameras, it would have been some advertisement for the National League, and Dundalk's chances of winning would have been greatly enhanced.

There's not a whole lot wrong with the team, save for some confidence that a few wins would bring, and the addition of three or four players to a thin squad. As for the missing thousands, they're clearly still there to be won over judging by attendances for pre season friendlies with cross channel opposition. But a renewed local PR effort is required.

Rumours are rife that Hewitt is under pressure. According to one insider, "sinister forces are at work". Yet I hope they persist with him and that they are rewarded. If they're not, then we should all be concerned.

. Galway United enjoy another big Cup night at Terryland Park this evening when paying host to Limerick in the Shield final. Manager Dennis Clarke has appointed Noel Mernagh as his assistant, though one of the league's best midfielders may remain on the bench after returning from injury due to Galway's second consecutive win away to Waterford last Friday. There are also two more Hales Freight Leinster Senior Cup matches today, with Shelbourne meeting Cherry Orchard in Whitehall and Shamrock Rovers playing Evergreen in Scanlon Park, Loughboy.