Stephen Kenny was in the upstairs tea room at Oriel Park. It was a weekday afternoon in February 2017 as a new League of Ireland season almost set to begin. Along the walls were photographs and framed programmes illustrating Dundalk’s history.
There is much to celebrate. Dundalk were reigning League of Ireland champions as the new season started, just as they had been in 2016 and 2015. Winning the title again in 2018 meant, in six consecutive seasons under Kenny, Dundalk were not out of the top two. They won two FAI Cups and lost two finals in that time as well.
Then there was Europe: the narrow defeats, the deserved draws, the wins over BATE Borisov, Maccabi Tel Aviv and later, post-Kenny, Europa League games against Arsenal and Molde. It was not that long ago.
This is not about the saddening decline of Dundalk FC, though, at least not entirely; the club’s contribution to 52-week contracts and the gradual professionalisation of the league in the past decade is there to be seen.
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No, this concerns the perspective Kenny talked about that day in 2017 – how people watch and understand the League of Ireland, its players, coaches and clubs.
“The point,” he said, “is about presentation.”
Kenny was pretty fed up. Given he was in charge of the most successful domestic club, he could have felt satisfied. But Kenny was zooming out, thinking back to the previous season in Europe, when Dundalk reached the Europa League group stage and drew 1-1 away at AZ Alkmaar in their opening game. His players, he thought, had looked different in Alkmaar’s modern stadium – then a decade old – and perhaps looked at themselves differently too.
He was talking about environment and perception and, ruefully, he would revisit the theme a few months later.
Following Dundalk’s summer elimination from the Champions League by Rosenborg – 3-2 on aggregate after extra time in the second leg – Kenny observed his players and the 21,000-capacity modern stadium Rosenborg inhabit and said: “There is nothing between the teams and yet we are playing in bloody Oriel Park, very limited facilities, and we are coming to grounds like this.
“The players deserve to playing on stages like this.”
Kenny’s comments came to mind over two days in Belfast and Dublin last week.
At Windsor Park in Belfast, Shamrock Rovers walked into the 18,500-capacity redeveloped stadium and looked like they owned it. Graham Burke, Daniel Cleary and company strode around Windsor with a sense of belonging.
Those in the Larne camp, and in the Irish League more broadly, watched on alarmed, yet understood this display of superiority. In a reverse of what managers usually request, Shamrock Rovers played the occasion. And won convincingly.
(The downside, of course, was the chanting from some, perhaps those who forget Wolfe Tone was an anti-sectarian Prod).
The point here, however, is Kenny’s – presentation. Part of the reason why Rovers were so persuasive – and impressive to an audience who see them rarely – was the setting.
Windsor is the best soccer-specific (as they say in the US) stadium on the island. The second-best is Tallaght. Rovers play consistently in Europe on the sort of stages Kenny mentioned. There’s a trip to Stamford Bridge next month.
This not only makes the players and management of Stephen Bradley more comfortable when entering these surroundings, it also enhances external perception of them.
Go back to Alkmaar-Dundalk and Dutch infrastructure has material benefits plural – commercial income is one, obviously, but there is also the added value in the transfer market of players being seen in a Dutch situation, as opposed to being seen in Irish domestic football at, say, Oriel Park.
Put simply, better facilities, better stadiums increase the value of the players inside them. Supermarkets call it packaging.
Standing with Wes Hoolahan at Tolka Park last Saturday as he remembered days when he swept the terraces – “Ollie Byrne used to give me cash in hand” – the thought occurred that had Hoolahan been an Alkmaar player he would have been sold for a lot more than the €140K Shelbourne chiselled out of Livingston. He would also have departed for a higher league than Scotland’s.
The reaction to Rovers-Larne was pronounced – 24 hours later at Shelbourne-Drogheda everyone was still talking about it, and the discussion carried on, so that the back-page headline in the Sunday Life (a Belfast newspaper not seen often in Dublin) was: ‘Larne Lost By 13 Years’.
This was the opinion of Darren Murphy. Murphy is head coach at Finn Harps but is better known in Belfast as a Linfield player of distinction. He also coached at Linfield and managed in the Irish League as well as in Donegal. Murphy knows the subject.
“I love the Irish League and it has been my life,” he said, “but I’m fortunate to have worked in the League of Ireland and there is no question in my mind that the Premier Division in Ireland is stronger than the Irish League. It’s 13 years ahead.”
Murphy identified a step-change as Rovers’ entry into the Europa League group stage under Michael O’Neill in 2011. Larne have no such history.
Rovers’ progression has not been seamless since then, but under Bradley they have renewed and re-enforced.
“What Rovers have done is set the benchmark for what football should be in Ireland . . . lifted the bar for everyone in the League of Ireland,” Murphy said.
Sometimes how others see you can be jarring, but this was enlightening, complimentary and with so much inherited negativity around the League of Ireland, the praise should be accepted, noted. Maybe Rovers at Windsor will be seen as a moment of positive recognition. Maybe it will be said (with caveats such as Dundalk): 2024 was a good year.
Murphy referred to Rovers’ last four titles – the necessities of print mean this is written pre-Friday – and it could be five.
But if not, Rovers still merit great credit for what they are in 2024, what they have become. As the volunteers of 2002 who became the 400 Club of 2005 will attest, there has been a lot of angst and bucket-rattling to reach this phase. There has been investment too, not to be ignored, but it was the volunteers who ensured there was something to invest in.
It’s up to others now to match and catch Rovers. Shelbourne’s recruitment of Damien Duff and the impact he has had needs acknowledgment, not interclub or online scorn.
It is possible to be healthy, generous rivals. Because there is a joint concern for all fans in the League of Ireland and Irish League: it is infrastructure, real professionalisation and how, as Kenny said, the domestic game presents itself. A bright, tight title run-in helps.
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