Limerick need help to return to their roots

Those who have been watching the fortunes of Limerick closely over the past few years could be forgiven if they are suffering from a mild case of crisis fatigue.

There remains little doubt, however, as the club prepares for Thursday evening's visit of Cobh Ramblers at the Pike Rovers Sports Grounds, that the future of senior football in the city is once again hanging by a thread.

Since the club's chairman, Michael O'Sullivan, and his fellow directors raised the alarm a couple of weeks ago the board have made it clear they no longer feel in a position to fund the team's day-to-day activities and an investor, or a group of investors, who are willing to put €30,000 or so into the club is being urgently sought.

The source of the club's immediate difficulty is simple. Costs are running at around €3,000 a week while gate receipts are averaging just €1,000 each fortnight. With Charlotte Quay Pharmacy, the club's only significant sponsor - and the company's contribution is modest by league standards - the directors have to make ends meet out of their own pockets. They will hand over the club free of debt, insists O'Sullivan, "but none of us is exactly a sugar daddy and so we simply can't continue going the way we have been for the past while".

There has been plenty of evidence there is still considerable goodwill towards a club that, more than 20 years ago, brought huge pride to the city and became one of the best supported sides in the country. The players announced they would not take wages for three weeks and at last Tuesday's 4-0 home win over Sligo the attendance was up considerably thanks in part to a strong push by The Echo newspaper. Many made contributions well above the night's specially-reduced admission fee, AIB chipped in with sponsorship and local TD Jan O'Sullivan threw €500 into the hat. Her namesake Michael reckons, however, that at present levels of spending the club needs to attract regular support of about 1,000 if it is to break even.

There have, O'Sullivan says, been "a few tickles" from potential backers and he remains hopeful a good crowd at the Cobh game will add impetus to the rescue operation. However, O'Sullivan insists that after some 15 years involved with the club this Saturday's FAI a.g.m. will be his last official function as chairman. If worst comes to worst it would also effectively serve as the club's farewell to the people who run the game.

That a city like Limerick would no longer be represented in senior football is something of a nightmare for the league and the association but while the short-term difficulties facing the club may look daunting to would-be investors the long-term future has the potential to be much brighter if someone can be found to take the lead at club level and Merrion Square weighs in behind a co-ordinated attempt to revive the club.

On the field Mike Kerley has been holding things together remarkably well and Limerick remain in a strong position to achieve a play-off place despite a squad so limited numerically that the combination of John Whyte's sending off and an injury to on-loan striker Gareth Cooney could leave the manager with just one substitute, himself, on the bench on Thursday. He has other local players ready to come in to add depth to the squad but the money simply isn't there.

Kerley's squad is young and more than half are locals with all but Cooney from the south-west. On Sunday they were the better side for half of their game against a strong Bray team but folded as their inexperience, Whyte's dismissal and Kerley's lack of options took their toll. Off the pitch some of those with the club, and not for the first time, see the club's salvation as lying back at the Markets Field, the ground where the team enjoyed its best days under Eoin Hand.

There has been talk of Limerick leading the development of Pike Rovers' ground and there is a sense among the club's officials and supporters that they owe their current landlords a considerable debt for their help at a time when, a few months ago, homelessness threatened to end their league career. Rovers offered support when several other clubs in the city opted not to and even last Tuesday there was further evidence of the local problems that have traditionally hampered the senior outfit when Fairview declined to postpone a local cup semi-final scheduled for the same night as the Sligo game.

With the league and FAI wary of repeating the error made at Rathbane where money was invested in a ground not ultimately under the control of the senior club, securing the necessary funds to build a stand and make other improvements at Rovers' home may prove difficult. Not impossible, say league officials, who concede Limerick would only be following in the footsteps of Cork, Galway, Derry and Waterford, whom are tenants in their respective grounds, but not straightforward either.

Then there is the fact Bord na gCon is expected to place Markets Field on the market within months. The cost of purchase is put at anything up to €4 million, but, if necessary, a substantial part could be quickly recouped by selling off part of the property for development.

With the FAI's technical plan calling for the development of regional centres of excellence, the association, possessing no base in a city with such obvious potential to be reborn as a stronghold of soccer and a major player in the national league suffering from an unhealthy level of Dublin domination, the two parties' interests seem to overlap to a rather fortuitous extent.

The initiative, the FAI insist, must come from the club and O'Sullivan, who says the directors are not in a position to help the club make the required leap, describes the talk of returning to Markets Field as no more than "aspirational".

What's abundantly obvious, though, is that it's something worth aspiring to.

emalone@irish-times.ie