St Patrick’s Athletic 1 Shelbourne 0
Eoin Doyle broke the stalemate, on the pitch. Off the pitch, matters look set to run and run.
St Patrick’s Athletic needed 83 minutes and a heavy challenge on Shelbourne’s midfield glue Mark Coyle before Tim Clancy’s charges created a moment for Doyle, the veteran striker, to claim their first victory of the season.
At a Dublin derby as old as the Camac river running through Richmond Park, Shels almost proved too organised, spreading the game too wide, for St Pat’s to take three points off the visitors.
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In defeat Shelbourne FC remains the story as, reportedly, the club is mired in disarray. Or just sorting out their house. Time will tell, but on the field manager Damien Duff has them playing above their individual talent, adding Paddy Barrett’s intimidating frame to the back three, but that is not going to be enough.
More money is needed. Increased investment from Serbian billionaire Dragan Šolak, or failing that from the ‘Turkish Simon Cowell’.
Duff recently spoke about almost quadrupling his player budget in winter, only for the proposed Sport Republic takeover, financed by Šolak, to run out of steam.
Disaster, however, might have been averted by the another White Knight. Acun Ilicali made his fortune in a similar fashion to Cowell. The Hull City owner and media mogul ended his brief investment in Dutch club Fortuna Sittard in 2021, only to take a majority share of the mid-table English Championship side, where Irish internationals Aaron Connolly and Cyrus Christie currently ply their trade.
What has any of this got to do with Pats versus Shels on a chilly February night in Inchicore?
Plenty as it turns out. In among the Shelbourne officials sat Ilicali, and presumably he was equally depressed by the state of the three League of Ireland grounds he has seemingly frequented in recent weeks.
Not much separates Richmond, Tolka and Oriel Park when it comes to scenes from the dark ages as Irish football openly wrestles with desperately outdated facilities.
There’s a fair bit to this yarn. On Friday afternoon Dundalk’s current ownership released a missive stating that their club is not for sale but in the same breath conceding discussions have taken place to, well, sell the club.
“We need to be honest about our limitations,” said Dundalk owners Seán O’Connor, Andy Connolly and Alan Clarke following reports that Ilicali is interested in a majority share. “We will need partners if we wish to achieve our goal of maintaining a strong team on the pitch while simultaneously modernising Oriel Park.”
Shels are in a similar position, if not worse off, after Dublin City Council chief Dick Shakespeare confirmed that modernising Dalymount is the priority. This happened on the same day that the ‘Save Tolka Park’ campaign released a statement questioning their own club and the city council’s lack of effort to fix the old place up.
“‘The Save Tolka Park’ campaign, save it for what?” Shakespeare wondered aloud.
That should be enough information to digest during the second match of a long campaign but Shels, as revealed by the Irish Independent, just lost chief executive Dave O’Connor, his deputy Ross Dunbar and sporting director Alan Caffrey.
“I’m no badge kisser, but I am a real Shelbourne man,” said Duff last year.
The former Ireland international has never done things by half. That at least is music to all the other Shelbourne men who journeyed from Drumcondra. Over to Mr Ilicali. Good news for Dundalk or Shels, or just a Turkish millionaire sampling the delights of Dublin 8 in early spring.
There was plenty to see. The uncontainable Jake Mulraney, an evergreen Chris Forrester and teenager Sam Curtis should make St Pat’s a must see team all season.
Forrester’s uncompromising shot block on Coyle reminded everyone that we were witnessing a Dublin derby. Coyle could not continue, which should have encouraged St Pat’s to take hold of the contest. It took a few efforts before Doyle came off the bench to rifle his first goal of the season.
Meanwhile, Bohemians’ 2-0 defeat of Dundalk at Dalymount puts them two points clear at the top of the league. Never boring. Never predictable.
ST PATRICK’S ATHLETIC: Odumosu; Curtis, Redmond, Lewis, Breslin; Atakayi (M Doyle, 59 mins), Lennon, Kreida, Forrester (Carty, 83 mins), Mulraney (McCormack, 75 mins); Lonergan (E Doyle, 59 mins).
SHELBOURNE: Kearns; Wilson, Barrett, Byrne, Molloy, Wilson (Ledwidge, 60 mins); Coyle (Leavy, 76 mins), Lunney; Smith, Caffrey (Robinson, 86 mins), Moylan (Farrell, 60 mins).
Referee: Neil Doyle.
