League of Ireland

Keith Fahey's exploits in the international arena bathe the game here in a positive glow. The produce-and-peddle model could be a route to sustainability for League of Ireland clubs.

By Shane Breslin

One mischievous internet wag with a leaning towards Shamrock Rovers described last Friday night as a great occasion for fans of all three major Dublin clubs. For Rovers, because they moved seven points clear at the top of the Airtricity League Premier Division table, courtesy of a narrow and in many ways fortuitous home win over Sligo Rovers; for Bohemians, because, in the face of growing uncertainty about the future, they still have a club to support; and for St Patrick's Athletic, because of the exploits of former Richmond Park favourite Keith Fahey for Ireland in Armenia.

On the field, Bohs and Pats were watching Rovers disappear further into the distance after managing just a point apiece from away games against Sporting Fingal and Galway United respectively. Notwithstanding the dodgy positioning of Sligo goalkeeper Ciaran Kelly, Billy Dennehy’s match-winning free kick for the league leaders was mesmerising, starting out a yard outside the post before curling beautifully into the top corner.

Television commitments to League of Ireland football being what they are, we may have had to satisfy ourselves with a single-angle perspective which fails to really do the strike justice, but a couple of mobile phone videos posted online provide contrasting viewpoints which help to underline the quality of a goal which could go a long way towards deciding the outcome of the title race in two months’ time.

Back to the forum poster. No-one can be in any doubt that the evening was a memorable one for Shamrock Rovers as they won again and their nearest pursuers and fiercest rivals both slipped up, while the jibe in the direction of Bohs was full of the schadenfreude which characterises football fans of all creeds. The comment about Fahey, if it was meant to be satirical, possibly fell wide of the mark. Of course, St Pats fans would have preferred a win in Galway combined with an anonymous competitive Ireland debut for Fahey in Yerevan, but events in Armenia served to bolster the growing reputation of the League of Ireland as a breeding ground of top talent.

Fahey was exceptional as a teenager – he would never have been signed by Arsenal or Aston Villa, at a cost of £250,000, if he wasn’t – but his League of Ireland career was the making of him. For 18 months or so, following his return to Inchicore from an ill-fated spell at Drogheda United when he fell out with Paul Doolin, Fahey was head and shoulders above anyone else in the league. Alex McLeish, the Birmingham City manager, had noted how some of his peers, including Steve Coppell and Craig Levein, unearthed a few uncut gems from this side of the Irish Sea, and he was prepared to take a gamble on a 25-year-old midfielder who had already spent one unhappy spell in England.

To Pats regulars, or fans of other clubs capable of parking their partisanship, it wasn’t much of a gamble at all. Fahey was clearly capable of playing at a higher level, and his progress at St Andrews over the past 20 months – he quickly became an integral member of the team as Birmingham secured promotion from the Championship, and then featured in 34 of the club’s 38 Premier League games last season – has vindicated the club’s outlay which, at a rumoured £300,000, now looks a steal.

Export trade

Fahey is not the only player to have progressed from the League of Ireland in recent years. Kevin Doyle is the stand-out success story, leaving Reading for Wolves for a £6m fee in 2009, four years on from the €70,000 transfer which took him from Cork to the Madejski Stadium. Seamus Coleman, the former Sligo Rovers full back, is highly regarded at Everton, having returned to the club this summer on the back of a dazzling loan spell at Blackpool at the end of last season. The Scottish Premier League may be on a one-way journey down the European pecking order, and most SPL sides no better or worse than the top teams in the League of Ireland, but for former Derry City pair Paddy McCourt and Niall McGinn, the opportunity to play in front of crowds of 60,000 represents a significant leap forward from the Brandywell.

And we could have one more player ready to shine a positive light on the League of Ireland. Buried among the headlines on transfer deadline day last week, receiving much smaller typefaces than those concerning Robinho, Gudjohnsen and Konchesky, was the story of Padraig Amond’s move from Sligo to Pacos de Ferreira in Portugal. They may not be among the leading lights of European football but Os Castores are established in the Portuguese Superliga and have made an unbeaten start to the new season, including a 1-0 win over Sporting Lisbon on the opening day.

Amond, the paramour of JOE’s own Claire Tully, is a gifted young sportsman. Having played hurling and football for the Carlow minors, he chose to concentrate on soccer, the game which took him to Shamrock Rovers at the age of 11. Top scorer with the Hoops in 2008, he grabbed a few headlines last year, most notably with the solitary goal against Bohemians in a late-season contest which gave Rovers hope of a first title in 15 years. However, unhappy with the scarcity of first-team opportunities at Tallaght Stadium, he packed his bags for Sligo at the end of last year and grasped his chance in the best way imaginable, scoring 17 league goals in 27 appearances for the Bit O’Red to attract attention from abroad.

Padraig Amond - the next player to shine a positive light on the League of Ireland?

At 22, his best years are ahead of him and he has a lot of the attributes necessary to make a go of it in a league which includes some of the continent’s top teams and players. Foremost among them, perhaps, is the mental conviction that he is destined to become a top professional. His chosen path may have taken him off the beaten track, but few would bet against Amond becoming the latest successful export from the League of Ireland. Following the exploits of the likes of Doyle and Fahey, anything that raises the profile of the disparagingly-labelled “domestic league” can only be good.

Fans of League of Ireland clubs are wont to bemoan the departures of top players to England or elsewhere but we shouldn’t become too despondent if our best players are snapped up from abroad. That’s just the way of it in football and following the cautionary lessons of the cut-price sales of Doyle and Shane Long to Reading in 2005, most Irish clubs are now capable enough to negotiate a deal that is satisfactory to all parties, with conditional payments and sell-on clauses now par for the course.

Indeed, if League of Ireland clubs could become even more adept at honing talented young players, benefiting first from their play on the field and then from their market value off it, it could be a pathway to the type of long-term sustainability which has escaped them for so long.

Last weekend’s Premier Division results:

Dundalk 0-2 Bray Wanderers
Galway United 1-1 St Patrick’s Athletic
Sporting Fingal 0-0 Bohemians
Shamrock Rovers 1-0 Sligo Rovers
UCD 1-1 Drogheda United

This weekend’s fixtures:

Friday 10 September

Bohemians v UCD, 7.45pm, Dalymount Park
Bray Wanderers v Galway United, 7.45pm, Carlisle Grounds
Drogheda United v Dundalk, 7.45pm, Hunky Dorys Park
Sligo Rovers v Sporting Fingal, 7.45pm, The Showgrounds
St Patrick’s Athletic v Shamrock Rovers, 7.35pm, Richmond Park – Live on RTE2

Monday 13 September

Bohemians v Drogheda United, 7.45pm, Dalymount Park
Dundalk v Shamrock Rovers, 7.45pm, Oriel Park
Galway United v Sligo Rovers, 7.45pm, Terryland Park
Sporting Fingal v Bray Wanderers, 7.45pm, The Showgrounds
UCD v St Patrick's Athletic, 7.45pm, Belfield Bowl