Bohemians won't make crisis out of setbacks

Emmet Malone On Soccer: Not long ago I called Tolka Park looking for Ollie Byrne and was asked to hold while he finished another call.

A few minutes later the Shelbourne chief executive came to the phone and launched, before I could utter a word, into an explanation of how I would get my cheque when the one the club was expecting from somewhere else (from Carlisle, for Richie Foran, to be precise) finally arrived. Silence followed, after which I told an obviously surprised Ollie who he was talking to. Out of smaller misunderstandings have "Cash crisis rocks Eircom league club" headlines been born.

When a club calls a meeting of around 200 people, however, and actually tells everyone present that things could be better on the money front then give it about half an hour and you can be fairly sure it will be common knowledge there are problems.

At Bohemians, subject of widespread prophesies of doom for weeks now, they insist that is precisely what has happened, with an effort to raise revenue from loyal supporters being turned, by outside observers, into a major financial crisis.

Club secretary Gerry Cuffe admits there are some difficulties with cash flow but then in this league that is hardly the most startling of confessions. He maintains the problems are nothing extraordinary, however, observing that "it simply reached the point where we felt it was prudent to get the members in and make it clear to them that we have to work even harder at maximising our income because some money we expected to come in hasn't yet but our outgoings are continuing to grow".

Stephen Kenny and his players, Cuffe says, have been unaffected, with even their recent week's training away in Cyprus going ahead as planned. As far as the manager and his squad are concerned, things remain normal at the club, and that in itself suggests things cannot actually be all that bad.

Cuffe concedes that one of the factors in creating the tighter financial environment has been the drop in attendances that has accompanied the team's disappointing start to the season.

He is quick to add that, with just 13 games played and 23 remaining, he is not unduly concerned that Bohemians sit nine points behind their rivals from down the road. It is, however, a dramatically different situation to the one Kenny's players were in at the same point last season. With the same number of rounds completed but nine fewer still outstanding, the Phibsborough club were 10 points clear of Shelbourne and people were desperate to counter the perception that the title was already theirs.

Shelbourne did well in the end to halve the margin but during those first three months of the campaign they had allowed Bohemians establish far too commanding a position.

Bohemians cannot afford to lose any more ground in the current campaign.

Kenny maintains with some justification that his team have not been playing poorly in recent months - but neither have they sparkled. Four 1-1 draws in six home games before last Friday night said a good deal about their problems, but then the fact they managed just one win away from home is equally hard to fathom.

An obvious problem was Glen Crowe's injury and general loss of form. Last season the striker supplied 18 of the club's 47 goals, with Bobby Ryan the team's next-highest scorer, on just five. Kenny takes some pride in the way his players take the game to opponents from the back but in the absence of a dependable alternative to Crowe up front the team's tendency to concede goals at the other end makes their approach look cavalier when the Ireland international hits a barren spell.

In addition Séamus Kelly, Damien Lynch and Simon Webb all struggled slightly with their form early on, while the central defensive line-up was chopped and changed, and only partly because of injury. Derek Coughlan's future, the manager and player have agreed - amicably enough it is said - lies elsewhere and though Ken Oman and Jason McGuinness both look to possess the ability to challenge Colin Hawkins and Paul McNally in the long term, they remain for now strong prospects rather than proven performers.

Things could finally be improving for the side, though. The 5-1 defeat of Waterford at the weekend is a timely reminder of what is possible ahead of what promises to be a very tough game in Belarus tomorrow evening. That Crowe scored three and Thomas Heary did well at centre back seems as significant as the result itself and the display will have sparked some optimism about the team's prospects of overcoming a strong BATE team and earning a more attractive, not to mention more lucrative, second-round tie with Rosenborg of Norway.

If that happens and the improvement on the domestic front is sustained then the difficulties of recent weeks may quickly be forgotten. If not, then Bohemians won't be the first club to discover how hard it can be to shake the championship hangover.