Emmet Malone On Soccer

The dominance of the big Dublin clubs in the league over the past few seasons may be enough to explain why St Patrick's Athletic started Sunday's Carlsberg-sponsored FAI Cup final as firm favourites. But a glance at the records over the past few seasons suggests that a different pattern is emerging with the country clubs faring well in their clashes with members of the supposed "big four".

Though Longford were narrowly beaten by Bohemians a couple of years back, Dundalk and Derry have since come to Dublin and beaten more fancied local sides.

Both of last year's winners had become used to picking up silverware down the years themselves and even if they are not exactly at the top of their games of late, it was really no great shock to the overall scheme of things when the pair came away from successive finals at Tolka Park having added to their list of achievements.

Longford Town, on the other hand, are a different matter, as the 5,000-plus supporters who lined the streets of the town last night to welcome home their heros will testify. On Sunday the club completed a journey from the wilderness of senior football to its centre stage that started only five years or so ago when the latest in a long-line of new consortiums was put together to save the club from extinction and the then almost unknown Stephen Kenny arrived to take on the job of managing the team.

What has been achieved since, both on and off the pitch, is quite astonishing and the hope around the club in the wake of Sunday's success is that the first senior trophy in the club's history will be looked back upon as little more than another stepping stone to an era when Longford will have firmly established itself as a serious force in the game.

It is tempting to assume that the club would be happy to settle for nipping at the heels of the main title contenders and looking to qualify, in one way or another, for Europe as often as possible, but Longford chairman Jim Hanley laughs off this idea.

Having studied the workings of the league closely since accepting an invitation from his predecessor, Adrian Duncan, to get involved on the marketing side of things during Longford's promotion season, he is convinced that the circumstances are ideal at present for a club like his to establish itself as serious league contenders and much more.

"For a start," he says, "it has yet to be proven that full-time football works because the model at present is heavily reliant on success and it seems unreasonable to me that you have a system whereby two clubs battle it out for the league and the one that loses out can immediately find itself in trouble.

"But assuming it can be made to work," he adds, "and my vision of it would be rather different in terms of the contribution that would be required of players than anything that seems to happen at the moment, the ultimate aim has to be success in Europe. When people talk about that, they tend to talk about Rosenborg but it isn't the Dublin clubs that are best placed to emulate what the Norwegians have done, not with so many of them carving the city up between them.

"If you look at Trondheim, it's not a big place at all and what the club is about is a smallish community working together to achieve a common goal. We're far better placed to capitalise on that sort of model than the clubs that are attempting to lead the way at present."

Hanley's view on where the league here should go is markedly different to those generally outlined by officials from the likes of Shelbourne, Bohemians and St Patrick's Athletic.

He wants to see the Premier Division expanded from 10 teams so that his own side doesn't meet a side like St Patrick's Athletic seven times in one 12 month period, as they will during 2003, and that others enjoy the same opportunity to progress that they have seized on so enthusiastically over the past three years. During the last two the emphasis has, after enormous work had been done on the club's infrastructure, been on developing the team, one based on a mix of locally-developed and imported talent. Alan Matthews's reward for delivering on that front is expected to be an improved contract offer during the close season.

There may be additional resources too as Matthews prepares for the club's second crack at European football, an event that may provide the catalyst for further change at Flancare Park.

The last time the club qualified for the UEFA Cup it put in almost 5,500 seats into its ground between the end of the season in May and the European games in August.

This time there is more time to play with and, if the support is there once again, up to €300,000 may be spent on more improvements.

The rate of progress is something the likes of Monaghan United and Athlone Town must marvel at but at this stage Longford might usefully serve as an example of what can be achieved to the majority of clubs in the league. Others, notably Dundalk, have scaled the heights only to slip back down again in recent years and one bad season could threaten much of what has been achieved.

Hanley insists, however, that the support-base being built up is a loyal one and, anyway, he sees no reason to contemplate failure just now. It's an understandable outlook; the club has achieved much by setting the bar higher than anyone thought wise and then clearing it. Now they're setting it again and preparing themselves for take off.

emalone@irish-times.ie