gerrytastic

On the Farrell family

Posted on March 25, 2017 by gerrytastic

Last year amid all the ceremony that surrounded the centenary of the 1916 Rising I set about researching some of the family history around that hugely significant event. I did of course throw in a bit about politics, football and a few other things and the resulting effort can be found here. That article had tended to focus more on the Kieran family; the family of my grandmother and some of their connections to the town of Dundalk.

The post was well received and seemed to be of special interest to family members as it jogged some recollections of long dead aunts and uncles, of half forgotten stories and the other various myths and tales that are told in all families. I was however admonished for not focusing enough on the Farrell side of the clan, after all theirs was a story worthy of telling as well. I’ve duly started to compile some information on the Farrell side of the family from around the same period (turn of the 20th Century) and the results compiled below.

But first back to the Kieran family! In the previous post I touched on the lives of Thomas Kieran and Jane Brennan, my great-grandparents. Thomas as mentioned had been born in Dundalk around 1889 and worked as an engine fitter at the Great Northern Railroad in Dundalk before moving to Dublin where he continued working as an engineer for the railways. He married Jane Brennan of Dominick Street in late 1915. Jane was born around 1891 to Jane and John Brennan.

Tom and Jane lived at 27 Blessington Street in the north inner city. As mentioned in the previous post Tom had been involved with the Volunteers during the Rising in Dundalk and he maintained his republican interests while living in Dublin. On the evening of 16th December 1920, Tom was arrested at his residence in Blessington Street and the house was thoroughly searched for weapons though none were found. The arresting officer was one Lieutenant Percy Gerald Humfrey, who noted that upon being arrested Tom said nothing at all.

He wasn’t the only family member to be arrested around this time as I discovered tracing back the Farrell line. For reference here’s the basic family tree below because this can get a little complicated.

Let’s being with my great-grandfather Leo Farrell (who my Da is named after), he was born in early 1893, one of eight children that survived (there were ten born in total) to Terence Bellew McManus Farrell and Mary Farrell (nee Byrne). Leo was a railway engineer who worked in the CIE yards in Inchicore and was also an active Trade Union member with the Irish Engineering and Foundry Workers Union among others. He was also quite an athlete in his younger days, he was a member of Clonliffe Harriers running club. I’ve recently found a reference to Leo winning a one-mile race for Clonliffe Harriers back in 1911 when he would have been around 18. There is a short report on the race from the Dublin Daily Express (below) showing Leo comfortably finishing the race in a sub 5 minute time. My Dad remembered him as a kind and generous man, who despite his athletic past was short and rotund with a big appetite.

Irish Engineering & Foundry Union Rules Revision Conference 1936 – Leo Farrell is in the front row second from the left. Photo provided to me by the TEEU.

Leo runs a mile- Dublin Daily Express 06.11.11

Report in the Dublin Daily Express from 6th November 1911

Leo’s younger brother Terence Patrick Farrell was born in late 1898. The younger Terence is quite an interesting character and it was he who was also arrested in December 1920, the same time as Thomas Kieran and from very close by too. Terence had grown up in the family home on Anne Street North, just off the city’s north quays near to the markets area however, the family later moved to 32 Mountjoy Street, just around the corner from Blessington Street where the Kieran’s lived.

32 Mountjoy Street as it appears today.

Terence became involved with the Republic movement even before the Rising, while still a teenager he joined Fianna Eireann and turned up at Jacob’s biscuit factory as part of E company of the 2nd Battalion of the Dublin Brigade during Easter week. However, he was only there for a few hours before being sent home due to his age (he could only have been 17 at the latest).

Terence rejoined E company of the 2nd Battalion in early 1917 and attended the various parades and drills required of an IRA member. By 1919 he had undertaken a first aid training course and was performing training classes for Cumann na mBan members once or twice a week in Finglas as well as in Summer Street just off Mountjoy Square.

Later in 1920 Terence was involved in an aborted rescue attempt for the recently arrested Kevin Barry. Interestingly Terence noted that it was a cousin of his (a family story was that this was his cousin Rosie McGrane who smuggled Terence’s revolver out of 32 Mountjoy Square when he was arrested so it may she may have also been involved with the Republican movement) who mobilised him for a the rescue attempt. He was armed with a gun and grenades and stationed at North Great George’s Street in what would have been a last-ditch, desperate attempt to liberate Barry from Mountjoy prison. Due to the large crowds gathering outside the prison and the growing number of military personnel that were stationed there it was decided due to the expected carnage that would ensue that the rescue attempt would have to be called off. Kevin Barry was later executed by hanging.

A view from the spot on North Great George’s Street where Terence was stationed for the Kevin Barry rescue attempt

Undoubtedly the most significant incident in which Terence was involved was his role during Bloody Sunday, 21st November 1920. He was one of the lookouts at the 22 Lower Mount Street where Lieutenant Henry James Angliss and Lieutenant Charles Peel were residing. Angliss, who was going by the code name Peter Mahon/McMahon, was a particular target due to his involvement in the murder of Sinn Fein Councillor John Lynch at the Exchange Hotel on Parliament Street in September 1920.

While Angliss was killed on Bloody Sunday, Peel managed to escape a similar fate by barricading himself in his room. Terence was keeping guard in the hall when some passing Auxiliaries were alerted by the screams of the housemaids, the Volunteers tried to escape from the back of the house but came under fire and they had to fight their way out through the front. Terence was armed with a pair of revolvers and helped cover the group, expending all his ammunition as the rest of the party made their escape up Grattan Street, helping the injured Volunteer Denis Begley to escaper with him. In a letter written years later supporting Terence’s military pension application Begley stated that Terence by his

action in entering the house to give the alarm at Lower Mount St. on that morning, is, I think, worthy of great commendation, being carried out under fire from the “Auxiliaries”, and was the means, no doubt, of saving the lives of the party of of eight Volunteers who were inside the house.

There is a wider account of the assassination here. Terence continued in other activities including the armed raid of the SS Clarecastle, a Guinness ship that was being used to transport weapons. The volunteers were successful in seizing arms from the ship. This must have occurred some time in 1918/1919 when many of the Guinness ships were under the control of the Royal Navy who had commandeered them after the outbreak of World War I, only returning them to the brewery in 1919.

A view of the SS Clarecastle in front of Custom House Quay. Photo kindly provided by the Guinness Archives

Terence was arrested in early December 1920 at the family home at 32 Mountjoy Street. He was held in Ballykinlar, Co. Down, an army base turning internment camp, and was not released until December 1921. Terence’s autograph book which he kept during his imprisonment is held in the National Library’s microfilm collection.

Certificate showing Terence’s membership of the IRA, signed by Oscar Traynor

After his release he had a varied and full existence. He was heavily involved in the Trade Union movement. Terence like his father Terence Snr. was a bookbinder by trade and he soon became head of the bookbinders Union. Through his leadership of the bookbinders union he became more prominent in the Trade Union movement, later becoming the last President of the Congress of Irish Unions (CIU), one of the main Trade Union confederations before their amalgamation which led to the creation of ICTU. Terence represented the CIU at the 1958 International Labour Conference in Geneva where he spoke about the importance “educational activity in the field of labour – management relations”, Terence remained active with ICTU and was one of the party who attended the new organisation’s first meeting with then Taoiseach Sean Lemass. Among his other work was a role representing the Trade Union movement on a government committee set up to advise on the establishment of a national television station in 1958, two years before RTE Television was established.

The banner of the Bookbinders Union made in 1887 and no doubt very familiar to Terence O’Farrell who led the Union and his father who was also a member. The banner is displayed in the Irish Print Museum.

Terence didn’t live quite long enough to see the first television broadcast of the new station on New Year’s Eve 1961, he had passed away in February of that year. The chief mourners at the funeral were his wife Elsie and and his six children. His brothers and sisters were also in attendance as were Taoiseach Sean Lemass and Minister for Justice Oscar Traynor who had known Terence from his days in the IRA. He was accorded full military honours at his funeral.

Terence’s father Terence Farrell Snr. who was briefly mentioned above was also a printer by trade which gives us a hint how the younger Terence ended up becoming general secretary of the bookbinders union. He was born in May 1864 in Faithful Place to Patrick and Catherine Farrell. Patrick was a wine barrel cooper while we don’t know if Catherine Farrell (nee Brady) had a job outside the home as this wasn’t recorded at the time.

Birth certificate of Terence Farrell Senior

The area where Terence Snr. was born is mentioned as 12 Faithful Place which no longer exists today. However in 1864 it was located in a the area marked by the red “x” in the centre of the map below on an area now just off Railway Street currently by City Council social housing complexes.

Map of the area around Faithful Place. Lower Gardiner Street is visible to the left.

By the end of the 19th Century this area had become synonymous with vice and prostitution, it was the infamous “Monto” area, named after nearby Montgomery Street (now Foley Street), and was the “Night Town” of James Joyce’s Ulysses, however, around the time of Terence’s birth it had not quite become the red light district of the city, only becoming a focal point from the 1870’s onwards. While perhaps not as infamous as it would later become it was a far from wealthy area, the photo below shows the condition of Faithful Place in 1913. While the area had originally been developed by the Gardiner family who had laid out and developed Mountjoy Square as one of Dublin’s finest addresses the area had declined in the early decades of the 19th century leading to the once opulent Georgian houses becoming tenements for the city’s struggling working classes.

Faithful Place in 1913 (source http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie)

While Terence would go on to have a certain distant connection to the literary world of Dublin as he worked as a bookbinder but we know less of his parents Patrick and Catherine Farrell, they seem to have been married in April of 1843 in St. Andrew’s Church on Westland Row. Their fate is a little less certain so if anyone comes across any other information on them please let me know.

I’d like to finish with a little bit on the Scully side of the family. Leo Farrell married Margaret Scully in 1916. Leo would have been 23 at this stage while Margaret would have been about 20 years old. Margaret was the daughter of Louisa and Michael Scully who lived in rooms in 70 Benburb Street in Dublin 7. Michael was born around 1869 and was listed as a general labourer. He died at the young age of only 30 on St. Stephen’s Day 1899 with the cause of death listed as pneumonia and heart failure, only two months earlier they had registered the birth of their baby daughter, also named Louisa. In the 1901 census Louisa Scully (nee Gavigan) had moved a short distance from Benburb Street, across the river to nearby Watling Street. She had been a widow almost two years by that stage and worked as a laundress supporting her four daughters; Mary Ellen 15, Bridget 12, Margaret 7, and baby Louisa not yet 2.

Seated in front, Leo Farrell & Margaret Scully on their wedding day in August 1916. At the rear is Margaret’s sister Louisa Scully (aka Francie) and Terence Farrell. Thanks to my cousin Lisa Taylor for the photo.

Although Louisa could neither read nor write she was listed on the 1901 census as being able to speak both English and Irish, her place of birth was listed as Kildare. Recently, I was shown a copy of her baptism cert and this lists her as being baptised in Celbridge, Co. Kildare in December of 1858. All her daughters were still in school and were literate. In the later 1911 census Margaret is the only daughter listed as being able to speak Irish as well as English, then in her later teens she was working as a shirt maker. This connection with the textile industries is something that was obviously passed on to her children, her older sister Bridget also listed her job as “ladies tailoring”, and there has long been a certain fashion and tailoring connection in the family.

While in the 1901 census the family were all listed as Roman Catholic by 1911 all or Louisa’s daughters listed under the religion heading their devotion to the Roman Catholic sodality of the Sacred Thirst. This was part of the wider temperance movement at the time and was based in Father Matthew Hall on Church Street, the family were at this time living nearby at 144 North King Street. There was widespread interest in these Church led campaigns against drinking beginning in the 1880’s, especially in the working class communities of Dublin. There is some more information about the hall and the sodality here. I have wondered whether the death of their father Michael at the age of 30 might have had an impact on the girls and their devotion to the temperance movement. Deaths listed as pneumonia and heart disease (Michael’s listed cause of death) were often the result of alcohol abuse, might this be have been the root cause for their devotion?

Publications by the Sacred Thirst sodality based in Fr. Mathew Hall on Church Street.

I’m ending this particular chapter of the familial research in a familiar address, 15 Fassaugh Road. A location known to all the family, it was where Louisa Scully Sr. passed away on the 1st of July 1938. She was 72 years old and had at that stage been a widow for more than 40 years. Her causes of death were listed as senility and cardiac arrest, with the witness on her death certificate being her son-in-law Leo.

As with any family history there is always more to be told. Please let me know if I’ve missed out on anything, it certainly won’t be the end of my research. A big thank you to my second cousin, once removed Helen Farrell for all her assistance, her existing research has opened a lot of doors for me. Anyway I’m proud to be a ninth generation Dubliner, who knows what else we’ll find!

The remarkable life of Bohs captain William H. Otto

Posted on February 16, 2017 by gerrytastic

The 1923-24 season was to signal the first of Bohemian Football Club’s 11 League of Ireland title wins. That maiden title was captured in the penultimate game of the season, a 2-1 victory over St. James’s Gate in Dalymount. The goals that day came from English-born centre forward Dave Roberts and Dubliner Christy Robinson at inside-left. Between them they would score 32 of the Bohs’ 56 goals that season, with Roberts finishing as the League’s top marksman with 20. But while strikers tend to get the glory this maiden victory was of course a team effort. A number of those league winning Bohs players were selected for the Irish squad that travelled to the 1924 Olympics. Men like full-back Bertie Kerr, Paddy O’Kane, Jack McCarthy, Ned Brooks and Johnny Murray would win caps for Ireland and are still remembered for their contributions for the club. However, one man who was central to those achievements but leaves less of a trace is William Henry Otto, the versatile Bohemians half-back, better known as Billy, who captained the team.

Finding Billy

Anyone who has ever trawled through Irish newspaper archives or through any number of online census returns or genealogy sites will appreciate the difficulty in trying to track down a relative from the distant past. Particularly if that relative has a rather common surname, without having the specifics to hand working out if that John O’Sullivan or that Mary Byrne is your ancestor can be a thankless task. It is for some of these reasons that researching someone with the surname Otto in 1920’s Ireland is that bit more intriguing. However detail on the life of Billy Otto of Bohemian Football Club initially proved illusive and as his story developed it brought me on quite an unexpected journey.

What we know about Billy Otto begins with his birth in December of 1898, son of another William Henry Otto, in Robben Island just off Cape Town, South Africa. Robben Island is most famous for being the island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years from the 1960’s to 1980’s. However in 1898 it was a leper colony. William Henry Otto Snr. was a pharmacist which explains his presence on the island, though it was hardly the ideal place for a new born baby as part of the growing family. Billy being the 2nd born of a large family of 10 children.

In 1915, before he had even reached his 17th birthday young Billy had volunteered to join the 1st South African Infantry Regiment and was off to fight in World War I under the command of Brigadier General Henry Lukin. The Regiment was part of the South African Overseas Expeditionary Force which was a volunteer military organisation that fought on the British side against the Central Powers during the war. Billy’s regiment was colloquially known as the “Cape Regiment” as this was the area that provided the bulk of their manpower.

Early on the regiment fought along with the British in North Africa and Billy was involved in the Action of Agagia in Egypt in February 1916 as part of what was known as the Senussi campaign. The Senussi were a religious sect based in Libya and Egypt who had been encouraged by Ottoman Turkey to attack the British. The engagement at Agagia led to the capture of one of the Senussi leaders.

But by May 1916 the 1st South African Infantry had left Africa and had been transferred to Europe and the Western Front and where they were joined into the 9th Scottish Division. They would take part in some of the many epic and bloody engagements of the Battle of the Somme at Longueval and at Delville Wood. Brigadier-General Henry Lukin and his South African troops were ordered to take and hold Delville Wood at all costs. The battle was for a tiny and ultimately insignificant sliver of land as part of the huge Somme offensive and began on 15th July of 1916. By the 18th of July Billy had been injured in a massive German counter-offensive, the Germans shelled the small section of the Wood for seven and a half hours and over the course of day, in an area less than one square mile, 20,000 shells fell. One account described the trees of the woodland being turned to matchsticks by the end of the bombardment.

The South African soldiers would continue to be shelled and sniped at from three sides until the July 20th when suffering from hunger, thirst and exhaustion they were led out of the wood. The Battle of Deville Wood would be the most costly action that the South African forces on the Western Front would endure, of the 3,153 men from the brigade who entered the wood, only 780 were present at the roll call after their relief.

Delville_Wood_South_African_National_Memorial_(September_2010)_2

Deville Wood South African National Memorial (source wikipedia)

The injured Billy would ultimately be sent to England to recuperate and it is likely that from here he got the idea to travel to Ireland. What prompted this we simply don’t yet know.

What we do know is that Billy appears first as a sportsman for Bohemians in 1920, and featured regularly from 1921 as Bohemians competed in the first season of the newly formed Free State League. Billy usually played in a half-back (midfield) position in the team though did he feature in a number of other roles and proved an occasional goal-getter.

In April 1923 he features in the Bohemian XI that take on touring French side CAP Gallia in Dalymount, in what was the first visit by a continental side to Ireland since the split with the IFA. In late December 1923 Otto captained the Bohs side that travelled to Belfast to take on Linfield. Bohs won the game 4-2 in one of the first matches played against northern opposition since the split. He was then part of a selection under the Shelbourne banner (a composite side made up from several clubs) that took on members of the 1924 Olympic football team in a warm up game prior to their departure for Paris. Here he featured against his regular midfield teammates John Thomas and Johnny Murray.

Other prominent games were to follow in 1924, rather appropriately for Billy Bohemians took on the South African national team as the debut game on their European Tour. Billy once again captained Bohs as the South Africans ran out 4-2 winners. Tantalisingly the Pathé news cameras were at the ground that day and recorded some of the footage of the game and the teams posing before the match. As captain it is Billy we see receiving a piece of South African art from his opposite number. Tall, slim and dark-haired Billy would have been around 26 years of age when this footage was shot.

Billy was Bohemian captain for the 1923-24 season, a time of progress for the club as they were crowned League champions and Shield winners that year with the club also finishing as League runners-up the following year, he would also become a member of the club committee. He continued as a regular team member through to the first half of 1927 when he disappears from the match reports of the club. We know that during his time in Dublin he more than likely worked for the the revenue service as we know he lined out for them as a footballer in the Civil Service League around the same time that he was on the books of Bohemians. This wasn’t too unusual as a number of Billy’s other team-mates would have also been civil servants (i.e. Harry Willitts) at what was then still a strictly amateur club.

Billy sets sail

While Billy Otto might have been finishing up at Bohemians he was about to begin another chapter of his life. On the 24th November 1927 he boarded the steamship Bendigo (shown above) on the London docks bound for a return to Cape Town, South Africa. Billy was by this stage 29 years of age and listed his residence as the Irish Free State, more specifically at 28 Hollybank Road in Drumcondra. On the ship’s passenger list the stated country of his future residence was South Africa and his profession was recorded as bloodstock. There is a possible Bohemian connection here as one of Billy’s former teammates, Bertie Kerr was already by this stage and established bloodstock agent who would go on to purchase and sell four Aintree Grand National winners.

Billy and Bertie were known to be good friends outside of football. Is it possible that the Kerr family may have introduced Otto to the business? Perhaps, although there is strong evidence that there may have been a familial connection. Billy’s brother Johnny was a champion jockey in South Africa and later worked as a steward at the Jockey club.

28 Hollybank Road as it appears today. In the 1920s it was home to Bohs captain Billy Otto

In his personal life it must have been during his time living in Drumcondra that Billy was to meet his future wife Christine. Born Christina Quigley in Dalkey on 8th December 1900 to a Policeman; Thomas, and a housewife, Maryanne, by the 1911 census Christine was living on St. Patrick’s Road in Drumcondra. She is not listed as a passenger on Billy’s 1927 voyage and they did not marry in Ireland. However, we know that they did indeed get married and had three sons, tying the knot in December 1929 in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Cape Town. Records show that she had travelled to South Africa via Mozambique aboard the SS Grantully Castle just one month earlier. Christine Otto (nee Quigley) did make return visits to Ireland later in her life. She came back to Dublin via Southampton for a visit in 1950, the stated destination for her visit was to 25 Hollybank Road.

Billy departs

In March 1958 a small obituary in the Irish Times noted the passing on the 13th of that month of William H (Billy) Otto at his residence of Wingfield on the Algarkirk Road, Seapoint, Cape Town. “Beloved husband of Chriss (Quigley) late of Drumcondra, Dublin. Deeply mourned by his three sons and members of the Bohemian Football Club”. Billy’s passing occured within a week of the deaths of two other team-mates, Ned Brooks and Jack McCarthy, from that same championship winning team. Christine remained in South Africa though she is listed as returning again to Ireland in 1960, two years after Billy’s death. The address that she was to stay at for an intended 12 months was, on this occasion, in Foxrock, Dublin.

Billy had lived out his days in his native Cape Town, he and Chriss had three sons, another William Henry, Brian Barry and Terrence John. Whatever about his interest in bloodstock and horse racing Billy also had other business interests running an off-licence (locally known as “bottle stores”) up to the time of his death in 1958. In just 60 years he had led quite the life and defied the odds in many ways. Born in a leper colony, as a teenager he had survived the horrors of the Somme to go on and become one of the first prominent South African born footballers in Europe. He captained his club to a League title and faced off against the national team of his home nation in one of their earliest games. He built a life, friendships and family across two continents and I hope I’ve done a small part in restoring him to the consciousness of the Bohemian fraternity.

With thanks to Simon O’Gorman and Stephen Burke for their assistance and input and a special thank you to Maryanne and all of the Otto/Calitz family for sharing information about their late grandfather.

A few thoughts on Millennial bashing

Posted on February 7, 2017 by gerrytastic

To begin with, a quick admission of potential bias, depending on which definition you read I am either just about a Millennial or just outside of this supposed generational, cultural catchment, born as I was in the early 1980’s. I finished school and started University around the turn of the Millennium and I grew up with the rapid, progressive changes in technology through that time so for the purposes of this piece I’m considering myself an old Millennial.

The dominant view of this generation is a pejorative one which views us as weak. We are lacking in focus, painfully sensitive to criticism or indeed any disagreement to our world view, naively idealistic and basically existing in some phase of arrested development where we forever remain overgrown children who cannot face, understand or process the realities of daily life. This tends to be joyfully prodded home on social media through things like memes contrasting a generation that came of age in the 1940’s going off to fight a war and a current generation who are upset by even the slightest challenge to them and who must then flee to their “safe spaces”. In this context we must understand that safe spaces are “bad” and only exist to coddle adults who should just learn to “pull it together” and get on with things. Let me know if I’ve covered all the bases here folks.

The idea of successive generations being weaker than their forebears is one that is as old as history. The Greek poet Hesiod, writing somewhere between 750-650 BC makes this clear in his works like the Theogony and Works and Days; here the descent of the “Ages of Man” sees mankind descend from a near-immortal co-habitation with the gods, a life filled with leisure, to the gradual indignity of short lives full of toil and suffering. This is echoed the epic poems The Iliad and the Odyssey which are ascribed to Homer. In these works Nestor, an aged Greek King often lectures the younger characters about the glories of his past and compares sufferings of the current generation of Greek heroes like Odysseus, with those of his youth, often emphasising his own bravery and that of his deceased contemporaries.

This focus on a glorious past makes a certain sense in these Greek texts, they were written around the 8th Century BC when the authors and audiences would have seen the gargantuan ruins of the vanished Mycenaean civilisation which had collapsed around 1100 BC. These abandoned palaces and citadels were testament to a vanished age of heroes, their knowledge and technologies having been lost by the time of the composition of the heroic epics of Homer. Surely the ruins of such a civilisation were the works of greater men, those closer to the divine?

The remains of the mighty Lion gate at the entrance to the citadel of Mycenae

This theme is not just confined to writings and myths of ancient Greece. The idea of the decline of mankind from a position of heroic, near godlike status appears in Irish mythology as well. Well known mythological figures like Fionn mac Cumhaill and Cú Chulainn possessed supernatural abilities in strength and cunning, in the case of Fionn this is passed down the generations to his son Oisín. In one of the many tales told around the world about the pursuit of the fountain of youth, Oisín is taken by his new wife Niamh a daughter of a god, to the island of Tír na nÓg. Oisín stays on the island for what he believes to be only three years but then returns to the mainland to find that 300 years have passed. Fionn is gone and the sites of the Fianna’s power are in ruin. The people who inhabit Ireland at this point are not of the heroic vintage of Oisín, they are seen as lesser specimens and Oisín has to stop to help them with the building of a road as they are too weak to move a boulder. When Oisín tries to help he falls from his enchanted horse and ages rapidly before dying.

The parallels appear again and again in different cultures, an idealised heroic past contrasting sharply with a fallen, degenerated present. This trend persisted. Across Western Europe the Roman empire may have retreated and eventually fallen but the immutable objects of their power and engineering genius remained, theatres, aqueducts, temples and villas dotted the landscape even centuries after the legions had left and in their vacuum contests for power, war and plagues later emerged. The knowledge and organisation of Roman rule moved eastwards and it was only during the middle centuries of the last Millennium that swathes of western European rediscovered the writing and learning of this Classical past. Only with this Renaissance could western Europe return to rediscover this connection with a near forgotten past.

In these instances we can see societies to some degree living in the shadow of earlier triumphs, inhabiting ruins whose creation they cannot fathom. In a way it made sense to view current or successive generations as somehow a decline of previous standards. As people and societies not evolving but degenerating. But this is a world away from modern experience.

Present generations can see technological progress before our eyes, we are more advanced and connected in these regards than any previous generation. In societal terms the last two centuries or so has seen progressive social movements that have helped lead to the abolition of chattel slavery and a spread of democratic government including the enfranchisement first of working class men and later women. The last half of the 20th century witnessed a growing independence movement among those nations that remained colonies of European powers. There was also the rise of a global civil rights movement that began to agitate against repressive regimes and legislation from places as diverse as South Africa, Northern Ireland and the United States.

The so-called Snowflake generation do not look back on the past cowed by the looming monuments of fallen empires that they are unable to recreate. They simply do not need or want to recreate them. We can see through our historical prism that we have moved on in many ways from our previous generations, we acknowledge and cherish the rights that previous generations fought to secure in the knowledge that there is a distance yet to travel, that there is further progress to be made, rights to be secured so that they may be bequeathed to the next generation.

In the United States the generation of men who went to fight in World War II were often referred to with the moniker of the “Greatest Generation”, they had survived the poverty and want of the 30’s and helped to defeat the scourge of fascism in the 40’s. In the process they protected American interests and ensured that the United States emerged from the war as the pre-eminent western power.

Their generation assumed a gravitas that subsequent generations could not match, yet as the last members of this group disappear, it is their children and grandchildren who seek to objectify the Millennial generation as “Snowflakes”. This “baby-boomer” grouping enjoyed the peace that followed WW2, and the benefits that this brought. This is not to say that everything from 1946 onward was plain sailing but the scale of horror of the preceding decades was not to re-emerge.

In Ireland the most recent decades have seen a cessation of wide scale sectarian violence, a far greater social liberalisation than a post war generation could ever have imagined and rapid economic growth (at times far too rapid). It would be disingenuous for any Irish baby-boomer to say that the country is in worse shape now than when they were born in the 1940s/50s/60s. Can anyone really hark back to the days of Catholic Church dominance, subsistence farming, car bombs, and a beer and biscuits economy? It was not better back in the old days but nor is it perfect today.

For Millennials items like sky-rocketing rents, increased costs for education, lack of job security, the remaining anachronisms of an Irish theocracy, such as the 8th amendment, and the re-emergence of the far-right are legitimate issues of concern. But yet speaking out about something like the quality or security of your lodgings is seen being a needy Snowflake. Not as being a continuation of an Irish tradition that dates back to at least the land agitation of the 18th Century through to the housing protests against tenement conditions that continued well into the 1960’s in Dublin.

The ancient Greeks looked back into the murky mists of history through the ruins that dotted their landscape and invented the stories of great heroes. As Patrick Kavangh put it in his poem Epic

Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

Today it is baby-boomer Donald Trump who leads America, his rhetoric harking back to an idealised past that never existed. In his clumsy, repetitive speech he makes his heroes and myths. He invokes the past, the dead, and flanks his Oval Office desk with portraits of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, harking back to an ideal of America that ignores slavery, the Civil War and the Trail of Tears. His rallying cry remains “Make America, Great Again”, which implies it is not great now, it can only become great again by going back, by undoing. The future of a nation rests on the nostalgia for a world that never existed among a dying generation. This is the Millennials’ inheritance.

In Britain likewise an exit from the EU voted for overwhelmingly by middle-aged and older Britons. When old securities vanish, when a minority can vote in Trump, when a gerontocratic block ensures that a majority of young Britons who want to be a part of the EU won’t have that opportunity then yes a Millennial generation will feel aggrieved.

Every human generation has been compared unfavourably to its predecessors, even when every measure of progress suggest that this is baseless and unjust. Millennials are in good company and have a growing means to express themselves. As the stakes get higher, as far-right forces gain prominence in more nations generation snowflake won’t be melting away. In the end I think future generations might even be thankful for that.

The main photo image is of the Mask of Agamemnon, a gold death mask of an unknown Greek discovered at Mycenae. It was named the mask of Agamemnon by Archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann.

A 48 team World Cup -reasons to be supportive

Posted on January 22, 2017 by gerrytastic

The confirmation by FIFA that it is to restructure the World Cup to accommodate 48 teams has been met with a largely negative response, especially across Europe. The most prominent arguments being as follows; that a 48 team world cup is bloated and will diminish overall quality. That it will be impossible for a tournament this size to be held reasonably in any one country and in any case it’s simply part of a cynical exercise on the part of FIFA to rake in more money. There have been some arguments put forward as well that the proposed three team group stages will be unworkable and might need the introduction of penalty shoot-outs to avoid arranged draws like the infamous West Germany v Austria game at the 1982 World Cup.

The most prominent criticism seems to be simply that people don’t like change and the current 32 team format is widely popular. But how fair are the criticisms about the bloated nature of the tournament and the expected drop in overall quality? Does a 48 team tournament devalue it through a cheapening of the qualification process? That if it isn’t hard to get there is it really worth being there? First let’s look at qualifying history over time and what other options have been explored.

The first World Cup was an invitational tournament held in Uruguay, all the games took place in capital city Montevideo with 10 of the 18 overall matches taking place in the Estadio Centenario. While certainly handy for getting around this is obviously not something that anyone expects us to return to. The first post war World Cup in 1950 could have been Ireland’s first ever appearance after a number of withdrawals by other teams. Scotland had been one of the teams to withdraw as they had only finished second behind England in the Home Nations Championship (a defacto qualifying group), they had pledged to only attend if they won the tournament even though second guaranteed qualification. The FAI turned down the offer due to the expected cost of travelling to Brazil. The peculiar layout of the 1950 tournament meant that hosts Brazil only needed to draw against Uruguay to win the tournament as there was no straight knock-out format. If a three team group stage is being cited as one of the major drawbacks of an expanded tournament then it would still be considered superior to these previous formats. No one is suggesting that these previous formats and haphazard qualification routes would be preferable but those who site history and tradition tend to refer to the period in their own lifetimes.

Regarding the 3-team groups and the introduction of automatic penalty shoot-outs for draws was something that did exist previously in leagues like the NASL and the early years of the MLS. While certainly a break with tradition they would reduce the amount of dead-rubber games and reduce the risk of a repeat of West Germany v Austria ’82 or dare I say a Republic of Ireland v Netherlands 1990 game.

1950 World Cup poster featuring the flags of competing nations.

The first World Cup of my lifetime was in 1982. This was the first World Cup to use the 24 team format that would remain in place until 1998. At the time of qualifying for Spain ’82 there were 109 members of FIFA competing for those 24 places. For a number of reasons, not least the collapse of the Soviet Union into its individual constituent nations in the early 1990’s by 1998 the number of FIFA members had risen to 174, an increase of almost 60%. At present FIFA has 211 member associations, meaning it now has more members than even the United Nations.

Understandably as membership has grown so have the numbers of teams participating in qualifying and the World Cup proper. This poses the question as to what is the purpose of the World Cup? I’d propose two answers.

First, To determine which national team is the best in the world. Second to provide a genuine opportunity for the most global of team sports to be represented at one competition and to raise the levels of quality and competitiveness around the world.

The World Cup has only ever been won by teams from either Europe or South America, they have well established and highly competitive football leagues and advanced infrastructure, however few pundits would suggest that the World Cup should be open only to teams from these Confederations. A weighting is applied so that 13 teams qualified from UEFA and 6 (including Brazil as hosts) qualified from CONMEBOL for the last World Cup. We can see this as an attempt to genuinely have the best teams while also being representative enough by including sufficient teams from other confederations to truly be a World Cup. Within FIFA of course this is also tied to networks of power. While qualification may be weighted to feature the strongest teams the votes of all associations are equal, something that many, though not all FIFA Presidents have appreciated. Access to the World Cup and the prestige and wealth on offer have swung elections in the past, as was the case in 1974 when the incumbent FIFA President, the Englishman Stanley Rous lost to João Havelange. The Brazilian Havelange had toured over 80 nations during his campaign, occasionally accompanied by Pelé, and promised greater access to an expanded World Cup. At the time African teams had only one place available at the 16 team tournament, Asian and Oceania teams had to compete for a single place. In purely sporting terms the the performances of nations from outside of Europe and South America at the 74 World Cup had been poor to say the least. Zaire had lost all three games, including one match 9-0 to Yugoslavia, Haiti likewise had lost all three games including a 7-0 hammering to Poland, only Australia managed to gain a single point, a scoreless draw with Chile.

On the basis of their performances at the tournament there seemed little argument that the representation of teams from Africa, Asia, North America etc. should be expanded, however Havelange saw that football could grow in each continent by allowing a realistic opportunity for teams outside of Europe and South America to get elite level competitive experience against the world’s best. His promises of an expanded World Cup were understandably well received, especially in Africa. For decades many of Africa’s best players ended up representing European teams, many players from Algeria representing France, stars from Angola and Mozambique representing Portugal. By the 1970’s with most African nations newly independent from colonial rule there was a feeling that African football gave a sense of pride to a nation on a world stage, in FIFA throughout the 1960s these newly independent African nations began to seek membership of FIFA. By 1974 the CAF was the second largest confederation in terms of members, and crucially votes.

Havelange by expanding the world cup to 24 teams in 1982 and bringing in massive new commercial sponsorship to supplement the expansion of the tournament was delivering for whole continents who rarely had the chance to sit at football’s top table. While many, many corruption allegations would later emerge about Havelange he came offering change compared to a man like the eurocentric Stanley Rous who, for example, had strongly opposed any bans on South Africa competing in international football due to their refusal to integrate their football teams and the brutal system of apartheid much to the opposition of other African FAs.

By the end of the 1982 World Cup Africa’s two qualified nations had impressed, the quality a significant improvement on the showing of Zaire in 1974. Cameroon went home unbeaten, after three draws they were unlucky not to make it out of a tough group with goals scored was all that separated them from eventual champions Italy. As previously mentioned only the infamous West Germany v Austria match, where each side knew a 1-0 win for the Germans would see both nations through, prevented the Algerians from advancing.

As with African teams from the 1980s onward it has to be acknowledged that an expanded World Cup can give smaller nations or those from confederations beyond Europe and South America a chance to develop and improve in competitive environments, the best teams will still qualify and the dominant nations will likely continue to win for the foreseeable future but an expanded World Cup will be truly global and be more representative of a larger and growing FIFA membership. To paraphrase Charles Stewart Parnell no man should have the right to fix the boundary to the march of a Nation. FIFA’s remit in theory is to grow the game of football globally, in expanding the World Cup and allowing more nations experience high-level competitive football they are simply following this course, by not expanding the tournament in line with an expanding membership would they not be fixing the boundaries a little too tightly?

The tournament itself will still take the same amount of time to complete and the winners will still play seven games in total. The elite clubs of the world will therefore not really be any more affected than they are now by the change in terms of duration or fatigue though they may loose more players to international tournaments as more nations now qualify. However more tournament places could eliminate a certain number of play-offs thus reducing the overall amount of qualification games.

It seems that a tri-nation bid for the 2026 World Cup from Mexico, USA and Canada is already among the hosting favourites, they certainly would have the facilities to host 48 teams. But considering the expanded size there is no reason why say a single nation like England not host such a tournament. The Premier League boasts 20 modern stadia that could be suitable, add in Wembley and other grounds from outside the top flight (St. James Park, Villa Park etc.) and this could certainly meet the criteria without much additional investment in stadium infrastructure. If not, then the re-emergence of joint-bidding for the tournament means that the expanded competition could still be accommodated while two or more nations share the burden of hosting the games. The World Cup in Japan/South Korea were successful from a fan point of view and led to fewer “white elephant” stadiums than subsequent single-host World Cups that took place in South Africa or Brazil.

Finally, the other great complaint is that this is a cynical exercise from FIFA to curry favour and increase revenue. Well of course it is. Few would be naive enough to believe an expanded World Cup is purely for some idealised “good of the game”. Due to the deluge of scandals in recent years it is hard to view FIFA as anything other than a corrupt plutocracy, but the greatest test of its new leadership will be if the expected increased windfall of a bigger tournament finds its way back to the associations and into funding for new facilities, coaches and youth tournaments and not siphoned off into the back pockets of dodgy administrators.

Building football at the halfway house – The story of Vincent O’Connell

Posted on December 1, 2016 by gerrytastic

Debate is raging at present as to whether the current Dundalk F.C. team are the greatest that has ever been produced in the history of the League of Ireland. There is plenty to recommend this Dundalk crop for that accolade; they’ve won three consecutive league titles, they won a double in 2015 and most notably they have had (by Irish standards) significant success in European competition. In terms of overall trophies Dundalk are second only to Shamrock Rovers in the medals table, having won 12 league titles and 10 FAI Cups. In this regard I’m sad to say that in recent seasons Dundalk have overtaken my own dear Bohemian F.C. in terms of League titles won despite Bohs having been 13 years longer in existence than even the earliest incarnation the Louth team.

However Bohemian F.C. as one of the earliest founded and most prominent clubs certainly played a role in the growth of football in Dundalk. For example it was a former Bohs player, Steve Wright who led Dundalk to their first league title way back in the 1930s. The

Steve Wright – source Dundalkfcwhoswho.com

focus of this article however, is another former Bohs player who was one of the a number of men instrumental in helping to organise the sport of association football in that town and helped to found one of the first proper leagues there.

That this is the case shouldn’t be too surprising, in research for this piece I came across a Sunday Independent article from 1956 which declared of Dundalk that “Soccer stopped at the half-way house” as Dundalk occupied the geographic midpoint between the early footballing hot-beds of Belfast and Dublin, it seems only reasonable that Dublin would have some baring on the games development.

As well as its location there were plenty of other reasons for football to take root in the town. These included presence of a British Army barracks staffed with many active young men, many of whom would already have been familiar with the game, as well as the growth of the railway industry, specifically what became the works side of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) from which the present Dundalk F.C. developed. One of the biggest games in early Dundalk football history was the arrival of the Bohemian F.C. side to take on a local Dundalk AFC side in the Leinster Senior Cup on St. Stephen’s Day 1895. Bohs emerged as the victors from a 3-1 scoreline, however the Dundalk side had competed well and the significant crowd despite the particularly cold winter weather had shown that there certainly was an audience for the sport in the Louth town.

One of the Bohs men who had an influence in shaping the football landscape of Co. Louth was Vincent J. O’Connell. A local lad, Vincent was born in Dundalk in 1882 as fourth son of Henry O’Connell a grocer, of Dundalk, and his wife, Mary. Vincent was a good student and pursued a career as an architect which was what brought him to Dublin to study with the Hague & McNamara firm who were based on Dawson Street. He had been involved with various scratch teams in Dundalk around the turn of the 20th Century and also featured with a side named Dundalk Rovers F.C. who competed occasionally in the Leinster Senior Cup. Vincent would have been roughly 20 by the time he moved to Dublin to study with Hague & McNamara and continued to pursue his interest in the sport by joining Bohemian F.C. in 1902. There is mention of him lining out as a half-back for Bohs in a December 1903 match against the Dublin University club from Trinity College. The Bohs starting XI was described as “not at full strength” and they suffered a heavy 6-1 defeat. O’Connell remained a Bohemians member until 1907 by which stage he had returned to Dundalk and had set up his own architectural firm on Earl Street in the town.

Like many Bohemians of this area his talents weren’t limited just to football and he was also a well know cycling enthusiast. In the business world Vincent prospered and in 1909 he was appointed to the position of engineer at Newry Port, he even branched out by opening a new office in Newry by 1911. As an architect he designed the stores along the Albert Basin not too far away from the Showgrounds where Newry City AFC currently play. Despite these increasing work commitments his

Vincent J. O’Connell in 1909

interest in football maintained and he was recorded as the Vice Captain of the St. Nicholas football team for the 1910-11. St. Nicholas had been training at the Dundalk polo grounds and had competed in local leagues and in the Leinster Junior Cup for a number of years by this stage, and by 1910 were a well established side on the local football scene.

Vincent continued this involvement with local football when he served on the board of the of the Dundalk and District league in the tumultuous year of season of 1920/21. The War of Independence was raging in Louth and in the sporting boardrooms the Leinster Football Association had formally decided to cede from the IFA. At the AGM of the Dundalk and District league the member clubs were encouraged to align their loyalties to the Leinster association, Vincent was at this stage the Dundalk and District League vice-president. Perhaps most surprising to note was that the league that season consisted of six teams, three of which were representatives sides drawn from British Army regiments in and around the town.

By 1926 the Dundalk GNR (Great Northern Railway) club had become a League of Ireland member and in 1930 they renamed to become the Dundalk F.C. we know today. In the 1932-33 season they became the first provincial side to take the title out of Dublin but they had done so at great financial cost to the club. Led by former Bohemians player Steve Wright as their trainer/manager Dundalk had taken advantage of the fact that the FAI were not recognising player registrations of clubs in Britain or Northern Ireland meaning that players could freely move to Ireland without Irish clubs having to buy out these registrations. Effectively free transfers.

Dundalk brought in a number of British pros, men like forward Jimmy Bullock who had lined out for Manchester United before moving across the Irish Sea or the veteran former Celtic star Joe Cassidy. These signings were won through the charm of Steve Wright and the bankbook of Dundalk F.C. and coupled with the beginnings of a generation of young local players such as Joey Donnelly had begun to bring success. There was a Cup final appearance in 1930/31 with a league title following in 1932/33. However a number of factors such as the professional wages paid to these new players, the unpopular entertainment tax levied on football matches by the Irish government, a loss of revenue due to the cancellation of previously popular cross-border matches with Northern clubs, and the continuing effects of the Great Depression meant that money was extremely tight and there was even some chance that the club might go under.

By the time all this was taking place Vincent O’Connell was busy operating his main business premises out of 15 Earl Street in Dundalk, one of his most recent projects had been the design of the new chapel for St. Mary’s College in 1933, a school that had been central in popularising the game of football in the town. Vincent had maintained his own interest in football long after his playing days were done. In January of 1934 he joined a fundraising committee to keep Dundalk F.C. going in their time of need and he personally was one of the largest financial donors, donating a guinea, a similar sum to that donated by Dundalk board members like Bob Prole and, my own great-uncle, Peadar Halpin. Through their fundraising efforts sufficient finances were raised to keep the club afloat.

Vincent maintained his interest in football and many other sports for the rest of his life, the 1956 article quoted above described him as the “prominent Dundalk architect whose enthusiasm for all forms of sport has left him with an invaluable store of memories.” Less than a year after that interview Vincent passed away in July 1957, he was survived by his wife and three children. He had remained active as an architect into the 1950’s where he was joined by his son Daniel (trading as V.J. O’Connell & Son), and over the course of his more than 50 year career he worked on projects as diverse as monasteries, to hospitals and cinemas. However at his passing the various obituaries tended to spend as much time discussing his many sporting successes, especially his time at Bohemians and his early role in helping to develop the sport in his native Dundalk.

World Cup of Hockey- Toronto 2016

Posted on October 18, 2016 by gerrytastic

If your old enough you might remember a bit of a fad in the early to mid 90’s for Ice Hockey in Ireland, well when I say Ice Hockey I really mean roller hockey; kids on roller-blades in oversized Chicago Blackhawks jerseys skating around suburban cul-de-sacs with hockey sticks. There were a few possible explanations for this fad, the growth in popularity of inline skates, the Mighty Ducks film franchise, as well as hockey cropping up in the likes of Wayne’s World, even that brief moment when super-baggy Ice Hockey jerseys were fashionable for about a month in 1995. For me the hook was the Sega mega-drive and the video game classic that is NHL 94, all Hockey Organ music and 16-bit power play bliss. The game was so popular it even crops up in the Vince Vaughan/Jon Favreau comedy Swingers where Vaughan’s character notes the exceptional video game talent of Chicago’s Jeremy Roenick.

Following actual live, non-sega based American sport was a bit harder for an Irish kid in the 90’s. There was the time difference, there was trying to find NHL or the NBA on television. For basketball there was sporadic coverage on Channel 4 and I seem to remember Eurosport(?) showing the NCAA Basketball championships for a couple of years. Dial-up internet wasn’t exactly ready for live streaming of sports so anything else tended to be going around to friends houses where they had good Sky Sport packages to see the odd game.

However I’d always kept a passing interest in the NHL and have been known to indulge in slightly boozy hockey conversations with Canadian tourists in some of Dublin’s finer hostelries. On that basis I had to try and catch a game on a recent trip to Toronto. It was mid September and most days were balmy mid 20’s so not exactly Ice Hockey weather and it was still a few weeks out from the start of the NHL season so no chance to see the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs are one of the “Original Six” founding members of the NHL and have 13 Stanley Cups to their name, though they haven’t won the title in the fifty years since the expansion of the League.

The Maple Leafs play their home games in the impressive indoor arena of the Air Canada Centre, located in downtown Toronto just behind Union Station. The arena also hosts Canada’s only existing NBA team, the Toronto Raptors. They can apparently change over from one sport to another in the space of just six hours. During my visit the Centre was also hosting the Ice Hockey World Cup, that’s the entire World Cup schedule, kind of like the idea for the Centenario in Montevideo for the first football World Cup in 1930.

Toronto Maple Leafs hall of famers

The hockey World Cup isn’t really comparable with the current version of the FIFA World Cup however, it features only 8 sides for a starter, it occurs somewhat irregularly and features a couple of what you might term hybrid teams. This edition was the first World Cup held since 2004 and only the third ever overall. The World Cup itself was a successor to the invitational Canada Cup tournament that had been held from the 1970s onward. The idea is that in future the World Cup will be held regularly in four year cycles in the month of September. There are a few obvious advantages to this, the International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) annual World Championship tends to take place during the playoffs of the NHL season meaning that many top players are not released to take part. As the World Cup is organised by the NHL before their pre-season begins it will avoid this conflict and in theory ensure the best players can compete.

Those taking part in the tournament include International Hockey’s “Big Six” of the USA, Canada, Russia, Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland as well as “Europe” a team made up of the best of the rest European players from Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. The eighth side was North America, a Canada/USA selection of players aged 23 or under which also had the effect of making the individual Canadian and USA teams to be made up of players aged 24 and over.

Swedish fans singing before the game

It was refreshing to be in a North American city and experience something close to the atmosphere you might find in a European city ahead of a big qualifying game in football, if not quite a full-on tournament atmosphere. There were plenty of yellow and blue clad Swedish fans along with reds of the Czech Republic and the blues of Finland populating the bars and patios of downtown Toronto and they were in full voice. Any game involving Canada, the USA or indeed the North America side were all sold out but we did manage to get tickets for the nosebleed seats for the Sweden v Finland game.

The puck drop was set for 3pm and it felt we were swamped with Swedish fans. This being a modern 20,000 seat venue in North America there were plenty of places to grab merchandise and a drink. They do of course allow you to supersize that, you could get a 25oz beer which is a close to about two pints I think.

As I said the arena capacity is just under 20,000 so it was disappointing that the crowd was only around the 12,000 mark. I’d blame the pricing, we’d been cheapskates and got tickets for about $30 each and the seats all around us were full with a fair few locals in among the Swedes and Finns. However the more expensive seats, in the $100+ price range remained mostly empty.

Team line-ups

Both squads (apart from a couple of Russian based players in Finland’s party) were comprised of NHL based players. The most prominent probably being the Swedish twin brothers Henrik and Daniel Sedin who both play for the Vancouver Canucks and for Finland it would probably be Minnesota Wild captain Mikko Koivu or goaltender Tuukka Rask. The Finns started the brighter and seemed to play the better hockey in the first period but we weren’t to be provided with a goal. We were kept interested with another round of beers and some chanting from the predominantly Swedish crowd.

In the second period the Swedes came into the game a bit more with the Sedin brothers combining to set up Anton Strålman for the first goal. While Finland came back into the game and forced Sweden’s goal-tender, Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers into a number good saves. The Finns continued to press for an equaliser in the final period, even committing Rask their goalie forward only to be caught out by a very late Swedish counter-attack with Loui Eriksson of the Vancouver Canucks scoring into the open goal. The win guaranteed the Swede’s progression from the group stages while Finland needed a miracle, something their crestfallen fans seemed well aware of.

Some disappointed Finland fans

Sweden would be knocked out the semi-final be the Europe selection, who would be defeated in the final by the heavy favourites Canada. It gives a Canada some what of a clean sweep as they are now World Champions, World Cup winners and Olympic Gold medallists and clearly the most dominant hockey team in the World. If the World Cup does gain some traction and some manages to become a regular fixture and not just a glorified warm-up to the NHL season then it could be the international competition with the highest player quality levels.

While not quite a global festival of sport it was still a chance to see some of the best players of the sport in international competition. Watching and reading the media coverage of the tournament there did seem a genuine pride and indeed novelty for the players taking part, many of whom had previously had scant opportunity to represent their nations.

Before they were famous: Bayern Munich

Posted on October 3, 2016 by gerrytastic

One of Pep Guardiola’s last acts as manager of Bayern Munich was to lift the DFB Pokal trophy, it had already been announced that he was on his way to England and Manchester City but the delight on Guardiola’s face showed that he hadn’t checked out just yet. He was enjoying the occasion; he was, after all, a serial winner relishing his last trophy as manager of one of world’s biggest clubs. The league title had been wrapped up nearly two weeks earlier when the Bayern players raised the famous “salad bowl” trophy. This made it Guardiola’s second double of his Bayern tenure and marked a record breaking fourth consecutive Bundesliga title. Despite this unprecedented success there were some who felt the club should have won more; for some, only reaching three consecutive Champions League semi-finals meant they had fallen short. Under previous coach Jupp Heynckes they had enjoyed even greater success winning a treble of League, Cup and the European Cup.

Such is the dominance of the very elite clubs in various European Leagues it can feel that the league winners have been as good as decided before we even reach September. Perhaps this season will bring some surprises but in Italy, Juventus are heavy favourites to once again retain their title. Likewise, Paris Saint Germain in France and Bayern Munich in Germany. However, while Bayern’s dominance might seem preordained it was not always thus.

Formed in 1900 Bayern had enjoyed “early” successes, winning a couple of regional titles in the 1920’s before winning the last National title (1931-32) before the German sport system was taken over by the Third Reich. This maiden title for the club was contested in a knock-out format between the top two sides from each of the regional leagues and at the time, football in Germany was still technically an amateur sport. It would be over 35 years before the Bavarians would win another league title.

When the first Bundesliga season began in the late summer of 1963 Bayern Munich were not even among its member clubs. A decision had been made the year earlier to do away with regional leagues and to institute a proper, professional, national league and the winners of the Oberliga Sud (Bayern’s regional league), were their city neighbours TSV 1860 München. Although Bayern finished third that year which should have been enough to qualify them for the new national Bundesliga, the German FA did not want two teams from the same city represented so 1860 progressed at their neighbours’ expense.

TSV 1860 München had been founded as a sports club, not as their name suggests in 1860, but as a gymnastics club in 1848. Due to a political decree during tumultuous times they were disbanded but officially reformed in 1860 with their football division beginning a year before Bayern in 1899. The club enjoyed great popularity in their debut season in the Bundesliga, averaging a respectable average attendance of 34,000 at the Grünwalder Stadion which they shared with Bayern. In fact, they had been Bayern’s landlords there from 1925 until the Second World War when the stadium was bombed and badly damaged in 1944. During the debut Bundesliga season, they would win the German Cup final against Eintracht Frankfurt and went on to contest the following year’s Cup Winner’s Cup final, losing 2-0 to West Ham.

Far from being one of Europe’s leading clubs Bayern at this stage were not even the biggest club in their city. They were eventually promoted to the top flight for the 1965-66 season and managed to win the German Cup that year while finishing a very respectable 3rd place in a league that was eventually won by their city rivals 1860. That Cup win was Bayern’s first major trophy in almost a decade. In the final they defeated Meidericher SV by 4 goals to 2, the fourth was scored by one of the club’s precocious young talents, a twenty-year-old by the name of Franz Beckenbauer.

Beckenbauer was not the only young star making waves for this upwardly mobile Bayern team. The club’s shrewd President Wilhelm Neudecker, a wealthy construction magnate had begun investing in the side to turn them from a regional yo-yo club into one that could deliver success. In 1963 the Croatian Zlatko “Čik” Čajkovski, who had starred as a player for Partizan Belgrade and Yugoslavia in the 40’s and 50’s, was brought in to coach the then second tier side. This represented something of a coup as Čajkovski had coached FC Köln to the title in 1962 yet here he was taking a step down to coach a side that hadn’t yet made the Bundesliga. But Bayern had some exceptional young talent coming through; Beckenbauer had joined as a youth in 1959 having stormed out of the youth ranks of 1860 after a row broke out during the final of an under-14’s tournament. A teenage keeper named Sepp Maier had made his debut the year before Cajkovski’s arrival and then in 1964 President Neudecker presented his new coach with his latest young prospect, an 18-year-old called Gerd Muller. To begin with Cajkovski was unimpressed, dismissing the somewhat tubby 5’9” striker with the following statement to his club President: “I’m not putting that little elephant in among my string of thoroughbreds”. The little elephant, however, knew where the goal was.

During the late 60’s and into the early 70’s Bayern either developed or signed from lower the leagues players of the calibre of Beckenbauer, Muller, Maier, Paul Breitner, Franz Roth, Uli Hoeneß and Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck. Not only would all of these players win multiple leagues, cups and European Cups but they would also help the West Germans defeat the great Dutch team in the World Cup final of 1974. They had hardly cost Bayern a penny in transfer fees.

After the success of their debut Bundesliga season Bayern had the added distraction of a first European campaign to deal with due to participation in the Cup Winners Cup. They managed to out-do the previous efforts of their neighbours 1860 by going on and winning the competition defeating Rangers in a tight final after extra time. The winner came in the 109th minute from 21-year-old midfielder Franz Roth who would develop a habit of getting crucial goals in major finals.

By the end of the 60’s Bayern were truly in the ascendancy, there were coaching changes with Cajkovski departing for Hannover and being replaced by Branko Zebec, his former Partizan and Yugoslavia teammate. Zebec had coached Dinamo Zagreb to victory in the Inter City Fairs Cup in 1966-67 and introduced a more structured defensive approach with Bayern. During Cajkovski’s last season in charge the club had scored an impressive 68 goals in 34 games but had conceded the worryingly high number of 58. In Zebec’s first season they scored 61 (30 coming from Muller) but conceded a miserly 31. They finished eight points clear of Alemannia Aachen to comfortably win the league title. They followed this up with a 2-1 Cup win over Schalke (two more goals from Muller) to win the first double in Bundesliga history. Zebec also made Beckenbauer captain that season and the young midfielder began experimenting with his distinctive sweeper type role with which he would become synonymous.

A three in a row run of league titles at the beginning of the 70s showed how this young group was maturing, they added to their ranks bringing in a young, attacking full-back named Paul Breitner, and in attack Uli Hoeneß, who would help shape the club on and off the pitch for the next five decades. But Europe was a learning curve for the young side. In the 1972-73 season, they were well beaten 5-2 on aggregate by eventual winners Ajax at the Quarter final stage. The following year they were almost eliminated in the first round by Swedish champions Åtvidaberg before narrowly beating East German champions Dynamo Dresden in the next stage. They met Spanish champions Atletico Madrid in Brussels in the final, which was forced to a replay after a nervy 1-1 draw. In the replay, however, Bayern showed a devastating competitive edge, hounding the Spaniards in possession, counter-attacking at pace with a frightening directness, with Muller and Hoeneß scoring two each.

Back at home in the Bundesliga, Bayern’s great rivals of the 1970s, Borussia Mönchengladbach, were the dominant team as Bayern struggled domestically, the demands of Europe taking their toll. In 74-75 when Bayern defeated Leeds in a controversy filled final the Bavarians finished a disappointing 10th. But midfielder Rainer Zobel described how, despite struggling to beat average Bundesliga sides, Bayern could raise their game in Europe. Leeds fans still feel aggrieved when the final of 1975 is mentioned, often highlighting the stunning Peter Lorimer strike that was disallowed as evidence of their bad luck. What is seldom mentioned is that Bayern lost two players to injury caused by rough tackles from Leeds players, defender Björn Andersson after two minutes and Uli Hoeneß just before half-time. Watching the footage back, an aging Leeds side had no answer to the stylish build-up to Roth’s goal in the 71st minute or when, ten minutes later, Müller got goal-side of his marker and scored at the near post from six yards out.

Having defeated first the champions of Spain and then the champions of England in their consecutive finals, Bayern then faced St. Etienne, the champions of France, and one of the finest sides in the history of the French League. Hampden Park was the venue in 1976, but there was to be no repeat of the 1960 final goal-fest. St. Etienne were unlucky with Bethanay hitting the cross-bar and Santini hitting the famous “square posts” of the Hampden goals. Bayern however, while not dominant, displayed the sort of mental toughness and doggedness that have become synonymous with German teams. Muller had a goal ruled out for offside, before Beckenbauer squared for Roth to score in his second consecutive final.

The bulk of these successes were won by a core group of players who had come through the club ranks as youngsters, however the club were not averse to splashing the cash when necessary; Jupp Kapellmann was brought in for a German transfer record from FC Köln in 1973, the same year the club snapped up Swedish international Conny Torstensson after he impressed against Bayern in the early rounds of the European Cup. Parallels with a modern Bayern can be seen with a locally developed core of players (Lahm, Thomas Muller, Alaba, and even a returning Mats Hummels) complemented by the best talent bought in from Germany and further afield.

Nowadays, Bayern are based in the ultra-modern Allianz arena which was initially shared and co-owed with neighbours 1860. However, in 2006 Bayern’s one-time landlords were forced to sell their share of the stadium rights to deal with their financial problems. While construction magnate Wilhelm Neudecker is long gone the Bayern boardroom is now filled with former players and blue-chip commercial partners; alongside Executive board members like Karl Heinz Rumminigge sit Triple A corporate representatives from Adidas, Audi and Allianz which helps explain the club’s rude financial health. The massive financial clout of Bayern and their ability to cherry-pick the best of their opponent’s players has meant that it is sometimes hard to envision a Bundesliga that was not the domain of the Bavarians, but thanks to strong support from an ambitious club president, excellent scouting networks, improvements in coaching and a once in a lifetime group of players Bayern went from the Second Division to European powerhouse within the course of a decade.

This post originally appeared on the Football Pink

Celtic connections

Posted on August 23, 2016 by gerrytastic

They came across the narrow channel from the Antrim coast in the north-east of Ireland to the island of Iona in a wicker currach leaving behind conflict and bringing their religion to the neighbouring land. It was the year 563AD and their leader was Columba, a man now venerated as a Saint whose patronages include the lands of Ireland and Scotland and with him he rather appropriately brought twelve followers.

He certainly wasn’t the first Irish man to make this crossing. The Dál Riata kingdom of north Antrim had been expanding into western Scotland since the early 5th Century, even before that in the 3rd Century the Picts who lived north of Hadrian’s Wall had sought help from their Irish neighbours in their campaigns against Roman imperial might. Back then the Romans had referred to the tribes of northern Britain as the Caledonians, they called their Irish allies the Scotti.

In time Iona, where Columba landed became a great centre of learning and religious devotion and a prestigious Abbey was founded there. From Iona, the Picts were gradually converted to Christianity as were the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria. In the centuries to come the name of the Scotti would become the name of the Gaelic speaking land north of the River Forth; Scotland – the land of the Gaels. Iona remained a focal point for centuries, it was a burial place for Scottish Kings who traced their power and authority back to the sacred island.

The medieval Abbey church on Iona

But if the Irish gave Scotland its very name and the beginnings of the Christian faith then the Scots can lay some claim to giving Ireland football. In 1878, so the story goes, John McAlery, a Belfast businessman was on his honeymoon in Scotland and went to watch a game of Association Football. The views of Mrs. McAlery on this matter are not recorded. Greatly enamoured with the game the sporty Mr. McAlery arranged for an exhibition game to take place later that year in the Ulster Cricket Grounds in Belfast between Scottish sides Queens Park and Caledonians with Queen’s Park running out 3-2 winners.

A year later he formed Cliftonville Association Football Club in his home city and they advertised for new players as a club playing under the “Scottish Association Rules”. By the end of 1880 McAlery, along with representatives from six other clubs had formed the Irish Football Association (IFA). Cliftonville F.C. exist to this day, while the IFA remains the 4th oldest Football Association in the world. While football had existed in Ireland before John McAlery it was he who set about putting in place a proper organisation and structure around the game. Had John taken his honeymoon somewhere other than Scotland then the history of football in Ireland may have been very different. Sadly the McAlery honeymoon story is definitely apochryphal but this hasn’t stopped it persisting. What is undeniable is that McAlery, and Scottish Clubs were at the forefront of the instigation of organised football in Ireland.

The game had grown quickly in the north east of Ireland and began in time to gain popularity in Dublin as well with the formation of clubs like Bohemian F.C. (1890) and Shelbourne F.C. (1895). A league was duly formed as well as cup competitions. But despite the good works of John McAlery and other early pioneers of the game Ireland’s early record in international competition makes for some harrowing reading. The international highlight in the early years was a 1-1 draw with Wales in 1883 sandwiched between a 7-0 loss to England and a 5-0 loss to Scotland. It would be 1914 before the Irish would win the annual Home Nations Championship outright, defeating Wales and England before facing Scotland knowing that if they avoided defeat they would triumph. Despite the match being held in Belfast Scotland remained the favourites, the Irish papers noting especially that the Scots were the more physically imposing side. However, in a torrential downpour a weakened Irish side managed to secure a draw and with it their first outright victory in the Home Nations Championship. They hadn’t beaten the Scots but they had won the day.

It was to be the last victory as a united Ireland though, not long after the end of the First World War the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) was formed as a breakaway association from the IFA. The FAI eventually secured recognition from FIFA and, grudgingly, from the Home Nations as the Association representing the 26 counties that would become the Republic of Ireland. What they could not secure however was favour from the Home Nations who refused all fixture invitations from the nascent organisation. Eventually over two decades later England agreed to a friendly in 1946, Wales waited until 1960 before playing the Republic. Scotland refused all invitations and only played the Republic when drawn against them in a qualifier in 1961. Despite their breakaway from the IFA the FAI remained in awe of the Home Nations and valued games against them more than any other, they fervently craved not only the money that these games would bring but also some sense of acceptance from their neighbours. Naturally this made the cold shoulder that they received all the more painful.

This desperation for acceptance can be encapsulated in a single game. In 1939 Ireland were due to play the Hungarians, who had been runners up to Italy in the 1938 World Cup and had played against Ireland twice before in the recent past. On both occasions the matches took place in Dalymount Park in Dublin. However on this occasion the match took place in the smaller Mardyke grounds of University College Cork and home to League of Ireland side Cork F.C.

So why were the World Cup runners up being asked to play in a University sports ground rather than at the larger capacity Dalymount? Well because there was a bigger game taking place in Dalymount just two days earlier on St. Patrick’s Day 1939, when the League of Ireland representative side were taking on their Scottish league counterparts.

Even a game against a Scottish League XI was viewed as a huge mark of acceptance from their Scottish peers. While the game in the Mardyke would attract 18,000 spectators, a respectable return, over 35,000 would pack into Dalymount Park to see the stars of the Scottish League. At the time commentators were moved to describe the match against the Scottish League as “the most attractive and far reaching fixture that had been secured and staged by the South since they set out to fend for themselves” before adding that “for 20 years various and futile efforts have been made to gain recognition and equal status with the big countries at home. Equality is admitted by the visit of the Scottish League”. For the FAI a game against any Scottish team was a game against giants.

Giants, funnily enough, feature prominently in Celtic mythology. Fionn MacCumhaill is arguably Ireland’s most famous character from myth, famed for his size and for his prodigious strength. He is credited with having created the Isle of Mann by scooping out the land of Loch Neagh and hurling it into the Irish Sea. However even a man of this power was no match for the Scottish giant Benandonner. In myth Fionn learns that Benandonner is coming for him in combat from Scotland and Fionn does the only sensible thing, he runs to his wife for help. Benandonner is so huge that Fionn fears that even he won’t stand a chance in a fight so he does what any man would do, he has his wife dress him up as a giant baby and put him sleeping in a cradle in front of his fire. When Benandonner arrives demanding to know where Fionn is, Fionn’s wife Oona tells him that he is out but will be back shortly. She introduces the “baby” as her and Fionn’s infant son. Seeing the size of the baby and not wanting to meet the enormous child’s father Benandonner flees back to Scotland, on his way he destroys the bridge that links Scotland and Ireland behind him. Folklore tells that Antrim’s Giant’s Causway was a left as the remnants of this destroyed bridge.

For the FAI the Scots remained giants. Like Benandonner they could not be beaten by force but only by cunning. In 1963 a 1-0 victory by Ireland over Scotland in a friendly was greeted with elation by the Irish football public as one of its greatest ever despite the narrow nature of the win.

While the awe in which the Scottish national team were held has faded significantly over the intervening decades the affection and devotion to one of her clubs remains as strong as ever. Writing as a Dubliner it sometimes seems impossible to avoid the prevalence of Celtic jerseys in my home city. In many ways this is understandable, while the island of Ireland might be grateful to John McAlery for bringing Scottish footballers to Ireland, the Irish in turn had a significant impact in creating the footballing landscape of Scotland. Beginning with the foundation of Hibernian F.C. in 1875 and continuing with the foundation of clubs like Dundee Harp, Dundee United and Celtic the Irish immigrant community and their descendants helped to create some of the most significant football clubs in Scotland.

This came about largely because of a period of mass migration of Irish people to Scotland from the 1820’s onward. Scotland’s industrial towns provided jobs, while Irish counties like Down, Antrim, Sligo and Donegal provided willing seasonable labour for Scottish factories, shipyards and farmers and this mass influx across the Irish Sea gathered apace after the Potato Famine began to grip Ireland in 1845. The parentage rule as introduced by FIFA has meant that the Irish national team have continually benefited from this immigrant connection even at the recent Euros two members of the Irish squad were Scottish born players; Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy.

Domestically clubs like Hibs and Celtic would emerge from these immigrant communities, often forming a charitable focal point at the centre of new Irish communities. While Hibs still prominently wear green and white and their current logo includes an Irish harp as a nod to their foundation (though it was removed from the crest for a period after the 1950s) they seem to be less defined by an Irish identity. Celtic however are for many the Irish club. This does have the tendency to cause some confusion for those fans of clubs actually based in Ireland.

Celtic’s Irish credentials are indeed impeccable. Founded in 1888 by Andrew Kerins an Irish Marist brother from Co. Sligo, (better known as Brother Walfrid), the club was created to support the poverty stricken Irish community in Glasgow. When Celtic Park was being opened in 1892 it was the Irish Nationalist and Land reform agitator Michael Davitt who laid the first sod, the turf brought over from the “auld sod”, Co. Donegal. Davitt would be made an honorary patron of Celtic, a position he also enjoyed in the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) who in 1905 would issue a ban on any member either participating in or even watching ‘foreign’ games.

“Foreign Games” meant anything that could be construed to be English, or indeed Scottish and as such obviously included Association Football which may have put the ageing Davitt in an awkward situation. The club have also had many prominent Irish players and managers associated with them throughout their long history; men such as Neil Lennon, Seán Fallon, Martin O’Neill and Packie Bonner, while even the likes of Roy and Robbie Keane have had brief Celtic cameos during their careers. In terms of ownership Irish businessman Dermot Desmond is the club’s largest individual shareholder. The early successes of Celtic helped prove that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery as in 1891 a group of Belfast sports enthusiasts from the Falls Road area formed Belfast Celtic F.C. Their early Chairman James Keenan noting that they chose their name “after our Glasgow friends, and that our aim should be to imitate them in their style of play, win the Irish Cup, and follow their example, especially in the cause of Charity.”

While all of this provides a strong basis for the popularity of the club in Ireland the other major aspect is of course that Celtic have been successful, from being the first British winners of the European Cup in 1967 to their 47 Scottish League titles theirs is a level of dominance, at least at domestic level, that is rarely seen. While as recently as the 2002-03 season Celtic reached the final of the UEFA Cup the fortunes of the club and the Scottish League in general have struggled recently when it has come to progress at European level. Despite this, support remains strong for the club in Ireland and their presence ubiquitous. Celtic flags and banners fly from Dublin city pubs while a musical treatment of Celtic’s history plays at present in one of the city’s most prominent theatres. In the commemorations to mark the centenary of the 1916 Rising the imagery of Celtic has been invoked as somewhat apocryphally one can purchase a “replica” Celtic jersey emblazoned with the name “Connolly” where once a Magners cider logo appeared. A reference to the Scottish born labour activist James Connolly who was among the leaders of the Rising; son of Irish immigrants he was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh and was a passionate Hibernian fan.

“Celtic the Musical” in Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre, an Irish tricolour next to a Celtic Flag at a restaurant in Temple Bar, a “replica” Celtic jersey featuring the name of executed 1916 leader James Connolly.

The stories of Fionn and Benandonner, the competing giants of Ireland and Scotland remain prominent stories in Irish folklore however they enjoyed a new lease of life in the 18th Century when Scottish poet James Macpherson compiled and re-framed the ancient myths into a book of poetry. The publication of his work was a literary sensation at the time but also caused debate and controversy as Irish historians felt their literature and history were being appropriated. The truth is that as we’ve seen with the historic patterns of movement and the shared culture between the two islands; from 6th Century monks to the Ulster plantations and the Famine migrations of the mid 19th Century, the two nations share far more similarities than some political groups and indeed football fans would care to admit. It was from Scotland that the original Irish football organisers took their inspiration but even by that stage the Irish in Scotland were already creating clubs that would help to dominate the Scottish football landscape. In a confused and confusing identity relationship it becomes hard to separate the interwoven strands of our social and sporting DNA. Where the Irish ends and the Scottish begins.

This article originally appeared in the Football Pink issue 14, they’re a great publication and well worth a subscription.

Boris – lessons from Ancient Rome

Posted on July 28, 2016 by gerrytastic

Memories of simpler times. Do you remember prior to his rise to prominence as London Mayor, later as an MP and one-time favourite for the Tory leadership Boris Johnson was best known for his frequent appearances on Have I Got News for you? In each programme, whether as host or guest Boris played the part of the bumbling, unintentionally amusing, Oxbridge-educated Toff to perfection.

These appearances were of course only part of Boris’s carefully cultivated media profile, there was also his editorship of the Spectator magazine, including the infamous publication of an article in 2004 which erroneously suggested that Liverpool supporters were partially to blame for the Hillsborough disaster . There was an appearance in Peter Andre: My Life, cameo in Eastenders as well as hosting the occasional documentary such as Boris Johnson and the Dream of Rome in 2006. That Boris should host a documentary about the Roman empire (and release a follow-up book) and use it to draw specific parallels with the modern EU should not be too surprising. After all he had studied Classics, at Balliol College, Oxford where he was apparently deeply unhappy about receiving only a second class honours mark.

In his “Dream of Rome” documentary there are quiet a few moments when you can see the awe in which Boris holds various Emperors of Rome, this even strikes one of the experts, a Professor Carandini as Boris is seen to utter the following line:

Professor Carandini: “You would like to be an emperor, I can see it in your eyes.”

Boris Johnson: “I can see a worst fate.”

That Boris would be drawn to the personality cults that surrounded most Roman Emperors does not seem too surprising given recent events and his career to date, and given his knowledge of Roman history it caused me to ponder whether his turn away from Europe and his championing of the “Leave” side in the Brexit referendum was ever so slightly influenced by a reported episode in the life of Julius Caesar. When Caesar was sent to govern what it now south-Eastern Spain the writer Plutarch tells us that

he came to a little town in passing the Alps; and his friends, by way of mirth, took occasion to say, “Can there here be any disputes for offices, any contentions for precedency, or such envy and ambition as we see among the great?” To which Cæsar answered, with great seriousness, “I assure you I had rather be the first man here than the second man in Rome.”

So much of the discussion around Boris’s rationale for taking the “Leave” side when it would appear to fly in the face of all that he had stood for beforehand centres around his desire to be Prime minister and to replace his old school chum David Cameron. Whatever glory there lay for Boris in being Mayor of London, a media celebrity, and latterly an MP would seem to be insufficient, he would always be the second man in Rome.

It also strikes me that in the throws of uncomfortable victory after the referendum and his subsequent decision not to run for the vacant Prime ministerial post Boris may have recalled the life and reputation of the Roman Emperor Honorius. The same Emperor Honorius who succeeded Theodosius the Great but who by the end of his reign had witnessed the sacking of Rome by Alaric, King of the Visigoths and the continued decline of the western Roman Empire. Honorius retreated back to his palace in Ravenna, a city surrounded by impregnable marshland and offering relative security while the Roman city walls were breached for the first time in 800 years.

Honorius as Emperor is remembered primarily for being in the hotseat when Rome fell to the Goths, while many argue that the Roman Empire did not cease until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 the sacking of the city by Alaric remains a landmark date for the Roman Empire, and for some an end date. The only other item of note that tends to be remembered about Honorius is that he banned the wearing of trousers under punishment of exile.

Perhaps Boris Johnson thought about that when he withdrew from the running for the top job. Many man have dreamt of imitating Julius Caesar, few have wanted to be Flavius Honorius Augustus.

800px-Sack_of_Rome_by_the_Visigoths_on_24_August_410_by_JN_Sylvestre_1890

The Sack of Rome by the Barbarians in 410 by Joseph-Noel Sylvestre

Bohemians and brothers in arms – The Robinsons

Posted on July 13, 2016 by gerrytastic

The great Bohemians team of the 1927-28 season is one that has rightly gone down in the annals as one of the finest sides in Irish football history; simply put they won everything there was to win, the League, the FAI cup, the Shield and the Leinster Senior Cup. An achievement all the more impressive when you remember that Bohs were strictly amateur at the time. Such was the confidence and camaraderie in the team that season that Jeremiah “Sam” Robinson, the tall, well-built and versatile half-back or full back, said that the Bohs players of that season never doubted that they would win the game, the only question was by how much. Sam was joined in that successful team by his older brother Christy, smaller and lighter than Sam, he was a tricky, skillful inside-left whose 12 goals had been crucial when Bohs won the league in 1923-24. He also holds the honour of scoring Bohemians first ever goal in the FAI Cup when he netted the first in a 7-1 win over Athlone Town in 1922.

For these achievements alone the brothers are significant and worthy of discussion, however by the time the Robinson brothers had joined Bohemians, as still young men, they had already led an extraordinary life. Both brothers had been active in the IRA in Dublin and Sam had even become a member of the Active Service Unit and later joined Michael Collins’ infamous “Squad ”.

Both brothers played in the Cup Final of 1928 when Bohemians defeated Drumcondra 2-1, although it was touch and go for Sam. Incidentally the reason Sam was known as Sam, and not by his given name Jeremiah was because of the fondness as a boy for using “Zam-buk” soaps and ointments for his legs, something he may have needed in getting ready for the Cup final. During some dressing room hijinks celebrating yet another victory Sam had his leg badly scalded by a bucket of hot water. The damage was so bad that it looked like he would miss the game until the intervention of Bohemians own Dr. Willie Hooper who bound up Sam’s leg (like a turkey cock as he later remarked) and tended to him regularly as they prepared for the final. The squad were worried that the Sam might not make the game but he was declared fit enough to play. Bohs won the match in front of 25,000 at Dalymount, Billy Dennis and Jimmy White getting the goals.

Bohemians have a long tradition of brothers playing in the same team. The aforementioned Willie Hooper and his brother Richard both captained Bohs in the early 1900’s while Sam and Christy had the distinction of becoming the first brothers to play for Ireland after the FAI had split with the Belfast-based IFA. Christy was part of the Irish Olympic squad that went to Paris in 1924 and defeated Bulgaria before being knocked out by the Netherlands in the next round. In all, six Bohemians were selected (Bertie Kerr, Jack McCarthy, Ernie Crawford, John Thomas & Johnny Murray were the others and were trained by Bohs’ Charlie Harris) The Irish team also played two friendlies after being knocked out of the tournament, Christy played and scored for Ireland in the game against Estonia as Ireland won 3-1 and would also represent the League of Ireland XI in their first ever representative fixture, against the Welsh League that same year. Sam won two senior caps, in 1928 and 1931 with a victory over Belgium and with a draw against Spain respectively.

Sam would eventually move on and play professionally for a period, he joined Dolphin F.C. based in the Dolphin’s Barn area of the city in 1930 and won his second Irish cap while there. He was also part of their team which contested the 1932 FAI Cup final, losing out to Shamrock Rovers in a tight game, while also guesting on a number of occasions for Belfast Celtic.

Christy and “Sam” were born in the Dublin’s north inner city on East Arran Street in 1902 and 1904 respectively, their home was close to the markets where their mother Lizzie worked as a fish dealer. Lizzie’s earnings had to support the family; the two boys and daughter Mary, when their father Charles died in 1905.

From left to right Christy, Lizzy and Sam Robinson

In 1916 as youngsters of 15 and 12 they would presumably have witnessed first-hand the fighting around the Four Courts just yards from their home and the family would likely have known some of the victims of the infamous North King Street massacre when British Army soldiers shot dead unarmed men and boys. Whatever the reason we know that by 1919 Sam, then aged only 15 had joined the IRA. He was a friend of Vinny Byrne who would also form part of the “Squad” and it was Byrne who brought him along to be inducted. At the time Sam lied about his age and claimed to be 17. The family story was that Michael Collins, on seeing young Sam told the boy that he wasn’t running a nursery and he should go home, however Sam insisted that he wished to join and both Byrne and Paddy Daly (one of Collins’ senior officers) vouched for the young man. It was to begin a long association between Sam and the armed forces.

Christy, also joined the IRA and took part in a number of notable actions, the most prominent probably being the raid on a British Army party at Monk’s bakery on Church Street in September 1920. This was the operation in which Kevin Barry was captured. Christy Robinson was one of the section commanders within H company of the 1st Battalion, Dublin brigade of the IRA during the raid when they encountered a much larger British army force than expected. Kevin Barry found that his new-fangled automatic pistol was jamming and hid under a lorry hoping to escape the attentions of the British forces. After heavy gunfire which left three British soldiers dead, H company withdrew but were unaware that Kevin was still hidden under the lorry on the side of the street. The unfortunate teenager was spotted by the British forces, arrested, and later became the first Republican prisoner to be executed since the Easter Rising over four years earlier.

Kevin Barry had attended the prestigious Belvedere secondary school and had been a promising rugby player. He had graduated and was studying medicine, in fact he intended to go sit an exam only hours after the raid on Monk’s bakery and was not a full time soldier. Christy would later christen his son, Kevin in honour of his executed comrade. Christy later joined the Free State Army and rose to the rank of Captain before leaving in 1924. After his football career Christy would move to England, first to London and later to Dover, where he would pass away in 1954.

Most of the members of the Dublin Brigade were men who took part in operations when they could but had to hold down jobs in order to support themselves and their families. Christy Robinson fell into this category. The IRA however saw the need for a full time force of both soldiers and intelligence staff. This led to the creation of the Active Service Unit (ASU); full time soldiers who were expected to make themselves available as operations required them, they were paid a good wage for the time. Sam Robinson would eventually join this select group of full time soldiers; a role he would continue after Independence.

The Robinson family had been victims during this period of bloodshed, two of the brothers’ cousins met violent ends just weeks apart in 1920. William Robinson, a former British soldier and a goalkeeper for the Jacobs football team was shot dead on Capel Street, just yards from his home in October 1920 by men identifying themselves as “Republican Police”. Another cousin, also named William, but better known as Perry Robinson was one of the youngest victims of the Bloody Sunday shootings in Croke Park. Aged just 11 years old Perry was shot in the shoulder and chest as he was perched in a tree watching Dublin take on Tipperary. The trainer of the Dublin side that day was none other than Bohs’ own Charlie Harris who would accompany Christy Robinson to the Paris Olympics just four years later.

The Dublin Football team on Bloody Sunday- Bohemians trainer Charlie Harris is at the back row, far right.

The Robinson family history tells that Sam was out that morning that would be remembered for all time as “Bloody Sunday”, in the company of his friend Vinny Byrne. Their destination on that fateful day was 28 Upper Mount Street, their targets British Lieutenants Aimes and Bennett. This was a late change to the plans due to a recent piece of intelligence received by one of Collins’ intelligence officers, Charlie Dalton who was also at the time also a member of Bohemians. Byrne and fellow Squad member Tom Ennis led the party. Although not named in these accounts Sam always claimed that he was out with Byrne and his group that day when Aimes and Bennett were shot dead in their beds, Byrne’s own witness statement mentioned that there were a party of about ten men involved and that the operation did not go as smoothly as hoped. The sound of shooting aroused the attention of other British military personnel in the area and the men keeping an eye on the entrance to Mount Street came under fire. Most of the party fled to the river and rather than risk crossing any of the city bridges back to the north side where they could be intercepted. They crossed by a ferry and disappeared into the maze of streets and safe-houses of the north inner city.

Not long after the events of Bloody Sunday Sam became a full time member of the “Squad” when it was reinforced in May of 1921. Within weeks they would be pressed into service in one of the largest operations ever undertaken, the attack on the Custom House, one of the centres of British administration, local Government and home to a huge amount of records.

Sam being arrested at the Custom House, he is fourth from the right with his hands on his head.

This was going to be a huge job and a symbolic attack at one of the nerve-centres of British rule in Ireland, up to 120 men of the 2^nd Dublin Brigade along with members of the Squad and the Active Service Unit took part. They were poorly equipped, armed only with revolvers and a limited supply of ammunition, they did however have plenty of petrol and bales of cloth which was used to destroy the records and ultimately the building itself which burned for five days straight. The raiding party soon drew the attention of a brigade of Auxiliaries. Unable to stay in the burning building, surrounded by the British forces and very quickly running out of ammunition the Republican forces knew they were in serious difficulty. Most of the men surrendered but some made a run for it, a few escaped, but others like Sean Doyle were killed as they tried to get away. Among the more than 70 IRA men captured was Sam Robinson, although he was not to be in captivity long. Within two months a truce had been called and the Treaty negotiations had begun and Sam was released by Christmas of 1921.

Upon his release Sam became part of the new Free State Army, by the 1922 Army census he was listed as a Lieutenant and he was heavily involved during the Civil War, seeing action in areas of some of the heaviest fighting around Cork, Kerry and later Sligo. He was in the Imperial Hotel in Cork City along with other serving officers to have breakfast with Michael Collins the day he was shot. Despite Collins’ initial scepticism about this teenager who had lied about his age to join the IRA he had trusted and promoted Sam. In turn Sam, like many other officers became a great admirer and loyal follower of the “Big Man” and was devastated to learn of his death at Béal na Bláth. In another freak Bohemians connection, the man who tended to Collins as he died was General Emmet Dalton, a former Bohemian F.C. player and later President of the Club.

Sam was promoted to the rank of Captain in February of 1923 and remained in the Army throughout the horrific violence of the Civil War but left, somewhat disillusioned, in 1924. There was concern among members of the Free State army about plans to significantly decrease the size of the army in peacetime and there was also a feeling among some soldiers that ex-British army officers were being favoured for advancement within the Free State forces. Such was the seriousness of this issue that Charlie Dalton (the ex-Bohs player we encountered above, and brother of Emmet Dalton) and General Liam Tobin were accused of attempting an Army Mutiny due to their opposition to the proposed demobilisation.

Sam in his Irish Army uniform

The army’s loss was Bohemians gain however and the civilian Sam Robinson joined his brother at the club and helped build towards the eventual dominance of the 1927-28 season. It was not to be Sam’s last involvement with the Army however, upon the declaration of the national state of Emergency during World War II Sam re-enlisted and was made a Captain of C Company of the 14^th Battalion, his years of experience no-doubt appreciated by younger troops. He stayed in the Army until the end of the War before returned to the trade he had developed as a plasterer. In fact he started his own plastering company, Robinson & Son near Church Street in Dublin.

Things went well for Sam’s business for a while and he was a generous man always making sure that old Army or footballing colleagues were helped out with a job if they fell on hard times. Among those employed at one stage by Sam was his former Bohs team-mate John Thomas. However, in 1957 perhaps because of his generosity, Robinson & Son went out of business, Sam’s auditor incidentally at the time was a young man by the name of Charles J Haughey! While this was a setback Sam used it as an opportunity to travel, his trade took him to Canada, Malta, Britain and even Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) before he returned to Ireland. Fate would have it that one of his final jobs as a plasterer was on the Phibsboro shopping centre, overlooking the pitch at Dalymount that had been so familiar to him.

Sam’s connection with Bohemians continued long after his playing days ended. His nephew Charlie Byrne began his career for Bohemians in the 1940’s , while his son Johnny Robinson enjoyed a successful League of Ireland career with Drumcondra and Dundalk. Sam remained a Bohemian member until the day he died in 1985.

The Bohemian membership card of Jeremiah “Sam” Robinson

With special thanks to Eamon Robinson, Frank Robinson and Kevin Robinson for their assistance and sharing their family research and photos.

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