FAI Cup

Stuck in the middle – foreign referees in the League of Ireland

Posted on by gerrytastic

Controversy about refereeing decisions and the appointment of referees is nothing new in football. In the League of Ireland especially perceived biases, supposed club alliances, city of origin, and indeed refereeing ability all play into the arguements fans make about the unsuitability of a referee to take charge of a game. Of course their club of choice is uniquely victimised by Ireland’s officials while their rivals of course recieve favoured status – “sure doesn’t the ref support X team” or “doesn’t his young lad play for their under 15s” etc. etc.

This was a topic hotly discussed in the early days of the League of Ireland, with occassionally dramatic and even violent results and a pattern began whereby officiating Cup Finals and other high profile games became almost the exclusive preserve of referees from outside of Ireland. Bringing in referees (mostly from England) did help with tackling percieved bias that a referee might have held for or against any club and in many cases those taking charge were well known and respected in the game, even including men who had refereed World Cup and European Cup finals.

The first three FAI Cup finals were all refereed by Irish officials but by 1925 things had changed. Jack Howcroft of Bolton was brought in to take charge of the final due to be held on St. Patrick’s Day, 1925 in Dalymount Park. There was initial resistance to this from domestic referees, including the calling of strike action in the run-up to the Cup Final. Howcroft refused to break the strike but a Cup final without a referee was averted after the Evening Herald journalist William Stanbridge, who wrote under the sporting byline of “Nat” arranged a meeting between the disputing parties. Ultimately the referees association capitulated and recognised the FAI’s authority in appointing the referee for any competition and Howcroft was able to take his place as the man in the middle for the final between Shamrock Rovers and Shelbourne.

Howcroft was an experienced referee who had already taken charge of the 1920 FA Cup Final between Aston Villa and Huddersfield Town as well as 18 international matches by the time he made the journey to Dublin. He’d also taken charge of a match between Glentoran and Belfast Celtic some years earlier when he was greeted upon arrival by “a salute of umpteen revolvers” being fired in the air. Despite that experience Howcroft had no qualms about taking charge of the FAI Cup Final.

There was a record final crowd that day in Dalymount as attendance numbers breached 20,000 for the first time, and those present witnessed Shamrock Rovers 2-1 victory over their Ringsend rivals Shelbourne. Howcroft was well received and the crowd were in good spirits , despite, or perhaps because, the Government had just begun the practice of closing the pubs for St. Patrick’s Day. It wasn’t to be Howcroft’s last appearance at an FAI Cup final. Despite the fact that the FA, since 1902 had maintained the practice that a referee was to only be given the honour of refereeing a Cup final once, the FAI took a different approach and were happy to appoint referees to take charge of a final on multiple occasions.

Howcroft would return in 1927, while a year later his place in the middle was taken by Belgian referee John Langenus. Two years after taking charge of that Cup final clash between Bohemians and Drumcondra, Langenus was refereeing the first World Cup Final in Mondevideo. I’ve written about Langenus and his fascinating footballing journey, including his visits to Ireland elsewhere.

Harry Nattrass – image provided by Dr. Alexander Jackson

Non- Irish referees took charge of every subsequent final between 1925 and 1940 apart from the 1937 final which was refereed by John Baylor from Cork. Baylor was chosen ahead of English referee Isaac Caswell but this decision did not prove popular with everyone as finalists St. James’s Gate lodged a formal protest at his selection.

Harry Nattrass, from County Durham took change of the 1940 FAI Cup final between Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers in front of a then record 38,000 supporters, Nattrass had refereed the FA Cup final just four years earlier, however despite his willingness to brave a crossing of the Irish Sea to take charge of the final in Dalymount the remaining finals during the War years would be the domain of Irish referees only. The escalation in the conflict and the danger to shipping from the German Kriegsmarine was obviously a major contributing factor, however, it is worth nothing that even after the War had ended it was 1950 before another non-Irish referee took charge of a Cup Final.

The 1950 final was in itself slightly unusual as it was the first final to go to a second replay. For the first two finals W.H.E. Evans of Liverpool took charge of the first two games between Transport and the favourites Cork Athletic, however he was replaced for the second replay by his fellow countryman Tom Seymour. Transport shocked Irish football by winning their first, and only Cup, and Tom Seymour would return the following year when Cork Athletic once again reach the final and eventually won on the replay 1-0 against Shelbourne.

The 1950s remained a decade when the FAI looked to England to provide referees for prominent games. This wasn’t confined to FAI Cup finals but also happened in semi-finals, prominent League of Ireland games, Shield games, Leinster Senior Cup games and more.

View of Dalymount Park for the 1950 FAI Cup Final (Irish Press)

This was not always popular with all members of the public. In 1932 two English referees, shortly after arriving in Dublin, were “requested” not to officiate two games involving Shelbourne over two consecutive weeks. First, Tom Crew of Leicester was visited ahead of a Shels games against Cork and the following week Tommy Thompson from Lemington was visited before a game against Drumcondra. Both referees did take charge of each of the games although Thompson did alert the Free State League committee. The League condemned these visits to referees and committee member Basil Mainey of Shamrock Rovers stated that the “attempts at intimidation were made by irresponsible persons.” The Gardaí, League and the FAI were reported to be investigating the matter by the Irish Press. Mainey did comment further, making a somewhat awkward justification for the use of English officials while also giving an idea of the rates of pay being offered in the early 1930s. He said;

“No one should get the idea that we employ English referees for the love of them or their country. It costs us four of five guineas every time and a local man would only cost about one guinea.”

The League committee stated at the time that with bigger games in the League of Ireland regularly attracting over 20,000 spectators that it was “desirable” that a “stranger acted as referee”, again returning to the idea that an English referee would be seen as impartial and unbiased. Not that there weren’t moments of friction, three years before those visits were paid to referees Crew and Thompson there was a spat between referee Albert Fogg and Dundalk FC over an article he had written in the English sporting press describing a league match he had refereed between Dundalk and Drumcondra. Fogg had described the Dundalk crowd as the “wild Irish” and a complaint was made by PJ Casey on behalf of Dundalk FC. Incidentally, Irish referee JJ Kelly wrote to the FAI in support of Fogg and complained that the Dundalk supporters were “the mostly cowardly lot of blackguards that ever attended a football game”.

Fogg was well used to taking charge of games in Ireland, he had refereed the 1926 FAI Cup final and was another man afforded the dual honour of taking charge of Cup Finals in both England and Ireland when he refereed the 1935 FA Cup final. As with Fogg, Langenus and Howcroft the majority of referees who came to Ireland were quite high profile, many refereed international matches and important league games and Cup Finals in England, and in the case of Langenus even the World Cup final. Among the other well-known refs who came to Ireland during this period from the 1920s through to the early 1960s were men like Albert Prince-Cox a former football manager, player and referee, boxer, and boxing promoter who had also designed Bristol Rovers distinctive blue and white quartered kit.

Perhaps the most well-known figure in this period would be Arthur Ellis. Ellis was in charge of the 1953 FAI Cup Final and its replay and also the 1955 FAI Cup Final. By that stage he had already been a linesman in the Maracanã for the 1950 World Cup final, and would referee at both the 1954 and 1958 tournaments. A year after refereeing Shamrock Rovers victory over Drumcondra in 1955, Ellis was entrusted with refereeing the first ever European Cup final, a classic game which was won in thrilling fashion 4-3 as Real Madrid defeated French side Stade de Reims. One of Ellis’s assistants in that European Cup final was Thomas H. Cooper who would referee another Shamrock Rovers v Drumcondra final in 1957, this time the Drums prevailed. Ellis himself became better known to a later generation as a media personality, being the referee in the TV gameshow It’s a Knockout.

As you can see from several examples above the FAI did not follow the English tradition of a referee only getting to take charge of a Cup Final once, Howcroft, Seymour, and Ellis all refereed two FAI Cup finals, although the record for a foreign referee is three, which is held by Isaac Caswell from Blackburn. Caswell was a Labour Councillor and was also very involved in organising (and delivering) Church services for sportsmen. He was the man in the middle for the 1932, 1934 and 1936 FAI Cup finals. It could have perhaps even been more were it not for the fact that Argentina were experiencing a similar situation to the League of Ireland and wanted British referees to take charge of league games there while also instructing and education local referees.

Jack Howcroft (right)

Caswell journeyed to Argentina in late 1937 and stayed until 1940, refereeing matches and training local officials. Caswell seems to have been popular in Argentina and like Ireland was seen as an impartial adjudicator although as with games in Ireland there were still moments of conflict. In 1938 there were reports that Caswell had been assualted during one game, although broadly speaking it was seen that his time there was a success. So much so that in the late 1940s there was a request for more British officials to take charge of fixtures in Argentina. Eight men departed for Argentina in 1948 with allowances made for their wives and children to travel with them

This group weren’t always as popular as Caswell had been and similar to the 1925 incident with James Howcroft there was a threatened strike by the Argentine match officials in 1950 while there were still some tumultuous scenes on occasion, with referee John Meade and his officials having to barricade themselves inside a dressing room during a game between Huracán and Velez Sarsfield.

In both Ireland and Argentina the use of referees from outside of their own Associations gradually came to an end. The last Englishman to referee an FAI Cup final was D.A. Corbett who took charge of Shamrock Rovers v Cork Celtic and the subsequent replay in 1964. Since that time the FAI Cup has been the preserve of Irish referees, however for a span of almost forty years British referees (and one Belgian) took charge of 26 FAI Cup finals as well as innumerable semi-finals, finals of other Cup competitions and prominent League and Shield games. Many of these referees had a reasonably high profile, took charge of international matches and tournaments, European club ties and English top flight games and FA Cup Finals, and while not always welcomed they were broadly viewed as neutral parties, freeing games of any sense of bias and bringing their expertise in the laws of the game to bear.

A special thank you to Dr. Alexander Jackson of the National Football Museum in Manchester for his assistance.

The whistle of Langenus

Posted on by gerrytastic

In the summer of 2018 as the elated French champions cavorted and the Croatian players lay prone and disconsolate a group of men in fluorescent light-blue jerseys went to the podium to collect their medals, they were referee Néstor Pitana and his team of officials. This was surely the sporting pinnacle for Pitana, who had celebrated his 43rd birthday just a month before and had begun his career refereeing in the Argentine second tier back in 2006.

But Néstor Pitana is but the latest link in a chain that stretches back almost 90 years to John Langenus, the Belgian official who had refereed the chaotic first World Cup final in 1930, as well as games in the 1934 and ’38 tournaments and the 1928 Olympics. Such was Langenus’s international reputation that he was in high demand for club games outside of his native Belgium, and it is here that the Irish connection appears, because just three months before he refereed in the Amsterdam Olympics of 1928 and two years before the World Cup final, he was in Dalymount Park for the Free State Cup Final between Bohemians and Drumcondra.

Bohs won that Cup final 2-1 in front of a crowd of over 25,000 on St. Patrick’s Day, 1928 to secure a clean sweep of all four domestic competitions that season. Their goals came from Jimmy White and Billy Dennis which cancelled out John Keogh’s opener for Drums. Match reports record that the Bohs were deserved winners with Drumcondra offering little in attack after their opening goal. Of the referee’s role The Irish Times noted that “while feelings ran high at intervals, the referee, Mr. Langenus of Belgium, handled the game splendidly and that nothing unseemly occurred to mar the enjoyment of the huge crowd”.

Langenus was something of a Pierluigi Collina of his day, well-known, popular and well-respected throughout the sporting world as well as being visually arresting, as a tall figure with slicked back hair who took to the field in a shirt, tie, jacket and a pair of plus-fours. It was this reputation that led him to Dalymount Park in 1928. Then as now there were constant debates about the quality of referees and plenty of criticism was aimed at the men in the middle during the early years of the League of Ireland. This meant that for high profile games such as Cup finals the FAI had established the practice of bringing in referees from outside of Ireland.

Usually this meant an English referee, Ireland still looked to England as a bastion of the game and it made sense to use an English speaking referee. For example, in 1927  J.T. Howcroft from Bolton had taken charge of his second FAI Cup Final. A prominent English referee, Howcroft had also officiated the 1920 FA Cup final between Aston Villa and Huddersfield. However, John Langenus had two things in his favour, he was a fluent English-speaker and in addition to his native Flemish he also spoke French, German, Spanish and Italian. The second reason that it should not be such a surprise that he refereed the Cup Final was that a year earlier he had been in Lansdowne Road to referee the Ireland v Italy international which Italy had won 2-1 thanks to two goals from Juventus striker Federico Munerati.

At a banquet following that Ireland match held in the Hibernian Hotel on Dawson Street where John Langenus and his wife were guests, the Honourary Secretary of the Association John S. Murphy toasted Langenus and described him as “one of the best referees they had ever seen in Dublin”. This surely helped with his appointment to the following year’s Cup final.

The paths of the Irish national team and John Langenus would cross on several further occasions, he took charge of Irish matches against Spain, the Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland and finally against Czechoslovakia in 1938. Langenus himself had many happy memories of his trips to Dublin. He committed some of these to record in one of his memoirs Whistling through the world printed in 1942.

In his book he recalls witnessing the St. Patrick’s day parade on the morning of the FAI Cup Final,  as well as his chats with Lord Mayor of Dublin Alfie Byrne, and his visits to the main tourist attractions; Dublin Zoo, the Botanic Gardens and St. Michan’s Church where he saw the famous preserved bodies in the church crypt. But his main memories are of Irish social culture, and Irish drink! John Langenus took a particular interest in Irish whiskey and would go directly to the distilleries to buy 90 and 100 year old bottles that wouldn’t usually be found on general sale, these he would keep as special gifts for friends (and perhaps a couple for his own collection). He was lucky on one occasion that he managed to bluff his was through English customs checks with two bottles of vintage whiskey in his suitcase.

Similarly he remembered the good humour of the after-match banquets, once again his beloved Irish whiskey makes an appearance though he mentioned that the only way he could tell his Irish hosts were getting a little drunk was that they tended to sing more. In winning or losing he recalls the good mood of his hosts remained the same.

Not all of Langenus’s sporting engagements were to be as enjoyable. His most famous role, that of World Cup Final referee was as far from the relaxed surroundings of a Dublin banquet as was possible. As the great Brian Glanville wrote of Langenus during that final match in Montevideo’s Estadio Centenario “The prospects of dealing with twenty-two players, each of whom was capable of disputing any and every decision, to say nothing of the nearly 100,000 spectators who, once they had paid their money, felt entitled to behave as they pleased, would have daunted men of lesser experience and courage than Langenus”.

Doubtless that Langenus was experienced and courageous but he was also pragmatic, he would no doubt have heard the chants and songs thousands of passionate Argentine fans as they streamed from their ferries across the River Plate and into the stadium hours before kick-off, he would have heard their Uruguayan counterparts fanatically chanting their own calls to arms, including the ominous “Victory or death!”. Who’s death exactly? In such cases often it’s the referee in the firing line and Langenus had sought assurances from the Montevideo police that a swift, armed escort, direct to their ship should be arranged right after the match for him and his team of officials should this be required.

Although the match was intense and undoubtedly passionate Langenus escaped the ire of either set of supporters, in fact he was involved in solving the biggest point of conflict even before kick-off. With both sides insisting that a football manufactured in their own country be used, Solomon-like, Langenus agreed that a ball from Argentina would be used in the first half and a ball from Uruguay in the second.

On that day, as Uruguay celebrated victory in the maiden World Cup, in front of their own home fans, John Langenus must have realised he had reached the apex of his refereeing career. He would return again to officiate in the next two World Cups, signing off his last World Cup match officiating the 3rd place play-off in 1938 which saw Brazil claim bronze, defeating Sweden 4-2.  While he continued to referee international games for another year the outbreak of World War Two effectively ended his career as an international referee though he continued to referee matches in the Belgian League throughout the War until finally the league was suspended for the 1944-45 season. By that stage Langenus was 53 years of age.

According to one source, as a teenager he had played youth football for AS Anversoise but was already a referee in the Belgian top flight since at least 1912, refereeing his first international match in 1923 aged just 31. Throughout his career he was a committed amateur. He worked as a public servant in his home city of Antwerp for his whole working life and was also an occasional sports journalist. While on international duty only his expenses were paid and he refused any fees to referee games though often in such instances medals, cut glass, watches or decorative cups were given as mementos. He also had the perk of  being able to bring back the likes of whiskey from Ireland or cigars from Spain. His positively Corinthian idealism is evident even just by looking at him with august bearing and almost formal attire.

His talent for writing was something that he put to good use in his retirement, writing a memoirs and two other football related books. He passed away in his native Belgium in 1952 aged 60.

With thanks to the people behind @WC1930blogger and @RefereeingBooks for their assistance.

The Dawning of the cup

Posted on by gerrytastic

Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock debuted on the Abbey Theatre stage in 1924 with the focus of the drama set in the city of Dublin after the outbreak of the Civil War just a couple of years earlier in 1922. The “Paycock” of the title, the feckless Captain Jack Doyle, became identified by the malapropism which he exclaimed repeatedly through the play, “the whole world is in a terrible state o’ chassis”. And indeed it was. If we take it that Captain Jack meant by “chassis” that the world was in a state of chaos and change then certainly his final drunken quip was accurate. Maybe he’d been at the first ever Free State cup final a few months earlier?

By the dawn of 1922 the truce in bloody War of Independence was’t yet six months old, the Anglo-Irish Treaty had only been signed in December of 1921 which allowed for the creation of a 26 county Free State by the end of 1922. But before that would happen 1922 would also witness the beginnings of the Irish Civil War. A state of chassis indeed.

In the middle of this chaos the Football Association of Ireland had been formed after a split from the Belfast-based IFA and a brand new league and cup competition were begun before the Irish Free State had even officially come into being. While that first season can be viewed as a success from a footballing perspective, it was not to be without incident or drama. Befittingly, it was the cup final that witnessed some of the most dramatic scenes.

The first season of the league had kicked off in September 1921, it only featured eight teams in total and all of them were from Dublin. Of those eight only two are still involved in League of Ireland football today, Shelbourne and Bohemians. The cup however, was slightly more diverse, featuring the likes of Athlone Town, who would join the league the following season, as well as West Ham. The West Ham from Belfast that is.

West Ham were a team in the Falls and District League in Belfast. When the split from the IFA occurred these clubs chose to affiliate with the FAI and in West Ham’s case their new cup competition. This wasn’t to be the only occasion that something like this happened, the following season the cup winners were Alton United, previously a junior club in Belfast they shocked Shelbourne in the final with a 1-0 win. The relative success of junior clubs from Belfast was likely to have drawn some condescending looks from the IFA in relation to the standard of football south of the border. But it should be noted that at the time due to the political turmoil in Belfast one the foremost clubs on the island; Belfast Celtic had withdrawn from the league and many of their players were active for sides in the FAI affiliated Falls and District league.

This would change when by the end of 1923 the FAI was admitted to FIFA. One of the conditions of acceptance being that only clubs from the 26-county Free State could be members of the Association. This meant an end to the involvement of northern clubs until Derry City joined the league in 1985. West Ham were not to have much of a cup run. Their highlight was holding Shelbourne to a scoreless draw before they were knocked out in a replay.

While the West Ham versus Shelbourne game may have been tight there were a few hammerings in the early rounds of the cup. In the opening round Dublin United beat their league rivals Frankfort 8-1. While Dublin United would drift out of football over the following few years Frankfort, from the Raheny area of Dublin are still active locally, playing their matches in St. Anne’s Park.

Despite their convincing win in the opening round Dublin United were dumped out in the following tie by Shamrock Rovers, then a Leinster Senior League side. Rovers had already had a long cup campaign before the met Dublin United. Not being a league club they had to negotiate a number of qualifying rounds which had their own fair share of drama. A comfortable win over UCD was followed by a trip to Tipp to take on Tipperary Wanderers. Despite the recent prominence of Shane Long we don’t often think of Tipperary as a soccer stronghold but the local side were good enough to beat Rovers 1-0. The men from Ringsend however, made a formal protest because of the poor quality of the pitch that they were forced to play on. A ruling was made that the match had to be replayed and this time Rovers emerged victorious.

Further victories followed over St. James’s Gates “B” side and Shelbourne United (a club who also had their origins in Ringsend but not to be confused with Shelbourne F.C.) which meant that Rovers were through to the first round proper of the cup against Free State league side Olympia. A 3-1 win there and the 5-1 hammering of Dublin United saw them drawn in the semi-finals against Bohemians.

Bohs being the more well established side went into the games as favourites. They enjoyed home advantage as both semi-finals were to be played in Dalymount Park, they’d finished a close second to St. James’s Gate in the inaugural league season and they’d demolished Athlone Town 7-1 in the previous round. But it was Rovers who emerged victorious thanks to a lone strike by John Joe Flood. The result was somewhat of a shock, accounts at the time describe Bohs enjoying the better of the play but failing to take their chances, ultimately the more direct, physical approach taken by Rovers paid dividends.

The scorer of the winning goal, John Joe Flood was one of the team’s early stars. A Ringsend local, he was the son of John Flood, a bottle blower at the nearby glass bottle works. He had previously played for Shelbourne but was very much a Shamrock Rovers man. He even spent some of his youth living on Shamrock Terrace, the road that gave Rovers their name. In all he had four spells at the club, while also trying his luck on two occasions in England, a short spell with Leeds United and later sojourn at Crystal Palace.

He was known as tough and pacey inside forward and was occasionally referred to by the nickname “Slasher” which makes him sound like a fairly formidable opponent. In Rovers’ colours he’d end up collecting four League of Ireland medals and six cup winners medals and later became part of the famous “Four F’s” forward line along with Billy “Juicy” Farrell, Jack “Kruger” Fagan and Bob Fullam. He would also be capped five times by Ireland, scoring four goals, including a hat-trick in a 4-0 victory over Belgium.

Victory over Bohs had secured Rovers’ place in the final, due to take place on St. Patrick’s Day 1922 but they would have to wait a while before the identity of their opponents was confirmed. The other semi-final had gone to a replay, St. James’s Gate versus Shelbourne had finished scoreless in their first meeting and there was a gap of more than two weeks before the game was replayed. The victors on that day were St. James’s Gate and they were confirmed as the side to face Rovers in the final on St. Patrick’s Day.

St. James’s Gate at the time were based around grounds in Dolphin’s Barn that were rented by the Guinness brewery which gave them their name.  Guinness were known for the paternalistic attitude they took towards their workers and a job at the brewery offered a level of security and benefits that were not often found in other workplaces around Dublin. The James’s Gate players were nominally amateurs, five players from the team would be part of the amateur squad that competed for Ireland in the football tournament at the 1924 Olympics, but even by the time of the Cup final there were a quota of non-Guinness players allowed play for the team.

Some of those who weren’t Guinness employees included Ernie MacKay, the son of a Scottish soldier, Ernie worked for at the GPO for decades while also remaining involved with James’s Gate as a player and administrator well into the 1940’s. His team-mate at inside-left was Charlie Dowdall who had worked for Guinness briefly but spent most of his career working at the Inchicore railway works. Still they would have had access to the superior sporting facilities of the Guinness workers, pitches, gymnasiums and medical experts. Such was the prestige of the club at the time that many star players who did work at the brewery were excused from more taxing work to make sure they were fit and healthy for upcoming matches.

This approach had brought impressive results. In the 1919-20 season St. James’s Gate had won the Leinster Senior Cup, the Leinster Senior League, the Metropolitan Cup and the Irish Intermediate Cup. By the time the cup final rolled around on St. Patrick’s Day 1922 the Gate had already become the inaugural Free State league champions and Leinster Senior Cup winners, an FAI Cup win would seal a treble.

The Gate were favourites, despite the fact that they were technically viewed as an amateur “works” team whereas Rovers (still a Leinster Senior League side) were paying players between 20-30 shillings a game. The Gate possessed the league’s top scorer, Jack Kelly in their ranks, and while Rovers had a certain reputation for toughness and aggression (especially men like Bob Fullam, Dinny Doyle and William “Sacky” Glen) St. James’s were no push-overs in this regard.

Their midfield half-back line of Frank Heaney, Ernie MacKay and Bob Carter were tough, tall, physically imposing men. Heaney, a veteran at this stage, had won amateur caps for the IFA, while MacKay, Dowdall and the versatile Paddy “Dirty” Duncan would also all represent Ireland at the 1924 Olympics. They were certainly a side with pedigree.

What was described as a “fine holiday crowd” numbering up to 15,000 were in attendance in Dalymount Park that St. Patrick’s Day for the final. Despite the fact that the Gate midfield was physically bigger the Rovers half-backs were dominant in the opening half, but their forward-line, though “aggressive” missed a succession of chances and five minutes before the break Jack Kelly rose highest to power home a header from a Johnny Gargan corner kick to give St. James’s Gate a half-time lead.

Ten minutes into the second half Rovers restored parity, Paddy Coleman, the Gate keeper failing to clear a ball from an in-swinging corner meant an easy finish for the Rovers winger Charlie Campbell. Rovers rallied and had some good chances before the end of the game but their earlier slack finishing persisted and they failed to make their pressure count. The Irish Times used the standard parlance (then, as now) referring to the match as a “typical cup tie”, it was hard fought, but they complained that much of the play was “crude”.  A replay was set of the 8th of April and there was even greater drama to come.

The crowd wasn’t quite as sizable for the replayed game, perhaps due to the fact that the Irish Rugby team were playing France that same day in Lansdowne Road and enjoying a rare will over Les Blues. The 10,000 or so who were there in Dalymount Park were in full voice, and the Gate’s Charlie Dowdall later described the atmosphere as “electric”, and remembered the “intense fanaticism between the supporters” before ominously noting that “those were the troubled days, and there were a few guns lying around in supporters’ pockets, though it all ended happily”. As we’ll see later at least one supporters’ gun didn’t end up staying in his pocket!

As the game kicked off with Rovers captain Bob Fullam winning the toss and deciding to play into the wind in the opening half, this didn’t seem to hamper Rovers who had the better of the play and created most of the chances, however, as in the previous game, they couldn’t make possession and territorial advantage count. Rovers errant finishing would cost them as a minute before the interval Johnny Gargan nicked the ball from Joe “Buller” Byrne (later a groundsman at Milltown) and squared for Jack Kelly who beat Bill Nagle in the Rovers goal with a fierce, low strike. Despite Rovers continuing to have the better of the play in the second half it would remain the only goal of the game as Paddy Coleman put in a display described as “miraculous” between the sticks for the James’s Gate.

The final whistle was met with a pitch invasion from some of the Rovers support who headed straight for the James’s Gate players. They were soon joined by several of the Rovers players. Two tough teams had obviously gotten under each others skin and Dowdall and Fullam in particular had been having something of a running battle throughout the match.

As the St. James’s Gate players made for the dressing rooms at pace they were chased from the pitch by the invading fans and three Rovers players. Bob Fullam, allegedly joined by Dinny Doyle and John Joe Flood, pursued the Gate players inside where Fullam advanced on the object of his ire, Charlie Dowdall. It all seemed set to kick-off when Jack Dowdall, Charlie’s younger brother and an IRA volunteer stepped forward and produced a pistol. Fullam and his Rovers teammates were outnumbered, and now out-gunned and they sensibly beat a retreat from the changing rooms. Fullam, along with Doyle and Flood ended up receiving  bans from the FAI for their part in the disturbances.

Dowdall brother cartoon

Fullam wouldn’t be banned for long and ended up scoring 27 times in the league for Rovers the following year. Most with his howitzer-like left foot. While his first cup final may have ended is defeat he would retire from the game with four winners medals to his credit, to go with the four league titles he’d collected. So central did he become to Rovers success that the popular refrain among their support whenever the team were lacking inspiration on the pitch was “Give it to Bob”, a phrase that entered widespread use through Dublin in the subsequent decades.

Fullam also has an important footnote in Irish international football history. After the 1924 Olympics few international matches were forthcoming and the FAI had to wait until 1926 to secure a full international fixture, in this case a game against Italy in Turin with a return game in Dublin also agreed. Fullam and Frank Brady of Fordsons were the only players to play in both of those early games. The Italians ran out comfortable 3-0 winners in Turin but performed better in Lansdowne Road the following year with Ireland taking the lead through a powerful strike from none other than Bob Fullam. It was counted as the first goal in International football for a FAI national team. Indeed he nearly grabbed a second shortly after from a free-kick, the power of which meant that Mario Zanelli, the Italian full-back was stretchered off after he blocked the fierce shot with his head. Despite the performance that was to be Fullam’s last cap for Ireland, he was by then into his 30’s and Rovers were to be the main focus of his footballing exploits.

That inaugural season of Free State football belonged to St. James’s Gate who finished with three trophies, while Paddy Duncan, Charlie Dowdall and Ernie MacKay would all go on to represent the nascent international team in the following years. Despite the chaos of the cup final replay over 25,000 spectators had paid in to watch the two games, bringing in gate receipts of over £1,000 which were crucial to the FAI’s finances in those early days.

Less than a week after the replay anti-treaty IRA volunteers, led by Rory O’Connor occupied the Four Courts in Dublin city. Tensions mounted and in the early hours of June 28th the Free State army began shelling the Four Courts from their positions south of the Liffey. The Civil War had begun, the nation was convulsed by almost a year of violence that would leave thousands dead. By the time a cessation to the violence arrived in May 1923, amid the turmoil, lawlessness and death somehow an entire football league season and cup competition had been played out. Circumstances that seem so utterly bizarre and unreal today. Shamrock Rovers, newly elected to the Free State league had won it at their first attempt. With Bob Fullam, returned from his ban, as top scorer. In the cup Alton United enjoyed their brief moment in the sun by winning the cup, a Belfast side triumphing in the Free State blue ribbon competition. A tragic, dramatic, scarcely believable, terrible state o’ chassis indeed.