Athletic has witnessed some of Europe’s fiercest derbies, tracing the history of the continent’s deepest-rooted and volatile football rivalries.
The series began last season, covering 10 combustible games from Athens to Anfield. We attended De Klassieker and the Derthrough della Capitale, the Eternal Derthrough and the Old Firm. Then we resume our adventure this season through gambling in Copenhagen, Salzburg, Lisbon and Belfast. .
We were in Ipswich and Zagreb in December, then Sunderland and Black Country, and watched Sparta play Slavia in Prague. We were in Poland for the Greater Silesia derby and last month we expanded to cover the Monterrey Classic.
Now it’s the turn of Dublin, the city of derbies, and the Bohemians’ meeting with Shamrock Rovers. . .
It was in the middle of a pyrotechnic fog and ended with a brief roar from 22 players and staff.
There was a goal for each and a point for each. There were exciting challenges, give and take football, “basketball,” said one of the coaches. There was noise, color, occasional chanting from the sold-out crowd and a green banner. that said, “My city, my heart. “
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Admittedly, there is no pig’s head, as in Dalymount Park, and no urine. But the 285th “Dublin Derby” (249th in the Irish League), Bohemians vs. Shamrock Rovers, contained the essence of a rivalry that began in 1915 and which, in the context of a revitalised Irish League, counts today as much as in one of its 109 years.
The Bohemians, from north Dublin, were founded in 1890 and are the oldest football club in the Irish capital: “Dublin’s Originals”, as indicated on the crest of their educational kit. They are known as “Bohs”.
Originating from south Dublin, Shamrock Rovers was formed in 1901, is statistically the most successful club in the history of the Irish League and claims to be the biggest club in the country. This is a moderate statement.
Between those two clubs flows the River Liffey and it is this Northside-Southside geography, as well as early successes, that gave rise to the Bohs-Rovers rivalry. Although there have been many adjustments at Rovers since 1915, and they have hosted home games. , even seasons, in Dalymount of the Bohemians; his home since 2009 is located in Tallaght, seven miles south of the wonderful river.
Northside-Southside is still the department with trophies, drama, and storylines that rise to the weight of history. There are no concrete complaints.
The Rovers won the Second League of Ireland, after partition, in 1922, Bohs third, Rovers fourth and sixth, Bohs seventh and ninth. The pace was set. There are other senior Dublin clubs (Shelbourne and St Patrick’s Athletic are in the same department) and other Dublin rivalries have disrupted Bohs-Rovers’ intensity, but this has endured in the Irish League consciousness like the Dublin derby.
It is necessarily a benign relationship. Pat Fenlon is Bohs’ director of football, but he supported Rovers as a child. Returning from Chelsea as a teenager, Fenlon played and controlled both clubs. In a portable booth at Dalymount before kick-off on Friday night, he said: “I played here When there was a big insurrection on the pitch, I bet on Bohs and we won the Cup.
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“But I used to come here as a Rovers fan and the two amateur teams would switch sides. At one point, the two sets were the shed in the back. You’d have an imaginary line between them.
“It’s a genuine game, a genuine derby. There’s rivalry. This has evolved over the last 25 years and can be a bit unpleasant at times. There’s a little bit of toxicity, tension in the air.
“It’s the game that’s waiting for you. It’s important. “
This can be felt in the speed and feel of safe entrances. Bohs led 1-0, thanks to a good finish by Polish striker Filip Piszczek, and conceded some valid penalties. Rovers discovered Johnny Kenny’s equaliser just before half-time and dominated the second half. It was quick and physical and the final whistle brought relief.
The 1-1 draw left Rovers second and Bohs fourth at the top of the table; the League of Ireland runs from February to November. That left Rovers manager Stephen Bradley frustrated. “It’s a bit of a basketball game, which they like,” he says.
But Bradley knows he has injured players who will return and a fifth straight league title for the Rovers, never before achieved, is a possibility.
Like Fenlon, Bradley is Dubliner. Like Fenlon, he went as a teenager to London, in Bradley’s case, to Arsenal. Without bravado, he assesses the offer and future of Shamrock Rovers, telling The Athletic: “I think there’s no doubt that we’re the biggest, most successful team.
“This team has done four in a row and we’re aiming for five. If we do, we will make history.
“Only one other team has achieved fourth place in a row: the Rovers team of the 1980s. It tells you what you want to know.
Macdara Ferris can rightly be described as an encyclopedia of Shamrock Rovers. As an author, Ferris wrote about the club; as a fan, he put his hand in his pocket when the times were right and Rovers were on the verge of collapse.
As a supporter, he also took part in the 2004 derthrough at Dalymount Park, when a pig’s head and trotters came down the box towards two Bohs players, Tony Grant and James Keddy, who had just stepped up through the signing. Rovers in monetary difficulties. This prompted the newspaper’s name: “Muzzle of Order. “
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“I wasn’t all this,” Ferris is quick to say about the pig’s head, a nod to Luis Figo’s incident in Barcelona two years earlier. (The Belfast derby also had its red meat moment. )”But the photo of the head being exposed under a Shamrock Rovers flag?It was my flag.
Ferris laughs. Figo? He said, “It’s a pig’s head. “It’s so big!
“Obviously, it was smuggled into Dalymount on a drum. Let’s concede the fan favorite. He moved, but you understand why he moved: Rovers players didn’t get paid.
This adjustment came three years after a derby in which Rovers defeated Bohs 4-1 in the first half, only to lose 6-4. Then, in 2010, with veteran Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill in charge of Rovers, they and Bohs won the title until the last day, and Rovers got it with a two-goal difference.
Rovers’ record 16th league title of 2010 illustrates the club’s historic status. The total is now 21 and there has been a record 25 FAI (Football Association of Ireland) Cups. Year in 16 Years tells another story; homelessness, hardship and administration. It ended in 2005 with the well-known club in court waiting to see if it could continue its activities.
“Rovers were relegated for the first time in 2005,” Ferris said. “We’re talking about the stroke of a judge. It’s possible that Rovers simply went bankrupt at the time.
After establishing themselves as normal Irish champions in the 1920s and 1930s, Rovers took a step forward in the 1950s, winning three more titles and, in 1957, participating in the European Cup. They drew with Manchester United (the Busby Babes), but the game due to its greater capacity was located in the Dalymount of the Bohemians. The Future Rovers European Games were held there because Milltown had no spotlights.
United won 6-0, with Liam Whelan, born a few hundred yards from Dalymount, scoring twice. Four months later, Whelan and 22 others were killed in the Munich crash.
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“Rovers were the first Irish League club to play in the European Cup and they faced the Busby Babes,” Ferris said. “In the 1960s, Rovers won the Cup six years in a row and thus participated in the European Cup. Recopa. Se faced a wonderful team, Bayern Munich, and were 10 minutes away from eliminating them. Then Gerd Müller scored his first European trophy.
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“This would put the nose on the other clubs, but Rovers would be the leader in the league. Playing with the Busby Babes, Bayern Munich, the green and white shirts and simply the so-called “Shamrock Rovers”: the call is unique.
Born on now-defunct Shamrock Avenue, a plaque near Ringsend commemorates the club’s founding.
“And they attract enthusiasts from all over the city,” Ferris adds. “It’s because of good luck, but also because after betting on Milltown, they moved and that broadened their base. “
“They moved” is a mild way of describing Rovers’ lack of a stadium after the questionable sale of Milltown and their departure in 1987. One of the nicknames of the bohemians is “The Gypsies”, however, it was the Rovers who roamed the capital for almost 20 years. From 1988 to 1990, Dalymount Park was “the home”, and back in 2005. Other Dublin clubs, such as Shelbourne, rented their premises and, as Ferris sadly recalls, there was even a “home” Rovers game played there. miles away, in Cork.
“That’s the lowest point,” he says. Rovers had to wear their away shirts that day. “
Ferris is part of the organization of “400 Club” enthusiasts who used their own money to save the club from oblivion. Their commitment was rewarded when Tallaght Stadium opened in 2009, the name came a year later and then in 2011-12 Rovers reached Europa League organisational level when they faced Tottenham.
The Club still owns 50 per cent of Rovers, and two benefactors, Ray Wilson and Celtic’s main shareholder Dermot Desmond, own the remaining 50 per cent.
“During the dark times of the 1990s and early 2000s, when they were praising their rivals and playing in front of crowds that dwindled to about 500 people, enthusiasts would sing about 4 times in a row,” Ferris says. “The only thing that kept them with history.
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“Fast forward to 2024, the fourth stand is in Tallaght, the capacity is 10,500 more people and the game there against Bohs last season sold out, the biggest crowd in the League of Ireland in 30 years. This is where the women’s competition will be played.
“It’s an economic challenge and the club recorded losses last year, although some of the debt comes from Covid. It’s not as bad as it sounds.
“We play smart football, we have an academy and we help the players. The club rents the educational field, but is a full-time professional.
In the Bohemians’ assembly hall at the Phibsboro Tower, next to Dalymount Park, the writing is on the wall. A mural shows how and where the club came into being in the 1890s until it found its permanent headquarters in a place then known as “Campo de Pisser Dignam”.
It wasn’t known who Pisser Dignam was, but he had at least one talent.
Historian Gerry Farrell begins with the club’s call: “Bohemians are good, never ‘Bohemians FC’. It’s the Bohemian FC, the Bohemians or the Bohs.
The other convocation among the young scholars who first met in 1890 in Phoenix Park was, curiously, “Rovers. “But the Bohemians were the national team and it had to be a club of members, with a Corinthian attitude.
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“At the time, the word ‘bohemian’ was a component of popular culture,” Farrell says. “There, at the Balfe Opera House of Bohemia, there were romantic notions of Bohemia as a place where other people lived freely. If you look at these young people, they have very varied interests, that’s why bohemia suits them.
“And the Bohs were strictly amateurs. That was his philosophy, to play for fun. It remained that way until 1969. “
Ireland had a league, the Irish League in Belfast. Bohs joined in 1902 and won the Irish Cup in 1908. Following Irish independence, Bohs joined the League of Ireland, which they won 11 times, most recently in 2009. It hasn’t been glory about glory and, as Farrell says of the 1969 Decision: “You can only remain an amateur club for a limited time.
“From the late ’40s, apart from a few occasional spikes, we were pretty much in the back and ended up in the back. There was no time at the time, so we never went down. “
Twelve months after agreeing to pay semi-professional-level players, Bohs won the FAI Cup for the first time in 35 years, and then, in 1975-76, along with, soon, two Irish League titles. They faced Rangers in the European Cup and Newcastle United in the UEFA Cup.
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Still, they lost when league attendance dropped to 70 percent; Unemployment, poor services and the appeal of English football are all factors to consider.
By the beginning of the 21st century, the Bohs were making a comeback (four titles and several cups in an eight-year period) and with the Irish economic fairy tale, the “Celtic Tiger”, defying logic, they agreed to sell Dalymount for €60 million. (now £51. 7 million; $64. 5 million). Money borrowed on that basis.
“What we sold to our enthusiasts — a very Celtic Tiger thing, an ego thing — is that we were going to win it all,” said Bohs chief operating officer Daniel Lambert. “But it’s not based on reality. This was based on significant losses and debts.
When the Celtic Tiger disbanded, the Bohemians, like so many other companies, were exposed. The Dalymount sale failed. ” In 2011-2012,” Lambert explains, “the club reduced its first-team budget by 93 percent, from €1. 3 million to around €100,000 in one season. “
Economic implosion required new ideas. In 1969, when the decision was made to replace the prestige of the fans, Bohs had fewer than 400 members; today it has 3,000. Revenues are rising, matches are selling out, and club shirt sales are a phenomenon. The reason, according to Lambert, is relevance. The goal of bohemians is to be “a force for good. “In this sense: more than a club.
Sitting in front of a portrait of Liam Whelan in a café he owns around the corner, Lambert talks about gypsies ancient and modern.
“The biggest replacement in the last 30 years in global football has been the privatisation and commercialisation of the game,” he said. “Our members rejected this model.
“If you look at it as the natural design of the club, which it is, then being a force is a natural extension of it. We are much more applicable to people.
This means diligent networked paintings and a return to the original bohemian spirit; think and behave differently. The club was known for its avant-garde kits that were pro-refugee or industry unions or with musicians such as Bob Marley, who played his only Irish gig at Dalymount in 1980. Jersey sales “are close to a portion of our Rotation. “
Next Wednesday, Nakba Day, Dalymount will host the Bohemians Women, who oppose the Palestinian women’s team. Next to the camp is a “Visit Palestine” sign, funded through a local company. It’s about “making others think,” Lambert says. which compares the club to the Celtic Tiger era. “We are much more of a club that attracts other people, for many other reasons, many of whom play sports.
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“We have 40 grassroots teams, seven educational teams, women’s teams and one amputee team; We didn’t have any 10 years ago.
“On top of that, we do a lot of social intelligence and that has made our club stronger. Our club is 10 times higher than its previous average. Our earnings per sale are 2,500 times higher. In each and every way, adding up to profits, our club is a bigger entity than it was before. We believe that this is due to an expansion of what the club is while remaining true to what it was created to do.
Bohemians make fun of hipsters, but they also attract investment. If Brighton were ever to sell Evan Ferguson, more profit would come from a giant percentage of sales. Ferguson made his deyet with the Bohemians at the age of 14. His father, Barry, played for Bohs and Rovers.
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“We’ve had monetary benefits for 10 years in a row,” Lambert says. “Our turnover in 2014 would have been around €1 million. Now it’s four million euros. In 2014 we would have had a debt of 6. 3 million euros. . We now have a reserve of EUR 2 million. We purchased a 100-year lease on an 11-acre football field for an educational field and granted planning permission for a stadium redevelopment.
“It’s the longest era in which we haven’t won anything, since 2009, but, paradoxically, our club has dropped from 400 to 3,000. There is a waiting list.
“At the moment, the club has never been so secure financially. However, in the league it is unlikely that we will win now or in the next two or three seasons, due to the style of personal ownership that has predominated. The good fortunes of Manchester United, Chelsea or personal Irish clubs depend on the losses that the owners are willing to accept. There are some exceptions, but if an Irish owner next year says he’s willing to lose €5 million, he’ll win the championship.
“Our good fortune will be tied to the number of other people willing to invest money. So it’s quite the opposite.
“Shamrock Rovers are a very successful club in terms of trophies and there are elements between north and south. But, for me now, the way clubs position themselves is very different. I like the fact that we market ourselves differently. Both, obviously, know this. Who are you.
Old and new. At number five St Peter’s Road, a street next to Dalymount Park, the brown plaque announces that this is James Joyce’s family home from 1902 to 1904. At once cheerful and depressing, Joyce would probably recognize many of the old Pisser Dignam’s Field. .
Over the decades, Dalymount Park has taken on a personality of its own, “the home of Irish football”, as symptoms still indicate, with lane entrances similar to those on Kenilworth Road in Luton. The wonderful architect of football Archibald Leitch arrived in 1928 to make his mark. Cup finals and European matches were played here, the Republic of Ireland’s international match until 1990. On some occasions they gathered up to 50,000 spectators.
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But it has been in ruins for years and its terraces with Leitch barriers are not used. So, when we say that the games are “sold out”, the capacity is 4,500 seats.
It was 4,429 last Friday, and Rovers received 450 tickets and it would be an exaggeration to say that the instance has been fed by the city. Many cynics would say that the two biggest clubs in Dublin are Manchester United and Liverpool.
But in February, Bohs granted permission to demolish and rebuild Dalymount into a modern stadium with a capacity of 8,000. It is possible that in the 2027 season the Dublin derby will start a new era.
He wants it. As Bradley says, “Amenities are pretty smart, let’s not kid ourselves. “
Still, the attendance wasn’t entirely representative of where the Bohs, Rovers or even the league would be in 2024. As perceptions change, audiences are getting bigger, younger, and more female. Demand for tickets outstrips supply. There were 44,000 at the Cup final last November at Lansdowne Road, which Bohs lost. Unprompted, Fenlon and Bradley mention a Bohs-Rovers derby at Lansdowne. “I think that would be great,” Fenlon says.
Old and new. Half an hour before kick-off, they played Frankie Valli’s The Night
Keita, 24, a former USMNT under-20 international, arrived at the Bohemians from Colorado Rapids on the same day in February. Luke Matheson arrived from Bolton Wanderers and Jevon Mills from Hull City.
How does Keita describe the Bohemians and the League of Ireland when he calls home?
“It’s different,” he smiles. The facilities aren’t those of the MLS, but it’s professional, and once you’re a part of it, you know more. I think the league is underrated and I feel fortunate to be part of such a historic club. you adapt.
“It’s different, but in a way it’s different. “
Bohs-Rovers, the Dublin derby. . . Maybe they’ll take him away.
(Photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)