Richmond Park likely to be Rovers 'home'

St Patrick's Athletic are likely to confirm today that the club will play host to most of Shamrock Rovers' home games for the coming eircom League season.

The agreement follows a series of meetings with Inchicore residents living close to Richmond Park who were said last night to be on the verge of consenting to the move after receiving assurances in relation to a number of the concerns they raised.

Chief among those reservations was the fear that the two visits by Bohemians to Richmond Park for games with Rovers might spark a repeat of the trouble that marked one of the games between the clubs there last season. On that basis, it has been agreed Rovers home games against Bohemians will be at Dalymount Park.

It was also briefly envisaged that Rovers might have to play the rest of their home games on Saturday afternoons, but after a number of security issues in relation to Emmet Road were addressed, with the support of the FAI, broad agreement has been reached on the matches taking place on Friday evenings.

It has also been agreed that the FAI will oversee all security at the games in question. A similar situation prevailed last year, when such an agreement allowed the club to finish their campaign last season at Tolka Park.

"We still have one or two small issues to finalise," said St Patrick's chairman Andy O'Callaghan yesterday, "but with Fran Rooney and the FAI having been very supportive, we feel we have been able to address the concerns of the local community, and we're very hopeful that we will be able to make a definite announcement over the next 36 to 48 hours."

News that Bohemians may get to play Rovers on home soil four times next season has not, however, gone down well at Tolka Park. "Obviously I'm delighted that St Patrick's Athletic will be facilitating Shamrock Rovers," said Ollie Byrne, "because the league would be a lot poorer without them. But I said I was unhappy last season when they went to Cork to play what was supposed to be a home game and I'm unhappy now that there is the suggestion that they would play any of their home games at Dalymount.

"There is supposed to be fairness and consistency in any league and I think this will have to be discussed fully amongst all of the clubs before any final deal is finalised."

Rovers chairman Tony Maguire defended the deal, observing that his club would have had to surrender home advantage to Bohemians in any case had they ended up playing all of their games out of Dalymount.

"The difference is that this way we are looking at a situation in which we would be playing the rest of our home matches at Richmond and that is very important to us for a whole variety of reasons."

Nevertheless, Shelbourne are expected to raise the issue at Thursday evening's league management committee meeting when it is thought that the club may propose that games between their Dublin rivals be played at a neutral venue. The club may just feel that Tolka Park would do rather nicely for the games.

Byrne, meanwhile, has again insisted that Ciaran Martyn is legally a Shelbourne player as a result of having signed a pre-contract agreement with the club before Christmas.

"Under no pressure whatsoever he signed a contract which his agent also signed, and he is not being let out of that contract. Somebody then seems to have persuaded him to change his mind, but as far as I'm concerned," he said of the Derry City midfielder, "he has to play for Shelbourne unless or until we agree otherwise."

Bray Wanderers have become the second League club in 24 hours to line up friendly games against major English clubs this week. Wanderers will take on Premiership side Everton at the Carlisle Grounds this evening (7.30) while St Patrick's Athletic face Derby County on Friday night at Inchicore.

David Moyes is expected to bring a virtually full-strength squad to Ireland for tonight's game, although England international Wayne Rooney is omitted from the travelling party on the basis, it seems, that he is being rested.

Tickets for the game, which will be available from the Carlisle Grounds from this morning, cost €15 and €5, while admission to Richmond Park on Friday night will cost €10 for adults and €5 for schoolchildren.