The Shels blog

We demand legislation!

2011-03-08T09:49:00.001Z

I’m hoping the political Mick Wallace
can give the First Division fan some solace
by asking if the Minister for Sport
might lend the aforementioned fan support
by abolishing, with suitable propriety,
the current two-tier system in society.

At leader’s question time, he could harangue
Joan Burton and the rest of the shebang
and ask for an immediate white paper
to put an end to this unsustainable caper.
Surely he can persuade the Mayo Fuhrer
to heal this rift between the poor and poorer?

Five years on, the situation’s critical –
perhaps its time that we all got political.
Is there nothing in the constitution
that might relieve our current destitution?
Mick could really offer us an elixir
and make our Enda’s five-point plan a sixer?

Let him address the chamber with defiance
from deep within the United Left Alliance,
entreating our befuddled sporting minister
to close this chasm, inequable and sinister.
(Although it might require a few Mick Wallaces
to get the Government to change its policies.)

Diary of a shipwrecked sailor

2011-03-08T09:47:00.001Z

Early March 2011 –
Hibernating for four months is the only way we can save enough energy to face the perils ahead in this Godforsaken place but oh it was good to wake and feel the sun on our faces and think, if only for a minute, that we were back in our homeland of the Premier Division.
This will be the fifth summer that we have spent in this barren wilderness, searching for a ship to bring us home. It seems that we have circumnavigated this island several times to no avail and at times the despair has been great but we trust in God and the circularity of football fortunes that one day we will see our loved ones again.
A carrier pigeon brought us news that things are again not well back home. It appears that the good ship Torpedo Fingal was wrecked on the rocky coast of fiscal rectitude and was lost with all hands on board. There are few here that mourn her passing, having seriously questioned the raw materials used in her construction.
There are rumours too that the SS Bohs nearly went under in the same storm but survived by throwing overboard everything that wasn’t nailed down. I fear for her greatly, though not enough to lose much sleep over.
The SS Drogs also was sighted off our coast and the wind seemed certain to blow her ashore at the precise spot where our own vessel capsized. However, the Hand of God intervened and the wind changed at the last moment and the last we saw of her she was heading back to the Premier Division with the wind in her sails.
Last week we travelled to the interior of this place to a town called Long-ford in search of provisions for the voyage ahead. Oh but this is a Godforsaken place where the rain pours out of the sky like water from a bilge pump. However on this occasion, it stayed dry and many of the crew took that as an omen of bright days ahead.
Fortunately the tribe in Long-ford were very accommodating and gave us the most amount of booty that we could carry. They can often be a recalcitrant, niggardly bunch so we were pleased to find them in such generous mood.
Last week, a small party went hunting in a place called Cretty-ard. God knows but it is a Godforsaken place but they were hopeful of bagging some serious game which would serve to buoy us up for the months ahead. As I write this, I have heard no news of their return. If they return empty handed it will be a bitter blow
Tonight we receive a deputation from a tribe that dwell on the banks of the mysterious River Slaney in the south east of the island. It is by all accounts a Godforsaken place.
Their leader is a great, wild-haired warrior with a penchant for pink. He has recently being accepted into the island’s inner sanctum after wrestling an ox, a badger and a sabre-toothed squirrel so he is obviously a powerful man. Let us hope they come bearing gifts and without a spirit of animosity.

Double standards?

2011-03-08T09:45:00.001Z

“Financial mismanagement!” they cried in derision,
those FAI boys with a puritan heart.
“Oh, Shelbourne, quake now, as we give our decision –
this kind of thing must be stopped from the start.
‘Condemned now, you stand here, the scourge of the earth.
The right and the just shall give you a wide berth.
A handful of dust will be all that you’re worth
and your neighbours shall mock you with ill-disguised mirth.”

“Financial mismanagement!” they cried in derision,
those IMF boys with a puritan heart.
“Oh, Ireland, quake now, as we give our decision –
this kind of thing must be stopped from the start.
‘Condemned now, you stand here, the scourge of the earth.
The right and the just shall give you a wide berth.
A handful of dust will be all that you’re worth
and your neighbours shall mock you with ill-disguised mirth.”

“Financial mismanagement,” they whispered in corners,
those FAI boys who sat judgment on Bohs.
“But what is the point turning you into mourners?
What would we gain by augmenting your woes?
‘You know you’ve done wrong but it’s only a game.
The national climate is really to blame.
The rules do not say we should treat clubs the same,
so here’s a few shillings to keep you from shame.”

“Financial mismanagement,” they whispered in corners,
those IMF boys to the glum Portuguese.
“But what is the point turning you into mourners?
What would we gain when you’re down on your knees?
‘You know you’ve done wrong but it’s all a big game.
International climate is really to blame.
The rules do not say we should treat states the same,
so here’s a few shillings to keep you from shame.”

The season starts here

2011-03-08T09:42:00.002Z

Written in Oct 2010 but only posted up in March 2011!

Our early season games were far from splendid –
All hope, it seemed, did quickly disappear.
Opposition threats were not defended,
sloppy goals conceded out of fear.
And for the loyal hundreds that attended,
our poor results gave little cause to cheer.

But in the final third, the team just blended
and seemed to raise itself another gear.
Our pessimism had to be amended
in light of this new vibrant atmosphere.
Promotion thoughts, which had long been suspended,
now started to be whispered in each ear.

So here we are, the season’s nearly ended
and suddenly the picture’s very clear.
The team and coach must surely be commended
for having fought and scrapped to get so near.
But, for our hopes and dreams to be extended,
the season really only starts from here.

Shels heroes of yesteryear

2011-03-08T09:41:00.001Z

No.14 Tosh Moher

Shels’ fall from grace into the First Division for the season 1986-1987 lasted but a single year as they bounced straight back up again like a big bouncy football club.
It was around this time, the wizened old supporters say, that a man stepped out of the mists of obscurity and into the light; a man that would prove to be the saviour of Shels fans who had hitherto spent many weeks trudging painstakingly from one away match to the next; a man whose name is so hallowed in the history of Shelbourne Football Club, that many supporters genuflect when uttering his name. That man is Tosh Moher.
It would be no exaggeration to say that Tosh is probably the greatest person who ever lived. His omission from the current Greatest Irish person of all Time competition, currently showing on RTE, is a travesty that has had Bono and Mary Robinson squirming with embarrassment. Maybe the producers felt it would be a shoe-in?
Up to the mid eighties, away travel to matches had been one hard logistical slog. Remember this was a time of no mobile phones and no computers and if you needed to know the times of the trains to Waterford on a Sunday afternoon, you had to run down to Heuston and check the timetable.
Many fans chose to hitch-hike around the country or to ride asses and mules, as trains were infrequent and unreliable. Places like Ballybofey and Newcastlewest weren’t even on the train line and the CIE bus up to Donegal (via Sligo) often took in excess of 36 hours.
Then Tosh Moher came riding into Tolka on a white steed, his moustache flowing in the wind. He devised the revolutionary theory of ‘organising a bus’ to travel to away games. People gasped in amazement at the boldness of the scheme, though Ollie was heard to mutter that “it’s so crazy, it might just work.”
But Tosh was undeterred. Undeterredness has always been his greatest asset and when he finally shuffles off this mortal coil, he will be canonised as the patron saint of the undeterred. Using a phone and a phone book in tandem – rumour has it, that he would look up a number in one and then dial it on the other – he contacted private bus companies, looking for quotes. Thus was Tosh Travel born.
It is hard to believe that today’s multinational transport company once started out from such humble beginnings. Ireland at the time was inhabited by dark marauding savages and it was often incumbent on the passengers to stop in Harry’s of Kinnegad to take on provisions. Even if you were going to Dundalk or Kilkenny, a stop in Harry’s was a must. Today of course, Tosh Travel refuels at places as diverse as Urlingford and Monaghan and stopping at Kinnegad is no longer mandatory on the way to and from matches.
Of course, there have been many travel incidents that have gone down into folklore. Who could forget the story about one supporter who left his scarf on the bus when getting off at Leixlip and had to pick it up from Tosh the following Friday? Or the supporter on the way down to Limerick who had to request the driver to stop at a convenient hedge to relieve himself? Or the fan who was so slow coming out of Flancare Park, he nearly missed the bus home? This is indeed the stuff of legend.
And of course, the man himself! What can be said about this colossus that hasn’t already been said a thousand times? His ability to judge the exact arrival time at grounds to within fifteen or twenty minutes is well-known but how many people know that he once refused a third pint in Mallow on the way down to a match against Cork Unshakables? Or that he once missed a match back in 1991?
Such is the aura that now exists around this great man that many of our younger supporters now seriously doubt whether he even exists, this transportation guru of the past twenty years. Older supporters will claim to have met him, even talked to him, though few will admit to having understood his reply.
He is without a doubt.

Not defeatist merely realistic

2010-10-03T03:55:00.001+01:00

As run-ins go, I’m not too optimistic
With five banana skins still left to play.
That’s not defeatist, merely realistic.

It doesn’t take an ancient eastern mystic
To know that Cork would love to spoil our day.
As run-ins go, I’m not too optimistic.

And it would be somewhat surrealistic
To go and beat our northern friends away.
That’s not defeatist, merely realistic.

Surely it would be much too simplistic
To think that Mervue won’t enjoy the fray.
As run-ins go, I’m not too optimistic.

Without appearing over-masochistic,
Thoughts of Limerick turn blue skies to grey.
That’s not defeatist, merely realistic.

If we beat Waterford, we’ll go ballistic,
Provided that we’re still in with a say.
But as run-ins go, I’m not too optimistic -
That’s not defeatist, merely realistic.

Shels heroes of yesterday No 13

2010-10-03T03:48:00.003+01:00

An unreliable sporting history of the Reds
Careless McGee

The 1970s was the dark age of Shelbourne football, with hordes of huns and vandals sweeping down from northern Europe, and it was a very difficult time to be a Reds fan. Many simply disappeared into the woodwork, obviously under the impression that they were termites, and even today renovators are tearing down oak paneling and finding mummified Shels fans.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom or anything else that rhymes with broom. The club qualified for the UEFA Cup in 1971 (and lost), it reached the Cup Final against Cork Hibernian in 1973 (and lost) and it reached the Final again in 1975, losing again. Gary Glitter ruled the roost in the pop charts. Okay, it was all doom and Macroom.
Many people pin the blame for this sad state of affairs onto one Jinksy Forrester, though others prefer to use thumb tacks or even blue tack. Jinksy was an ancient man who had once been a mariner and he had a penchant (or indeed a pendant) for wearing large sea-birds around his neck. Nobody asked him why for fear of getting 726 rhyming verses for an answer.
It is said that at the height of Shels’ success in the sixties, Jinksy had shot a lesser black-backed gull that was hovering over Tolka Park. When asked why he had done it, he merely replied that it had seemed like a good idea at the time and to be fair, shooting sea birds out of the sky was a popular past-time in Dublin during the sixties.
Shels fortunes started to decline almost immediately after that and Waterford’s and then Rovers’ fortunes rose in inverse proportion. Things got so bad that during the mid-seventies, the club actually descended into Hell itself, or, as it was colloquially known, Harold’s Cross, a vast, bleak empty wasteland that was the inspiration for the Slough of Despair in A Pilgrim’s Progress.
Practically ever-present during Shels’ slide into purgatory was Jinksy, although people normally stood upwind of him on account of his peculiar choice of neckwear. Gradually, the few stalwart fans that were left began to form the notion that perhaps Jinksy was the cause of the club’s decline. He was suspected of being a Rovers agent and given a wide berth, but he returned it, saying that a narrow one was fine.
It is interesting to note that in the documents released under the thirty year rule, there is no mention of Jinksy Forrester being an agent for another football club, nor indeed for a foreign government and those who knew him intimately claim that his love for the Reds was genuine. But the suspicions grew when he started to miss an odd match here and there – matches in which Shels somehow played well and even won occasionally. People started putting two and two together, which was another popular Dublin past-time, along with putting seven and three together.
It didn’t help Jinksy’s cause that he insisted on protesting his innocence by stopping one in three and reciting interminable rhyming quatrains. If he had been a passenger on a boat, the rest of the crew might have been tempted to throw him overboard but he wasn’t so they didn’t.
For the small but loyal band of Shels followers, it was definitely a Catch 22 situation. They tried to have a whip round to pay Jinksy to stay away but, because there were only a few of them, they couldn’t raise enough to make it worth his while. And because the team was playing so badly, due to Jinksy’s presence (allegedly) there was never enough supporters to organise a decent whip round.
The eighties arrived and so did Haircut 100 and the doom and plume continued for the Reds, culminating in the 1986 season when relegation came a-calling. This was a genuine relegation on merit unlike the let’s-make-an-example-of-Shels-but-turn-a-blind-eye-to-other-clubs’-misdemeanours relegation twenty years later.
This was the low spot of Shels history, the absolute bottom of the barrel, can’t get any lower point of the club’s existence. And, on the very day that relegation occurred, poor Jinksy Forrester mysteriously fell into the Tolka at the bridge in Drumcondra Road to be swept out to sea, never to be heard of again.
As we all know, the Reds’ rise and rise started from that day and the rest, they say, is history, with a little bit of trigonometry thrown in for good measure.
But who is this Careless McGee, the Shels legend of the title, I hear you cry, or at least I would if I wasn’t deaf in one ear? Well, Careless was walking alongside Jinksy the time they were crossing the bridge…

Limerick at home

2010-09-29T19:38:00.001+01:00

I’m a wild, roving spirit, I’m free as the birds,
I greet the whole world with a wave,
But whenever I hear those three little words,
It’s like footsteps walk over my grave.

Little Miss Muffet was eating her curds
And was lurrying into her whey,
When a spider came whispering three little words
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

The nomadic tribesman lays down with his herds
And drinks from a bottle of wine,
But high on the plateau, he hears those three words
And a shiver runs right down his spine.

The Turkish commander is hunting down Kurds
To inflict an impressive defeat,
But in Morse Code a message transmits those three words
And he gives the command to retreat.

Unemployment, they tell me, is up by two-thirds,
The heartache is dreadful to watch
But whenever one mentions those three little words,
The country slips down one more notch.

Shels heroes of yesteryear - No 12

2010-09-29T19:35:00.001+01:00

An unreliable sporting history of the Reds
The Maharishi Yogi
Gerry Doyle’s young charges burst onto the football scene in the early sixties, sweeping all before them, particularly when the caretaker went on strike. They won the League, they won the Cup, they were in Europe and not just for holidays. These clean-cut fun-loving ordinary lads struck a chord (reputed to be C sharp) with the ordinary public and attendances at Shels matches soon passed the million mark.
This was verily the golden age of Shelbourne football with success not to be equaled for another thirty years. And then, one day, Freddie Strahan met the Maharishi Yogi coming out of a fish shop in Fairview.
“It was, like, mystical, maaaan,” Freddie recalled later. “He showed me there was more to life than football. That football was just a part of the whole thing, y’know?”
The Maharishi Yogi (born Matthew Cooney) at the time had been trying to convert English pop personalities to his transcendental meditation programme, with limited success. Along with his side-kick, Boo-Boo, they had become an integral part of the flower power movement in youth culture, a movement that advocating handing over world government to tulips and daffodils.
Freddie became entranced by the personality of the Maharishi and others followed. Gannon, Hannigan, Barber and others all flew to India for pre-season training, and returned with long hair, moustaches and a more laid-back attitude. The middle-aged housewives of Ireland were appalled but the youth stuck with them and attendances rose even further.
Some argued though that their more laid-back attitude (Eric Barber spent much of every match in bed) was a contributory factor in their ultimate demise. Certainly John Hevey’s attempt at levitating to save a penalty in a Cup Match against Cork Imponderables in 1965 was unsuccessful and the team was fast being overtaken by a Waaaaterford side that went on to dominate during the latter half of the sixties.
Ben Hannigan’s assertion to the press in 1966 that Shelbourne ‘were now more popular than deValera’ caused outrage in staunch Fianna Fail homes around the country and there were furious demands that ordinary people boycott the Reds. In Newcastlewest there was a mass burning of Shelbourne match day programmes and Hannigan was obliged to spend part of the season on loan to Ujpest Dozja to escape the furore.
Meanwhile the Maharishi continued to wield his influence. Even manager Gerry Doyle would turn up at the ground with a garland of flowers in his hair and tell everybody how much he loved them before proceeding with his team talk.
Under the Maharishi’s influence, the team gave up touring Europe and concentrated on playing ‘studio’ matches in Ireland. The match day programmes became more and more psychedelic and a certain amount of controversy was raised when Jimmy Dunne appeared naked on the cover of a programme against Cork Despicables with his wife Betty.
Despite the Maharishi’s concepts of peace, love and understanding (choose any two out of three) it became clear toward the end of the sixties that a certain amount of friction was developing among the members of the team. Hannigan wanted to go away and play football on his own for a while as Barber desperately tried to hold the team together. In the end, A refused to speak to B, a row that developed even further when B refused to divulge his full name.
On the pitch, the football became more and more experimental. In one game against Thurles Town, the Shels players decided they would only use their knees to pass the ball. It was not an unqualified success. In a Leinster Senior Cup match against Bray Undecipherables, Ben Hannigan assumed the lotus position near the penalty spot and didn’t move for the entire match, scoring twice.
By 1970, the writing was on the wall and Gerry Doyle ordered that it be rubbed off. The Maharishi was thanked for his services, given a couple of season tickets and shown the door.
Was he a good influence on Shels or not? The jury is still out and hasn’t been seen by their families for many years. Maybe they’ve absconded? What is perhaps telling is that, when the Maharishi died in 2008, not one former Shelbourne player attended his funeral.

Who would you follow?

2010-09-29T19:33:00.001+01:00

Last night, as I lay in my bed,
Awaiting sleep’s delicious call,
A question popped into my head.

“Just suppose,” this small voice said
“That Shelbourne did go to the wall.
What team would you support instead?”

“Dunno,” I answered, full of dread.
“Why would you ask me that at all,
A loyal and devoted Red?”

“Just answer!” (I will call him Fred,
This voice that through my mind did crawl)
“Would you frequent the Richmond shed?”

“I think I would be better dead!
The thought does verily appal!”
I answered, as fence-sitting fled.

Rovers? Bohs? The panic spread.
Cork or Derry? Bray? Fingal?
Not one, I thought, from A to Zed.

But then, as I lay in my bed,
Still waiting sleep’s delicious call,
The answer popped into my head.

“The Mons!” I yelled, “though they’ve no ped-
-Igree, nor any trophy haul,
And I’m not Ulster-born nor bred,

They’re who I’d support instead,
If mighty Shels should ever fall.
Now, go and get some shut-eye, Fred.”

Shels heroes of yesteryear No.11

2010-09-29T19:31:00.001+01:00

An unreliable sporting history of the Reds
‘Lardy’ Lar Hennessy
Outside of a small band of statisticians – a word, incidentally, that is impossible to say elegantly while eating a boiled egg – there are very few people who have heard of Lar Hennessy. Even his mother didn’t know who he was despite the fact that he was the size of a small elephant at eight years old, or maybe, like someone going overboard in Egypt, she was merely in denial.
Lar grew up in Fenian Street – not in a house, in the street itself, as doorways were a lot narrower in those days. As such, he soon became very street-wise, being able to recognise telegraph poles and cars from an early age.
Because of his gargantuan size, he became a goalkeeper for Pearse Rangers before joining the mighty Reds in 1961 as understudy to the great John Heavey. What Lar lacked in agility, he made up for in corpulence and opposition forwards often found it difficult to find a gap to shoot at. Despite this, such was the proficiency of the aforementioned Mr. Heavey, that the Buddah-esque Lars never actually appeared between the sticks in a first team game for Shels.
Lar however can lay claim to being a true Shels legend thanks to a report in the Irish Times of January 1963 of a Cup game against Jacobs.
“There was pandemonium at Tolka Park last night as Shelbourne eased comfortably through to the next round of the Cup,” ran the report. “The real drama however came at half-time, when Shelbourne’s reserve team goalkeeper Lars Hennessy, was found to be wedged in the doorway of the away team dressing room, thus preventing Jacobs from gaining entrance.
“By the time a large pick-up truck and a tow-rope had been requisitioned, the second half had started, much to the disgust of the Jacobs’ players, who seemed to lose all interest in the game.”
A subsequent League of Ireland investigation into the matter brought further facts to light, which were gleefully relayed around the terraces at the next home game.
Being such a large person (I would say ‘fat hape’ but you’re not allowed to in these police constable times) Lars was constantly hungry and, as he passed by Jacob’s dressing room door on the way out to the tunnel, he saw the table laden with Kimberley Mikados and coconut cremes which the away team habitually feasted on at half-time due to their links with the company. Shels, as was the habit at the time, dished out a quarter of an orange to everyone.
Midway through the first half, Lars got up off the bench (causing the manager and half the backroom staff to be catapulted twenty feet into the air) and indicated he needed to going to see Mrs. Murphy, a euphemism for going to see Mrs. O’Driscoll.
Naturally, he made a bee-line for Jacob’s dressing-room and scoffed the entire lot, except for one custard cream which he left on the plate, so nobody would know he’d been in there. Unfortunately, in his haste, he tried to exit the dressing room fronton and became securely wedged.
Trooping off at half-time, the Jacobs’ players’ elation at having held Shels scoreless at half time evaporated when they realised their usual mid-match feast would not take place. For some of the team, the regular supply of fig rolls and other delicacies was the reason they had joined the club in the first place, rather than, say, Manchester United or Wolverhampton Wanderers, who both swore by citrus fruit. Finding they were to be denied their traditional perk, heads dropped, stomachs rumbled and Shels ran out clear winners.
History will show that a rampant Shels went on to beat Drums, Rovers and Cork Hibs to claim their second FAI Cup in four years. In the dressing room after the Final, Gerry Doyle, the manager, apparently, filled up the Cup not with champagne, but with chocolate kimberleys and then watched in horror as Lar swallowed them down in one.

Butch Cassidy and Giller the Killer

2010-09-29T19:26:00.001+01:00

The deputy ordered a dry bourbon, neat,
Tumbleweed rolled in great balls down the street.
The bartender took all his shot glasses down
When Giller and Casso came riding to town.

“Its Giller the Killer, with Butch at his side,”
The whispers flew round as folk hurried inside.
The only sound heard was the noose support swinging,
Even the very old church bell stopped ringing.

The horses were tethered, the drawn shutters twitched,
Casso’s right finger compulsively itched
Beyond in the shadows, they heard a soft click
But Casso was deadly and Giller was quick.

The tension was thick as they glanced round the village,
The locals suspected they’d just come to pillage.
The sheriff approached them, his guts in a knot
But fell in the dust after Giller’s swift shot.

They stood in the door of the busy saloon,
The honky-tonk medley was halted mid-tune.
The pianist upped and ran swiftly away,
They all looked at Casso but he couldn’t play.

They joined in the poker, downed whiskey and rye
The chips were all down but the stakes were quite high.
Casso was gunning with no cause to grieve,
For Giller had all of the cards up his sleeve.

And so they rode off in a red, setting sun,
Their mission accomplished, the bounty well won.
Back to the desert they chose to skedaddle,
The three points securely attached to the saddle.

Shels heroes of yesteryear - No 10

2010-09-29T19:19:00.002+01:00

An unreliable sporting history of the Reds
Cristo (surname unknown)
The early 1960s was the first golden age of Shelbourne football as any oul’ feller in Section D with twelve hours on his hands will tell you. Gerry Doyle’s young charges were Ireland’s Busby babes and many like Strahan, Dunne, Barber and Flood would go on to become household names, particularly in their own households.
In 1961-62 (the League of Ireland only adopted the Gregorian calendar in 2004) the mighty Reds clinched the league championship with a 1-0 victory over Cork Unpredictables and were thus eagerly anticipating their first foray into Europe in September of the latter year.
Drawn against Sporting Lisbon – so called because they always wished the opposition good luck prior to a game, before running off sniggering - a 2-0 home defeat in front of ‘nearly a million people’ (source: the oul’ lad with the red nose who always sits in the middle of the third row ) did not dampen the spirits of the small contingent of Shels fans who set sail from Queenstown on a coffin ship bound for the great maritime port of Lisbon.
Most of course had never been abroad before and there was much wailing and fluttering of handkerchiefs as the ship pulled away from the quay, and that was just the captain. In the early sixties, the only Irish people who ventured abroad were missionaries or emigrants and knowledge of foreign climes was decidedly limited. Many didn’t even know what a clime was.
Arriving in the bustling Portuguese capital, the pioneering band immediately sought out some Guinness to quell their seasickness. Sadly Arthur had not become the worldwide phenomenon it is today and so they were forced to sit down to enjoy several pints of the local brew (port) in a local hostelry before the match.
After the game, the desire to celebrate Jackie Hennessy’s brilliant strike (sandwiched, as it was, between five offside and / or handball goals from their opponents) led them back to the same bar and they obligingly drank it dry.
Now, among the coterie, were a married couple Bert and Cinta, both in their fifties, good devout Catholics. Cinta was horrified to wake up in her hotel the following morning to find a dashing and strapping young Portuguese stud in her bed, rather than her balding and paunchy husband. Bert similarly awoke, straddling a lithe and attractive senorita in a strange apartment.
To cut a short story even shorter, after the initial shock had worn off, both decided to run with the new situation. Bert stayed on in Portugal with Isabella, while Cristiano sailed back to Ireland with Cinta, who successfully convinced the customs officials of the poor quality of Irish passport photographs. It was apparently a little more difficult convincing their ten children that their father had benefited from the European sunshine to such an extent that he had grown six inches, lost six stones and his hair had grown back.
Cristiano – or Cristo has he became fondly known on the terraces – naturally became a big Shels fan, though he had some trouble learning the words of some of the songs. He would also sing “We’re not Barcelona but at least we’re not Belenenses” to the consternation of those around him. At away games, he would be introduced to opposition supporters as ‘a representative of our Portuguese fan club’ and he would frequently bamboozle the play-it-down-the-line brigade by exhorting the fullback to ‘slip it to the defensive midfielder and show for the return.’
Cristo would probably be in Tolka Park still if it were not for the fickle finger of fate – and probably the rest of its body too – that saw the Redsmen drawn against the aforementioned Belenenses in the Cup Winners Cup two years later. Naturally, Cinta and Cristo could not miss such an important tie and sailed from Galway with much the same army of Reds fans as two years previously.
Unfortunately, this time they were met on the quays by an irate Bert. Isabella had turned out to be Rodrigo, a docker from Porto, and despite a close and loving relationship for almost a year, eventually the magic died when Rodrigo met a sheep from Albufeira called Simon.
Bert threatened to pull the plug on Cristo’s passport deception unless Cinta took him back and after several pints of port, she eventually agreed. How they explained the further vagaries of the Portuguese climate to their children on Bert’s return is lost to history.
It is said that a lovelorn figure still stalks the Lisbon quays waiting for his ‘darling Irish chrysanthemum’ to return, but that is another feller altogether and has nothing to do with this story.

Too busy blowing my vuvuzela

2010-09-29T19:15:00.001+01:00

Too busy blowing my vuvuzela
That I ain’t got time to cheer the team.

They say that it takes all the breath in your lung
To blow out that monotone note.
Whoever invented the thing should be hung
And his body parts fed to a goat.
I hope to dear God it does not catch on here,
Brought home by irresponsible sailors.
Fans in the stands can’t be bothered to cheer,
Cos they’re blowing their damned vuvuzelas.

They say they can’t ban them, although they’re absurd
And have gained quite a worldwide abhorrence.
Trapattoni won’t be able to make himself heard
When he’s shouting instructions to Lawrence.
FIFA has said we should show some respect
For their music trasdition (I quote)
Music? Forgive my minute intellect
But does that not need more than one note?

Oh Lord don’t diminish the roar of the crowd,
The shouting and chanting and singing.
Let hundreds join in in a chorus so loud
It’ll set local fire alarms ringing.
Don’t let human voices become so subsumed
By a swarm of wasps with a loud-hailer.
I pray that its future in Tolka is doomed –
Yes, death to the damned vuvuzela.

Too busy blowing my vuvuzela
That I ain’t got time to cheer the team.

Shels heroes of yesteryear No 9

2010-09-29T19:14:00.004+01:00

An unreliable sporting history of the Reds
Percy Bysse Kelley
It is, I suppose, a debatable point whether Shelbourne’s legendary chant composer, Percy Kelly is truly a legend or not. Can one be a legend if nobody has heard of you? Yet to all the tens of thousands that crowd the new stand every fortnight and roar on the team, his legacy lives on.
For example, that famous chant that has rung out at grounds from Croatia to Iceland and all places in between – ‘Shelbourne, Shelbourne, Shelbourne, Shelbourne’ – how many of today’s fans know that was a Percy Kelly original? Borrowing the melody from an old Doris Day B-side, (‘Show me your Colt 45, cowboy, and I’ll be up in the saddle tonight’) he crafted lyrics to represent the very essence of the club, writing and rewriting for months until he came up with the words we know today.
Percy Kelly was born some time between 1932 and 1934 (experts tend to go for 1933), a stone’s throw from Shelbourne Park, providing the stone was smaller than your hand. (And bigger than a grain of sand. The size of a hard boiled egg, that kind of area.)
From an early age, he decided to become a poet and deliberately developed consumption to aid him in his career. He bought an attic and struggled in it on a daily basis but the big break did not come, except for one poem about what he did on his holidays that was published in Ireland’s Own.
At the end of the fifties, when many people were wondering which decade would come next, Percy turned his quite inconsiderable talents to penning football chants for junior side Young Boys of Berne, including the now universal ‘Come and have a go if you think your hard enough’ and the not-quite-so-well-known ‘It’s certainly possible that if you persist in such loutish behaviour, you might sustain a serious head injury,’ which was later made into a film starring Burt Lancaster.
Naturally, such poetic talents did not go unnoticed and after a fierce bidding war involving Cork Inexcusables, Waterford and Estudiantes, Kelly was signed by Shelbourne for £5 and one of those pens that writes four different colours.
The ten years that Kelly spent with Shels, between 1959 and 1962, was a veritable golden age of football chanting in Ireland. Alfred Lord Dennison was working with Bohemians; Sam the Sham Beckett was at Milltown and Sir John Betjeman was whipping up the crowds at Athlone. The four of them used to meet up in McDaid’s until a nasty altercation over who had first come up with Shelbourne/Rovers/Bowez/Athlone –clap, clap, clap.
Within six weeks of arriving at the club, Kelly had written the somewhat esoteric lyrics to ‘We are Shels,’ still heard at matches today. “I agonised over the last line for a fortnight,” he confessed to Hello magazine later. “Should I go for three ‘We are Shels’ or only two? In the end, he phoned Cole Porter, who advised him to go with the latter.
He is credited also with the Indian war chant, though a Nahavo Indian in Flagstaff, Arizona, who coincidentally was Kelly’s life partner at the time, (even though the two had never met) attempted to get a court order against its use. “It was the only chant I could never put decent lyrics to,” Kelly once confided to marinologist Jacques Cousteau, who simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
Of course, there were many Kelly blueprints that never saw the light of day. ‘We’re not Barcelona and we’re not Athletico Madrid neither’ was one that singularly failed to spark the imagination of the Shels faithful. ‘When Jayo went to Poland’ was deemed by the literary critic section of the crowd to be too far ahead of its time and was dropped for 45 years until circumstances allowed it to be resurrected. And for some strange reason, ‘We quite admire you, Shelbourne, we do’ – now deemed by experts to be a minor classic of the genre – was dropped after one airing against Cork Crustaceans.
Kelly died in 1966, three years after he was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. The simple headstone is inscribed with words from another of his songs that never quite made it – ‘I lay, I lay, I lay.’

One rule for one...

2010-09-29T19:10:00.001+01:00

The bankers were too reckless,
Far too greedy and too feckless
And led us down the road to rack and ruin.
They banjaxed our economy
And international bonhomie,
And all the while they knew what they were doin’.

To the end, they kept on lending
With financial meltdown pending,
The golden boys who sent a country crashing.
If they’d lived in other cultures,
They’d have gone to feed the vultures –
At best they would receive a damn good thrashing.

But how were they rewarded
For their errors gross and sordid?
Given golden handshakes and big bonuses!
Despite irregularities
And huge peculiarities,
It’s easy to discern just where the onus is.

So to put aside frivolity
And tackle inequality,
I think that we should get in touch with Brian,
Pointing out how much we’ve suffered
As our debts remain unbuffered,
While the handouts to the banks are multiplyin’.

Come on, Brian, show awareness
Of this manifest unfairness,
A drop is all we need from your vast ocean.
Won’t you give us several billions
To acquire a few Brazilians
And maybe then, we’ll challenge for promotion.

Shels heroes of yesteryear No 8

2010-05-29T17:56:00.000+01:00

Billy the Kid

One of the most beloved of all Shels legends was the affable and genial Billy the Kid, who became Shels mascot all through the fifties and into the early sixties. Certainly, no other farmyard animal has featured so strongly in the history of this great club, outshining even the unknown donkey that reversed over Drums goalie Jimmy Sixbellies in the 1920s, causing him to ass-end into heaven.
Billy was born on a farm just outside of Shillelagh. He was given the nickname ‘The Kid’ because that’s apparently what young goats are called and the name stuck. Sadly, he left the farm under a cloud when he was still quite young after an unsavoury incident with a cocker spaniel and a bowl of Instant Whip. Fortunately, the cloud was travelling to Dublin and on his arrival, Billy immediately enlisted in Mrs. Donnelly’s Drama School on Harcourt Street, dreaming of a career on the stage. And indeed, he was quite successful at first, winning wide critical acclaim for his interpretation of the role of Antonio in the Merchant of Venice at the Gate. “His habit of chewing the scenery was a work of genius,” wrote The Times and it became a sort of trademark in his acting career which came to an abrupt end in a performance of Picture of Dorian Gray, when he inadvertently ate the musical score.
Mrs Donnelly suggested he become a mascot and he was interviewed by the Shelbourne FC board of directors in July 1950. His willingness to help keep the match pitch short on weekdays won the day over his only other serious rival, a chicken called Arthur, and the legend was born.
From the start he was a firm favourite with the fans, not least for his tendency to headbutt the opposition mascots in the rear when they turned around. It may come as a surprise to many younger Shels fans but in the fifties many mascots were simply men cavorting about in an animal costume. Billy took great exception to this, calling them the Black and White Minstrels of the mascot world and set about exposing them big time.
(Nowadays, of course, all football club mascots are genuine animals and this is down mainly to Billy and his war on impostors.)
One of the most famous incidents, and one that created a plethora of letters in Mascot Monthly, was the spat with the Bohs Bull prior to an important league game at Dalymount Park. The Bull had been very much playing to the home crowd, flicking Billy with a towel and then denying it theatrically and basically getting right on Billy’s goat.
The Shels manager could see the warning signs and knew that Billy’s blood was boiling. “Billy,” he shouted. “Don’t be a hero!”
But it was too late.
With a snort of defiance, Billy put his head down and charged. The Bull turned tail and fled, Billy hot on his heels. At the penalty spot on the shopping centre end, Billy caught him and butted him right into the back of the net to a tumultuous ovation from the Shels faithful.
Of course, the League came down hard on Billy. He produced video evidence that he had been provoked but they still banned him for a record six weeks. “No butts!” they said, when he protested at the severity of the sentence.
Billy continued his mascot duties all the way into the sixties. Part of his pre-match ritual was to lead the faithful in singing such popular favourites as ‘Michael row the goat ashore,’ ‘Nanny, get your gun’ and ‘Naaaaannnny,how I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old nanny.’ Once he even daubed himself with rainbow-coloured paint and took to the pitch singing ‘Joseph and his goat of many colours.’
Ironically, as the sixties dawned and the fortunes of the club were due to take a sharp rise, Billy was put out to grass. “Butt, butt, butt...” he protested but the board were Adam Ant.
He spent his remaining days growing his beard and wandering forlornly around Fairview Park, listening to the crowd in Tolka Park on matchdays. On his death in 1961, as a tribute to his memory, the board of directors made him into sixty pairs of gloves.

Sunday football

2010-05-29T17:52:00.003+01:00

Phoenix Park, a dreary Sunday morning,
Waiting for the ref to amble over,
The outside left collapses without warning,
Hungover very badly in the clover.

Sunday morning football in Raheny,
Goalie stubs his fag out on his boot.
It could be something dreamt up by Fellini,
Coach’s wife is idly slicing fruit.

Out in Malahide, the bells are chiming,
Summoning the faithful into Mass.
The centre half displays a lack of timing,
Fails to intercept a misplaced pass.

Sunday, bloody Sunday up in Finglas,
Altercation in the home-team area.
Substitute refuses to play ring-less,
Ref just shrugs – they say he’s from Bulgaria.

Manager’s embroiled in a row,
Curses at the ref and linesman freely.
This is where we might be playing now
If it hadn’t been for Dermot Keely.

Shels heroes of yesteryear No 7

2010-05-29T17:50:00.001+01:00

Yul Skinner
Burly, tough in the tackle, strong in the air, fearless and with an acute footballing brain – sadly 1950s Shels’ winger Yul Skinner was none of these but that did not prevent him from becoming one of the Shels’ faithfuls’ all-time favourites.
Known as Skinner the Shinner, more for his habit of wearing his socks rolled down than for any republican tendencies he might have harboured, the Cabra native had genuine speed, which he used to buy from a dealer on Townsend Street. Compared to him, Ger McCarthy was a tortoise. Unfortunately, Yul had roughly the same footballing ability as both the tortoise and the aforementioned Mr McCarthy.
Joining as an apprentice in 1951, he broke into the first team the following year, filling his sack with silver candlesticks and crystal decanters before being ratted on by some pesky kids. But he impressed in training and could soon run around stationary cones faster than anybody else. “If only we could play against cones every week,” his manager used to say.
An inability to kick a football did not seem to hamper Yul at all. Shels’ tactics would be to hoof the ball over the fullback’s head for Yul to run on to. If the defender had had any idea how bad Yul’s first touch was, he’d have let him go but instinct invariably took over and the flying winger would be hauled down in desperation, resulting in a sepia card (the prototype of today’s yellow card) for the full back and a free kick to Shels.
“Skin him, Yul!” the crowd would shout expectantly whenever another long high ball headed for the opposition corner flag and Yul would duly oblige until FIFA banned the art of skinning on the grounds that it was ‘gross.’ (This aspect of a football match is still actually practised by certain tribes of Papua New Guinea, where referees wisely turn a blind eye.)
His team mates were of course wise to his deficiencies and rarely passed the ball to his feet. In this way, Yul could go whole matches, seasons even, without ever actually touching the ball. “There’s only one thing that kept me out of the Ireland squad,” he wrote in his autobiography Carl Lewis me arse. “I wasn’t good enough.”
His lack of contact with the ball certainly kept down his goal scoring exploits, although he did score a vital winner in a Leinster Senior Cup quarter final against Cork Existentialists in 1953/4 (it was a very long match.)
With time not only running out but turning around and blowing a raspberry as it did so, Davy ‘Deadeye’ Davis - so called because that was his name – latched onto a loose ball on the edge of the Cork box and let fly with his usual unerring accuracy. It was going well wide until the ball struck Yul full in the face, took a wicked deflection (always the best kind) and ended up in the Cork net. Unsurprisingly, the Shels faithful broke into a chorus of ‘Yul never walk alone.’
In all, Yul Skinner made 142 appearances for Shels in the early 1950s until he suffered a serious injury in a match against Cork Imperials in 1955. According to eye-witness accounts, he was sprinting for the ball when his leg suddenly fell off. Such was his momentum however that he hopped around in ever decreasing circles for several minutes until he finally fell over.
Some experts (though not of medicine) declared that he would never walk again, let alone play football, but Yul refused to lie down, except when he was tired. After months of physio and some advances in medical science (consisting mainly of a tube of super glue and some giant-sized elastic bands,) he ran out to a tumultuous ovation in a B team game against Timpani Athletic (a junior club affiliated to the Drums) Sadly it was not to be, for he only lasted eighteen minutes before he was hit by a light aircraft making an emergency landing.
His football career over, Yul became bitten by the acting bug, which he promptly stamped on. He shaved his head and changed his name slightly and headed for Hollywood, calling on every contact he knew to give him a break in the film industry. Unfortunately, film parts were few and far between in Hollywood, co Wicklow and in the end he returned to Cabra a sad and broken man.

Shels heroes of yesteryear No 6

2010-05-29T17:48:00.003+01:00

Gerry Bolan

So little is known about Gerry ‘Rollin’ Bolan’s early life, that it is widely believed among Shelbourne fans that he has born at 55 years of age, emerging into the world fully clad in blue overalls and clutching a pair of gardening shears.
He was apprentice groundsman at Shelbourne Park since 1911, serving under the great Bert O’Custard for nearly thirty years before taking over in 1939 when the latter became the only victim of the Dublin earthquake that year, being stabbed through the ear by a pair of shears in his potting shed.
As an understudy, Gerry was a model student, though Bert was definitely old school, having cold classrooms and a playground that wasn’t big enough. Because Bert mistrusted modern technology, Gerry would have to start work at 6am, coiffuring the grass with a plastic comb and trimming scissors until all the blades were of uniform height and bolt upright. For this, Bert, who stayed in bed until 11am most mornings, won many awards and the state of the Shelbourne Park pitch was the envy of thousands.
After Bert’s death, the board of directors quickly promoted Gerry to head groundsman, even promising to stump up for a new pair of trimming scissors. Gerry was having none of it. Unbeknownst to the board, he had been taking evening classes on football pitch maintenance and the ideas in his thesis were to become a groundsman’s manual for nearly seventy years.
Gerry was the first to investigate different types of grass. To the consternation of his fellow gardeners busily growing broccoli and carrots, Gerry turned his allotment into a mini-Shelbourne Park and sowed it with elephant grass (too noisy and too grey,) Kentucky blue grass (too blue,) rye grass (too cynical) and lemon grass (too yellow) before finally deciding on the green, green grass of home.
He was also the first to embrace modern technology, which caused quite a few suspicious glances from anybody who caught him at it. So, his fingers arthritic from the trimming scissors, when he took over, he demanded a lawnmower and a roller and a hose pipe with a sprinkler system.
The board was aghast. With crowds of nearly half a million at every home game and players’ wages amounting to a whopping £2 10s, Gerry’s demands would eat into the profits. And to a man they refused, which led to the great groundsman’s strike of 1940.
At first, the board tried to bluff it out but all during February, the pitch in Ringsend slowly deteriorated until it resembled the Somme circa 1917. Other groundsmen around the country tied their clipping fingers together in sympathy and came out too. The Cork Improbables team refused to play on their pitch until its condition improved and fixtures were cancelled. Hitler heard about the dispute and informed Goering to drop a load of lawn mowers on FAI headquarters as the strike was ruining his pools coupons.
Eventually the board caved in and reluctantly acceded to Gerry’s demands. A rusty lawnmower was acquired at a car boot sale and a car boot was acquired at a rusty lawnmower sale. They even bought in a roller, though it was only eighteen inches high and weighed less than a bag of sugar.
The result was seen as a victory for groundsmen everywhere. With new-fangled technology, they no longer needed to work eighteen hours a day, with time off for the match (sometimes) but could join the rest of society in working a normal 84 hour week.
All through the forties, Gerry continued to pioneer groundsman techniques. He substituted plain water for water with a dash of blackcurrant and the results were revolutionary. He doused the roller in vinegar before he rolled the pitch. And he was the first to patent the machine that has come to be known throughout the known world (and sometimes farther) as ‘the little wheely thing that marks the pitch.’
Throughout the fifties, Gerry continued to tend, roll, water and mark the Shelbourne Park pitch, which was a little pointless as Shelbourne moved out of there in 1949. Still, he refused to be parted from his beloved ground and even when they put a padlock on the gate, he would nip over the back wall at 10 o’clock at night to do a spot of nocturnal rolling.
When he died in April 1960, the board of Shelbourne FC acceded to his last wishes, rolling him out to the size of a large Chinese rug and burying him under his beloved pitch, where even today, hungry greyhounds are still digging up parts of his anatomy.

Shels heroes of yesteryear No 5

2010-05-29T17:43:00.001+01:00

Andy Hoch

Andy Hoch was born in the small Bavarian village of Wurm in Apfel in September 1914. From an early age, he stood out from the crowd with his blue hair and blond eyes and also for his prowess from the penalty spot and it was no surprise when he was snapped up at an early age by Bayern Lederhosen, for whom he played two full seasons (autumn and summer)
It may surprise some of today’s supporters that in the mid-thirties Shels were one of the top sides in Europe with a scouting network second only to Baden Powell and Hoch signed for the Ringsend club in July 1937 for £30 and a box of Messerschmidt parts.
Instead of travelling overland, as was the custom in those days, Hoch arrived in Tolka Park by air, leaping out of a Stuka at 12,000 feet and landing in the centre circle to the tumultuous applause of the groundsman, who was none too pleased however when the new signing proceeded to bury his parachute near the corner flag.
He went straight into the first team and made his debut against Cork Incontinentals on the first day of the 1937. The Irish Times noted that “the tigerish Teutonic tackler made an immediate impression on the Shelbourne faithful, not least for his tendency to slap the opposing full back around the face with a pair of leather gloves every time he felt the situation warranted it.”
As part of his contract, Hoch became the club’s official penalty taker, a position that he took very seriously. Legend has it that after training, he would stuff the penalty spot under his arm and go down to Sandymount Green for a few hours extra practice. The Guinness Book of World Records in fact mentions the fact that in twenty years he never missed a single penalty, although there is still debate in some quarters about the legendary Foggy Day incident against Athletico Cork in October 1938.
Sadly, his disciplinary record was not always the best but this may have been down to cultural misunderstandings rather than an attitude problem. Whenever he was being cautioned by the match official, he had a tendency to click his heels together, give a straight arm salute and scream out “Jawohl mein Kapitan!” Such immediate and uncompromising obedience immediately raised the suspicions of many referees who frequently invoked Rule 42 – “Thou shalt not be sarky with the ref” – to dismiss the bewildered player.
Known for his legendary German humour in the dressing room – he once arrested fullback Jason Shadows’ wife and sent her and her children to the ghettos of Prague – he used to help raise morale at half-time by doing little ventiloquist stunts involving a pillowcase and a pair of fake eyes. Invariably the Shels team took the field in the second half with a steely look of determination in its eyes.
Andy Hoch looked set to be a Shelbourne player for many years but he had a falling out with the manager at the time Ernest Hilter in September 1939 as storm clouds were breaking over Europe. Hilter wanted Hoch to attack down both flanks at the same time and Hoch protested that this would leave the defence exposed to the counter-attack. When Hilter flew into a rage and threatened to have the German shot, the writing was on the bunker wall and Hoch was smuggled back into Germany as an Allied food parcel.
Although he disappears from the annals of Shelbourne FC at this point, his subsequent involvement in the German war effort is well documented in his autobiography “Three and in with Der Fuhrer.” Seemingly Hoch’s penalty spot prowess caught the eye of the German chancellor and he was a frequent visitor to Berchtesgarten where he entertained members of the High Command by constantly scoring against a hapless Martin Bormann, much to Hitler’s amusement.
However, a subsequent exhibition during which Eva Braun tipped a weakly struck penalty around the post resulted in Hoch being transferred to the Russian front, though with a sizable signing on fee. Here he soon realised he had made a big mistake and only escaped with his life by the skin of his teeth by agreeing to manage the Tonga national team.
At his funeral (1968-70), German legend Franz Beckenbauer paid him the ultimate tribute.
“Andy who?”

One rule for one...

2010-05-29T17:40:00.001+01:00

Shels Heroes of Yesteryear No 4

2010-05-29T17:37:00.003+01:00

Dick the Gick

Nobody knows for certain exactly when Dick the Gick first showed up at Shelbourne Park. Some say it was 31st February 1929 while others maintain it was in the latter half of the Tang Dynasty. When the two factions meet, it often results in a very long and repetitive argument.
The famous American author, Mark “Never The” Twain once famously said that there are only three certainties in the world – death, taxis (yes, I wondered about that myself) and the presence of Dick the Gick at Shelbourne Park in the thirties.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 saw many ruined Shels fans leaping to their deaths from Row Z of the terraces, which meant there was suddenly space for new enterprising supporters. Dick the Gick was one of these. He had been born at forty years of age and wore an old sack tied with sisal around his waist, believing it to be the height of fashion. Like all thirties football supporters, he wore a flat cap and glasses, twirled a rattle incessantly and was as ugly as sin.
Rumour had it that he had been a Greek shipping magnate who had fallen on hard times (the book by Charles Dickens) though his broad Ringsend accent made this unlikely. Others claim he was the Crown Princess Anastasia still in hiding from the Bolsheviks, though he was always the first to lead the singing of “Keep the Red Flag flying.”
Dick’s rattle was a major reason for the upswing in Shels fortunes during the thirties. The Irish Times reported on one occasion that, such was the clamour emanating from the object, that the opposition were frequently terrified and refused to venture into the Shels half of the field.
Dick never missed a Shels match right through the thirties but the real reason for his cult status among Reds fans was that, in all that time, he never once paid the admission fee. At first, he used to scale the wall at the back of the dressing rooms but when security got wise to that, his methods of entry became more and more convoluted.
He was one of the first recorded spectators to pole-vault into a football ground, sailing in over the Canal End in a match against Cork Imponderables; another ruse was to disguise himself as a referee, complete with white stick and Labrador; on one famous occasion, he hid himself inside a vaulting horse and tunneled into the ground, unfortunately coming up under the penalty spot at precisely the wrong time.
A trawl through James Joyce’s little-known homage to Dick – “What’s Sixpence to a Football Club?” – reveals some highly inventive ways that The Gick avoided paying the admission fee. On one occasion, he strapped himself to the visiting Dundalk centre-forward and pretended to be a Siamese twin; on another, he circumnavigated the ground nine times before blowing on a trumpet and the walls came tumbling down; sometimes he would approach the officer on the gate, point up at the sky and exclaim “Look, a squirrel” and then nip inside while the officer was busy scanning the heavens.
Probably Dick’s most famous escapade was the parachute incident in a Cup tie against Cork Despicables in 1936 which resulted in him being booked for descent. The stunt made headlines around the world and earned the enterprising fan an exclusive contract with OK magazine.
With many people attending Shels matches simply to marvel at Dick’s increasingly bizarre entry tactics, it was of course in the club’s interest to make sure he evaded the matchday security. Turnstile attendants were instructed to pretend to be lacing up their shoes whenever they saw Dick approaching badly disguised as a halibut and the security guards were told to run into each other like the Keystone Cops and allow him to access the terraces unmolested to rousing cheers from the supporters.
His death in 1944 from a lethal cocktail of TK Lemonade and Smarties provoked a nationwide outpouring of grief, though some suspected it was merely another of his brilliant ruses to evade detection. Even his state funeral in an open-topped casket wouldn’t budge some cynics, though many lost their ration books in Paddy Powers when his death was officially confirmed.
Despite popular misconceptions, there is absolutely no truth in the rumour that Dick was the grandfather of a modern-day Cork fan who, it is said, can magically appear in two grounds hundreds of miles apart at the same time.

Old Neighbours

2010-05-29T17:34:00.001+01:00

Ah Mabel, stop your staring out the window,
You know quite well who’s moving in next door.
Why yes, I read about them in the Indo,
But darling, weren’t we once the nouveau-poor?

Do you recall the pain when we were leaving
That swanky neighbourhood we used to love?
Now it seems, they’re finally receiving
The same strong dose of fate from up above.

I’ve heard their fall from grace was full of rancour,
I even heard they had to change their name.
It seems that they were shafted by a banker –
Isn’t football such a funny game?

The stories of their fall were quite salacious,
You laughed so hard it nearly made you cry.
But darling, we should not be so ungracious,
Its time those sleeping dogs were left to lie.

It seems to me the neighbourhood’s improvin’
The Derry lads have moved in up the street.
All it needs is Bohs and Pats to move in
And then the circle will be made complete.

Shels Heroes of Yesteryear No 3

2010-03-30T08:38:00.002+01:00

Sandy (Sandra) McPherson
.
The late twenties were truly the golden era of Shelbourne football, replacing the yellow era and preceding the much-vaunted dusky pink era. This remarkable team swept all before them, thanks to a job lot of brooms that the Chairman acquired at a knock down price. But the truth, if it were known, is even more amazing than the statistics tell.
There is only one picture of this famous team still in existence. It is painted on the altar of the 15th century Chapel of St. Tommy the Right Half in Verona and the guidebooks will tell you that it depicts the team at the post-match meal after clinching the League in 1928.
But look closely at that figure to the left of the centre-forward Jesus (The Jeezer) O’Malley. Notice the slightly effeminate features, the long hair and the hint of a bosom? Notice how the shape between their two bodies and the jar of mustard in Jesus’s hand perfectly forms the letter G for Girlie?
Football historians are today convinced that Sandy (or Sandra) McPherson, the long-haired midfield general of one of the most successful League of Ireland teams ever, was in fact a woman. They frequently point to her lack of understanding of the offside law and her disinclination to swop shirts at the end of the match as evidence of this, though they are constantly told that it is rude to point.
Certainly, if Sandy was a person of the female persuasion, her team mates have remained remarkably tight-lipped, and indeed tight-buttocked, about the whole affair, which may or may not have anything to do with the celebrations in the communal bath after matches.
There was at the time a certain puzzlement among the football fraternity over Manager Harry Carbuncle’s insistence on kissing Sandy full on the lips whenever he was substituted, a practice that never seemed to translate to the rest of his players. Carbuncle, a dyed in the wool card-carrying member of the Macho Society, denied that there was anything improper in the relationship.
Of course, this was a completely different Ireland than the one we know today. The country had not got over the sight of Countess Markievicz in a pair of combat trousers and many people insisted that instead of gadding about Dail Eireann, she should buy herself a nice frock and do some traditional dancing at thoroughfare intersections. The idea of a woman in tight shorts was unthinkable, except to young men.
But was Sandy in fact Sandra?
What can be said for certain is that there was a veritable queue of players trying to sign for the Reds during this period, often willing to take a large pay cut for the honour of donning the famous shirt. Even at the time, the rumour mill was in full swing, which is not something that you normally expect of a mill.
On the field, Sandy was a tigerish midfielder, though he didn’t have stripes down his flank or big teeth. (For the purposes of this article, I will continue to refer to Sandy in the masculine) He loved nothing more than getting stuck in to the opposition centre half and if truth be told, the opposition centre half often relished the prospect of getting stuck into him.
In all, Sandy played for the Reds for ten seasons, (some of them concurrently,) scoring twenty three goals, despite being marked more closely than a lot of his fellow professionals. It was these goals that live most in the memory of his team mates, with the somewhat exuberant celebrations sometimes lasting a full 15 minutes before he could be extricated from the bottom of a pile of players, both from his own team and the opposition.
Many consider it a travesty of justice that he was never called up for full international duties, though this may have been down to Ireland manager Walter Wobblebottom, who famously declared, to raised eyebrows, that he had “never really fancied Sandy as a player.”
Sandy was forced to retire at the end of the 1931-32 system due to an abnormal growth in his stomach, which historians maintain turned out to be his daughter, William. After leaving the club, he appears to have disappeared from the pages of history, though he occasionally turns up in the pages of cookery and political science.

The new neighbours are coming around

2010-03-13T22:20:00.001Z

Let everyone remember their manners,
Let cead mille failtes abound.
Please, no inappropriate banners –
The new neighbours are coming around.

Do not pick your noses while singing,
Don’t sing any songs that you oughtn’t.
From the start, let our welcome be ringing –
First impressions are always important.

Moving in, you feel lonely and friendless,
But friendships can always be found.
Let the bounds of good humour be endless –
The new neighbours are coming around.

We have a good name – let’s not spoil it,
All flatulence should be discreet.
Throw a bucket of bleach down the toilet
And try not to pee on the seat.

Make sure that your hair’s neat and tidy,
Let a chorus of welcomes resound.
Remember that eight o’clock Friday,
The new neighbours are coming around.

They’re probably nervous of meeting us,
So let’s try and put them at ease,
(Unless they’ve the neck to start beating us,
And then you may do as you please.)

Shels heroes of yesteryear No.2

2010-03-13T22:18:00.001Z

Iggy Foley

Ignatius Foley, the bow-legged goalie, was one of the more colourful characters to play for Shelbourne down the years, mainly because of his skin pigmentation, which was a bizarre medley of greens, yellows and purples.
If God were designing a goalkeeper, He probably wouldn’t have come up with Iggy Foley. Short in stature, bow-legged and an inability to catch a football, Iggy looked set for a career in banana bending until a bizarre incident catapulted him into the Reds Hall of Fame.
In March 1912, he had been a spectator standing behind the Shelbourne goal in a semi-final against Cork Disfunctionals, when the Shels goalie at the time, the legendary but ageing Jermaine Punchett, was shoulder-charged into the crowd by a burly Cork forward, dislocating his toupee in the process.
The Shels physio treated the stricken keeper on the fourth row of the terraces and then signalled to the bench to bring on a substitute keeper. However, the message came back that substitutes weren’t going to be allowed for another 50 years. What should they do?
Quick as a flash, Iggy Foley donned the keeper’s attire and marched back out onto the pitch, while his new team-mates all shouted out “Hi Jermaine?” “Are you all right Jermaine?” and gave each other theatrical winks that fooled nobody but the referee.
Naturally the Cork players protested vehemently but nobody could understand their accent, so Iggy Foley took his place in the Shels goal for the final 25 minutes of the semi-final, as the luckless Jermaine Punchett got led away by the Royal Irish Constabulary for exposing himself in a public place.
With Shels leading by the odd goal in eight, Cork then laid siege to the Shels goal, cutting off their food supply, but the Reds fans came to the rescue, tossing packets of Tayto to the weak and weary defenders. In goal, Iggy played like a man possessed, his eyeballs going white and his head swivelling around full circle. Time and time again, he thwarted the Cork forward line, despite his inability to catch a ball. They threw everything at him including the kitchen sink (the ref consulted his rule book and blew for a free out) but still the Reds goal held firm.
And then, in the 89th minute, a rash sausage sandwich sent a Cork forward sprawling and the ref immediately pointed to the penalty spot. At the time, it was somewhere near the centre circle – it was allowed to wander around the pitch as it pleased in those days – but there was a deathly hush among the crowd as the Cork superstar of the day, Jean-Jacques Eejit de Village stepped up to take the penalty.
In the crowd, several thousands of supporters dropped pins and listened to them falling. Curiously, they never made a noise until they hit the floor. Eejit and Iggy faced each other like two gunfighters in the Wild West, narrowing their eyes and spitting loudly into their respective spittoons. Hurriedly the bartender grabbed bottles and stashed them underneath the counter. The piano player stopped playing. Nobody knew what he had been doing there in the first place.
The ref’s whistle sounded and Eejit ran up, his blond locks flowing behind him. He struck the ball sweetly and it seemed that it was destined for the top corner but Iggy Foley, diving in slow motion like Sylvester Stallone in Escape to Victory, launched himself sideways and upwards, sideways and upwards, in a long graceful arc.
Unfortunately, he guessed the wrong way but his momentum carried him into the upright and sent it tumbling, causing the crossbar to collapse, with the result that the previously goal-bound shot sailed harmlessly over. For a second, there was a deathly hush and the crowd erupted, spilling onto the pitch and hurriedly dressing the players in Nazi uniforms before streaming out of the gate.
There was an enquiry of course but the Pathé newsreels of the day were in black and white, so Iggy’s distinctive kaleidoscope colouring didn’t show up. Jermaine Punchett was given a small fine and flew to Belgium to have his toupee repaired and was soon back in action between the sticks.
And as for Iggy? Some say, he left Ireland shortly afterwards and was washed overboard by a freak wave on the approaches to Valparaiso. Others say he changed his name to Edith Piaf and moved to France to pursue a career in show business.
One thing is for sure, he was probably the greatest Shels goalie that never played for the club.

Airtricity

2010-03-13T22:17:00.002Z

A flick of the switch and the season’s alight,
We’re caught in the glare of publicity.
Thank God we are back on the circuit tonight,
With Eircom replaced by Airtricity.

Watt a fine mess the close season has wrought,
Though no-one’s been charged with duplicity.
Who was at volt? Well nobody’s been caught
Or is current-ly up for complicity.

We can’t remain static in dark, stormy weather
So what, if this means eccentricity?
AC or DC, we’re in this together,
This game that we love with simplicity.

So socket it to me baby, let’s go hit the town
And escape all this drab domesticity.
Our ohms will be dark as we mosey on down
To savour the crowd’s electricity.

Yes, football is back and sure, who can resistor?
(As I said to my daughter Felicity)
The field is electric; this beautiful vista
Comes courtesy now of Airtricity.

Shels heroes of yesteryear No.1

2010-03-13T22:10:00.002Z

Harry Mulvey

Harry Mulvey played for Shelbourne for six years between 1903 and 1905 and is best remembered for being ‘that feller on the end with the big moustache’ in old sepia photographs. Curiously, instead of wearing his moustache between his nose and mouth, as was the custom at the time, Mulvey wore it on his chin and would get annoyed if people referred to it as ‘a beard.’
Born into a large working-class Ringsend family (which surprised him, as his parents were very rich and from Tullamore) the left full back soon caught the eye of a number of scouts, until his father complained to the scoutmaster.
At fourteen, he signed apprenticeship terms with Bray Unknowns but couldn’t find his way to their training ground, despite asking directions from everyone he passed. Disillusioned, he considered joining the Navy until he discovered it meant he would have to go to sea.
It was legendary Shels supremo Joe “Joe” Hartigan, who first spotted Mulvey playing for junior league side Bray Even More Unknowns and liked the fearless, never-say-die attitude of the young left back. Indeed, although the wily old manager interviewed him for thirty minutes afterwards, he could still not get him to say the word ‘die.’
At the time, Shelbourne were of course playing in the Free State League (sponsored by the Black and Tans) and Harry Mulvey soon found himself pitting his wits against tricky right wingers from Linfield and Cork Wanderers, though not at the same time. He soon became a firm crowd favourite not just for his skill and bravery, but also for his habit of throwing money into the crowd every time the ball went out for a throw-in.
With Harry at left back, the legendary Shels back four of Wallis, Dingbat, Scrote and Mulvey was complete and they soon gained the reputation of being the meanest defence in the League, pretending to look the other way when the man with the Salvation Army collection tin came around. Opposition forwards got little change out of them, as they tended not to carry much money in their shorts. The “Shels back four” as they came to be known, in both verse and Braille, took no prisoners, mainly because it wasn’t their job.
In 1904, Shels came agonisingly close to landing the double when they narrowly avoided relegation and were knocked out of the Cup in the first round by the minnows of the competition, Littlefish Athletic. Harry missed most of the season with a splinter in his thumb and by the time he regained full fitness, his place had been taken by his namesake, Ernie “Ernest” Carbuncle.
A lesser man would have crumbled. Sadly, Harry was a lesser man and he did. Still, crumbling was a very respectable occupation in those days and it helped to supplement Harry’s income as he whiled away his time in the reserves.
He got his chance in the first team early the following season when Ernie Carbuncle’s leg fell off in a freak sliding tackle. This time, Harry never looked back, except when the ball went over his head. By all accounts, he played out of his skin that season, which many opposition players protested about, and Shels clinched the League on the final day of the season with a 3-0 win over Cork Incorruptibles with goals from Bumstead, Scrote and Khomeini (og)
Unsurprisingly, Harry was called up to the Ireland squad at the end of the season and took part in a tour of South America. The team didn’t play any matches – they just toured around looking at things – but Harry came home with three caps after a spot of souvenir shopping in Caracas.
The 1905 / 1906 season began poorly for Shels, with Bumstead becoming pregnant and the Freckleton twins, John and Johnny, leaving to join the priesthood. Dingbat was transferred to Accrington Stanley and Harry found himself playing alongside Scrote at the heart of the defence. The two men hadn’t got on since the unsavoury incident of the Werther’s Originals and famously ignored each other on and off the pitch, preferring to be caught in possession rather than play the simple pass.
The once-solid defence began to leak goals and the end was in sight for Harry. He finished the season in the reserves and was transferred during the summer to Cork Intractables for two shillings and a tin of Gold Flake.
He died in 1932 when he was stabbed by a Romanian priest at the Ecclesiastical Congress. His last wish was to be scattered over Shelbourne Park and this was dutifully carried out by his tearful family in a moving ceremony, in front of 20,000 old time Shelbourne supporters. As the Irish Times movingly wrote, “They should have cremated him first.”

The viscosity of fudge

2010-02-01T17:27:00.004Z

Is your Toblerone too hard?
Does it leave your palate scarred?
Do nuts in Fruit and Nut stick in your teeth?
Is the chocolate in a Flake
Much too crumbly by mistake,
Obliging one to eat it from beneath?
Phil Lynott’s moonlight dance
Led to brown stains on his pants
(And chocolate on your trousers will not budge)
But in Abbotstown, the question
That pertains to indigestion
Is all about viscosity of fudge.

One rule for one and one for others
(Pass the claret there, Carruthers)
Ivory towers and dull grey flannel suits.
And those who scratch our backs
Needn’t fret ‘bout unpaid tax
(Ignore the Bolshies’ claim we’re in cahoots)
Decisions must be hedged
When our consciences are dredged.
Beware our ire, lest we should bear a grudge.
For the rules will be obeyed
And authority conveyed
According to viscosity of fudge.

So do not rock the boat
And we’ll help keep you afloat,
We’ll give you time to balance up your books.
Do not worry about the rules,
They’re for pinko, leftie fools
With tendencies to hang themselves on hooks.
If we like, we can ignore
Any major point of law,
With just a very simple wink or nudge.
Sacred cows are known to drown
In the mire at Abbotstown
Sad victims of viscosity of fudge.

Phrase coined by Shels superfan Fintan Cassidy, describing what Shels chances of replacing Drogheda United in the Premier Division depended upon.

A bridge too far

2009-12-20T00:39:00.002Z

When Shels overreached
And were brusquely impeached,
The delight down in Cork was incredible.
They greeted our troubles
By ord’ring large doubles
With a joy that was very near edible.

So, I vowed there and then
If there came a time when
They had spent all the cash in their kitty,
They would quite understand
If I could not command
Any semblance of pity for City.

Revenge, I’ve been told,
Is a dish best served cold
And now Cork are immersed in the doo-doo.
And I’ve laughed at their plight
Every day, every night.
Ah, come on now, me boys, what would you do?

But now comes a rumour
That’s stopped my good humour
And frozen my bones to the marrow.
And my laughter’s been stilled
And my blood has been chilled
As the news hits my brain like an arrow.

Cork have got their desserts,
They’ve been hit where it hurts,
But I’d wish this foul turn on nobody –
A bridge much too far
If the Villagers are
To be further subjected to Roddy.

Just when you think things can't get any worse...

Cork City, massively in debt, their chairman suspended for a year for bringing the game into disrepute, only 5 players on the books, possibly about to be thrown out of next years Europa League and demoted (if the FAI follow the same sanctions they applied to Shelbourne) now find that the ultimate spoofer Roddy Collins has left his job in Malta to come home hoping to take over the reins.

May the Lord have mercy on their souls.

Gloom upon gloom

2009-12-05T21:30:00.003Z

Snatching defeat out of victory’s jaws,
We threw it away once again.
Draws became losses and wins became draws
And all we have left is the pain.

We thought for a while we’d get out on parole
And walk out, head high, from this jail.
But promotion remains an impossible goal
And suddenly we’re looking frail.

Condemned once again to spend twelve months or more
In this cold and despicable prison,
Staring at walls and the cold concrete floor,
While others in here have arisen.

Conditions down here defy human rights,
The rations decidedly meagre
The minutes tick slow in this cold, lonely nights,
When you’re sentenced to be a low-leaguer.

Another season and we lost out on promotion by a whisker again. Its like Captain Scott waiting for the ice to melt so the Terra Firma can sail home only it doesn't and they're forced top spend another winter on the Antarctic ice shelf.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-12-05T21:26:00.002Z

Epilogue – Where are they now?

Since I finally put the lurid events of the Tolka Murder Mystery down on paper two, nay, three weeks ago, I have been stopped thousands of time both in the street and in my bedroom and asked what became of the main perpetrators of this case that held a nation captivated for six months.
In order to finally lay the matter to rest, I have decided that I shall reveal all. After this, I have taken a solemn oath that never more will talk of these foul deeds pass my lips, though it might of course decide to pass my nose instead.
Dean Delaney, one time suspect for the first two murders, is still under house arrest at Tolka Park for fear that he might be poached by a top Italian club.
Lionel Edward (L.E.) Mentary, the greatest detective in the world who was absolutely no help to DI McBiscuit during the course of the case, is currently on the trail of a missing tiger that was last seen jumping off Rosslare Pier shouting “Sod this for a game of soldiers!” His mission is to recapture the tiger and bring him back to Ireland but the initial prognosis does not look good.
The three victims in the case, John Clapper, Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy and Miroslav Kampanolojyzt, are still dead, though O’Shaughnessy is showing definite signs of improvement. John Clapper’s last request to “bury me not at Wounded Knee” was adhered to by his tearful family and his body was laid to rest in a brown wheelie bin. A bronze plaque erected to the memory of the three men never came to fruition as the money was spent on a trip to Finn Harps instead.
Commissioner Salami, McBiscuit’s superior, received a knighthood for his hand in the case, although he is still trying to attach it to his knight-jacket. It would be unfair to say the award has gone to his head, but he now sits on a solid gold throne and demands to be addressed as ‘Your Excellency.’
John Delaney, who was arrested for the grisly murders, was acquitted on a technicality (lack of evidence) However, the judge in the case sentenced him to between six months and three years (whichever came first) for his haircut.
Liam Buckley, also an initial suspect in the case due to his admission that he gets his hair cut by Stephen Kenny’s ma, is still manager of Lokomotiv Fingal.
Roddy Collins is running a highly profitable painting and decorating business in Bugibba.
Pat Dolan, the underworld mastermind, went on the run after the case. He shed several stone and led reporters on a wild goose chase to Argentina. At first rumours came through that he was lying low in the fields of Athenry but it has since emerged that he may be working for Setanta Sports.
Mrs. Groundsman, wife of the unfortunate suicide victim, lay on her front porch with an arrow in her throat for several weeks until the ambulance came. She was treated for a hernia and discharged. She has since fully recovered and nowadays leads a normal life, though the arrow still hampers her when she goes ducking for apples.
Alan Kelly, who was implicated in the murders because he had a beard, was last heard of running a bed and breakfast in Alicante.
The constable in the case, who infiltrated the club during the investigation, was transferred to Bray Wanderers, where he was voted player of the season by a section of the club’s supporters, despite the fact that he never actually made an appearance. He has currently on trial with Neil Trebble for impersonating a footballer.
As for DI McBiscuit, he got promoted to the rank of Detective Inspector, until they found out that that was what the DI stood for. On the back of the Tolka Murder Mystery, he was called in to help in the Arsenal FC fire tragedy, where he told the press that he suspected it was Arsene. Last seen battening down the hatches of an old suitcase, gasping “Ah, the case is closed.”

Like the poem below, this was produced for the 2nd play off game that never happened, as we lost the first play off game!

The poem that might never be read

2009-12-05T21:22:00.003Z

Frank’s been told he must put out
A poem for the Friday bout,
Though how is he to know at all
That we’ll get through against Fingal?
The march of time, alas, can’t wait,
Although it seems like tempting fate
To spend time on poetic labours
Before we’ve even played our neighbours.
Logistically, we must assume
We’ve banished our post-season gloom
By raining on Fingal’s parade
(Before the game is even played.)

In order that we get this straight,
I think I should elaborate.
The printer needs the copy quite
A few days prior to Friday night.
You cannot simply send it them
At one or maybe two pm
And hope that they will turn it round
Before the first fan’s in the ground.

So Frank has asked that we should write
Our bits before the Tuesday night,
Though as he says with some dismay,
They might not see the light of day.
So, if anybody’s reading this,
Then Tuesday night was full of bliss
And it’s to our untold delight
We have this match on Friday night.

However, if we lost instead,
This poem will remain unread
And, like a tree that makes no sound
When falling, and no-one around,
It will not matter if it scans
Or rhymes or has metaphors or any of the other things so beloved by poetry fans.
.

As it happened, Frank never had to produce a programme. Shels lost 2-0 at home to Sporting Fingal in the play offs

A Tolka Murder Mystery

2009-12-05T21:20:00.001Z

Chapter 13 – The murderer is revealed

“You want to know why I have gathered you all here together?” announced McBiscuit when the puzzled assembly had taken their places in the bar of Tolka Park. “It is simply this, my friends. I intend to reveal the identity of the fiendish murderer who perpetrated these...these...fiendish murders.”
There was an audible gasp of breath from the people sitting at the tables, followed closely by an audible exhalation of breath. Then there was another gasp of breath. This could have gone on all night but McBiscuit held up a restraining hand.
“Murder number one,” he announced. “John Clapper found beneath the roller at Tolka Park. Murder number two, Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy force fed lumps of gravel. Murder number four...”
“Three, sir,” whispered the constable at his side.
“Thank you, constable,” purred the detective, producing a ruler and measuring the constable’s height. “I just wanted to make sure you were on your toes. Murder number three, Miroslav Kampanolojyzt, skewered through the heart by a corner flag. One anonymous letter. One dead groundsman. Now gentlemen, what does all this add up to?”
Slowly, at the back of the room, a hand went up.
“Er, five?” said a hesitant voice.
“Exactly!” continued McBiscuit. All eyes were on him. He looks like a peacock, thought the constable idly, doing a quick piece of embroidery.
“It is clear to me,” went on McBiscuit, clasping his room behind his back and pacing his hands, “that somebody has a grudge against Shelbourne Football Club, a grudge so bitter and so deep that they were prepared to commit three murders, drive a groundsman to suicide and cut up an edition of Nuts. Now, I asked myself, who could possibly bear a grudge so deep that they would be prepared to desecrate a fine cultural magazine simply to try and destroy a football club?”
Among the assembly, eyes darted sideways until they got fed up and returned to their rightful owners. Liam Buckley combed his hair nervously; Pat Dolan studied the bar menu intently; Roddie Collins tried to work out how many tins of matt vinyl it would take to do one wall; Trevor Molloy tried to concentrate on his disallowed goal against Hibernians of Malta (a thought that never ceased to warm his heart); the population of Limerick made sure their knives were in their inside pockets.
McBiscuit stopped in front of a man wearing a false nose, glasses and a dark curly wig. “You, sir,” he cooed. “You have an interest in this case, no?”
In response, the man jumped up and made a dash for the exit but he was intercepted by a plain clothes policeman and a fancy clothes policeman. McBiscuit strode up to him and tore off the wig and dark glasses.
“Ow! That’s my real nose!” he wailed.
There were more gasps of astonishment from the assembled crowd as the familiar face glared angrily around the room.
“Drat! I’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids,” he spat, a remark which caused a lot of bewilderment in the room.
“John Delaney, I am arresting you for crimes against hairdressing,” cautioned McBiscuit. “You don’t have to say anything but we’ll be writing your confession anyway, so it doesn’t really matter one way or the other.”
“You’ll never take me alive, copper,” came the growled answer which, again, caused a lot of consternation among the gathering
“How did you ascertain that the suspect was indeed the perpetrator of these effusive, nay, choreographed homicides, detective inspector?” asked an anonymous former Shelbourne manager after the Waterford serial killer had been led away.
“It was simple,” replied McBiscuit. “One only had to see the punishment meted out to Shels for financial shortcomings and then compare them to the leniency shown to other clubs subsequently. It was clear to me, right from the very start that there was an orchestrated campaign to destroy Shelbourne Football Club and it came from the very top.”
“Three cheers for DI McBiscuit!” shouted somebody and the place erupted in a maelstrom of flag-waving and badger baiting. They hoisted the policeman onto their shoulders until they remembered his flatulence problem and put him down again very quickly.
Standing at the back of the room, unimpressed by the unconfined joy all around him, the constable glanced morosely at the League table.
“Now, if we could only get out of this bloody division,” he muttered.

Red red chains

2009-12-05T21:18:00.001Z

We’re still not certain where next year will find us,
Though probably we won’t be out of debt.
A topsy turvy season lies behind us
And heaven knows, it isn’t over yet.
Will Mother Tolka soon be up to let?
Will we move up to Phibsboro with our minders?
Whatever. We’ll walk on without regret,
United in these red red chains that bind us.

They say that God is very fond of triers,
So why, then, is he not too fond of us?
It seems to be his mission to defy us –
Thwarting must be all he ever does.
His vengeance though will not succeed becuzz
There’s higher things to which this club aspires.
We’ll face the future with the same old buzz,
United in these red red chains that tie us.

Little men queued up with glee and told us
They’ll relish our eventual demise.
Beset by all the debt that did enfold us,
‘Twas hard to separate the truth from lies.
They swarmed around our broken flesh like flies.
Instead of throwing money, they threw boulders.
But slowly and determinedly we’ll rise
United in these red red chains that hold us.

A Tolka Murder Mystery

2009-12-05T21:14:00.002Z

Chapter 12 – The net closes

It was clear that the groundsman had been so afraid that he had preferred to throw himself in front of a moving train than to reveal the sinister figure behind the three murders. The question, put very succinctly by a passing owl, was Who?
“He’d been acting very strangely of late, as if he were afraid of someone,” said Mrs. Groundsman when DI McBiscuit went around to tell her of her husband’s unfortunate death. “Would you like another bourbon cream?”
McBiscuit leaned forwards. Then he leaned sideways. “Do you know who he was afraid of?” he asked.
“I never saw him,” came the reply. “My husband did however mention a name. He said this person was the most sinister and evil demon one could ever imagine and that I should never utter his name again, not even in a game of charades. His name was aaaaarrrggghhh!”
“Aaaaarrrggghhh!” wrote down McBiscuit assiduously. “Sounds Eastern European. Well thank you, Mrs Groundsman, you’ve been most helpful.” And he stepped over her now lifeless body and the arrow protruding from her throat and marched out of the door.

“Three murders and one suicide,” said McBiscuit, back in his office. “How many games until the end of the season?”
“Five,” answered the constable. “Starting with the game against Athlone on Friday night. Win every match and we get promoted.”
“We must find the murderer before the season ends,” murmured McBiscuit. “Once the season ends, the whole transfer merry-go-round begins again and the trail may go cold.”
“How about a reward for information?” suggested the constable. “Anybody who has any information that may lead to the arrest of the perpetrator can pay the police €5,000.” As he finished speaking, he picked up a thumb tack from the floor and looked at it curiously.
“That’s one tack,” replied McBiscuit. “You’re a famous landscape artist, constable. You design the posters.” He looked at the two bits of haddock in his shopping bag. “I, on the other hand, have other fish to fry,” he added mysteriously.

As McBiscuit watched from the stand at Morton Stadium, he noted down two very significant facts. Number one, the Fingal goalkeeper Quigley seemed to be very nervous about his presence and, in fact, allowed a speculative shot from Giller to slip through his arms and into the net, as he scanned the stands to locate the detective. And secondly, there was the curious case of the mysterious disappearance of the ball boys when Fingal were leading.
The constable’s idea of reward posters seemed to bear fruit too, when a large quantity of grapefruit and rhubarb arrived at the station. McBiscuit chewed on his pencil late into the night, digesting these salient facts and indeed the pencil, ceasing only when he had to be taken to the Mater with cramps in his stomach.
“I feel we are near to a resolution,” he said to the constable the following morning.
“Its not New Year already, is it?” asked the constable in alarm. “Don’t tell me I missed Christmas?”
“I want every available man in the force to be in Tolka Park for the Athlone match,” went on McBiscuit briskly. “Let them dress up as Athlone supporters and mingle through both stands.”
“Won’t a large number of Athlone supporters at a Shels match arouse some suspicion, sir?” asked the constable, who was more worldly in the ways of League of Ireland football than his superior.
“Constable, we can’t go on together with suspicion minds. I want you to pack the stands out with blue and black.”
“Yes sir. And will they have to shout for Athlone in strange midlands accents too, sir?”
“Absolutely, constable. I place the diction coach at your disposal.”

The day of the Athlone match dawned, as days have a habit of doing. McBiscuit stretched out in bed as the early morning sunlight flooded in through the window like sunlight flooding in through a window.
“Today’s the day we catch a murderer,” he remarked grimly to the inert figure beside him. “He may think he’s got one over on us but I’ll get two over on him. Maybe even three. They don’t call me Detective Inspector McBiscuit for nothing, you know.”
Beside him, his teddy bear contemplated this last remark but decided not to comment.

Out of the wilderness

2009-12-05T21:12:00.002Z

Oh Lord, if you’re listening,
Look down with good grace.
The teardrops are glistening
Upon my sad face.
Our enemies may chide us
For dreams built on sand
But Lord, won’t you guide us
To more fruitful land?

My ribcage is bony,
I’ve gotten so thin.
The pathway is stony
And punctures my skin.
There’s nothing to feed us,
My blood runs so hot,
So Lord, won’t you lead us
From this desolate spot?

No water sustains us,
The stomach ache pains us,
The burning sun drains us
Throughout the long day.
In our minds, we are hearing
The promised land cheering
But oh, is it nearing
Or fading away?

We’re punished enough, Lord,
Can’t take any more.
Our feet were once tough, Lord,
But now they’re just sore.
Oh do not forsake us,
Look down on our plight,
Oh Lord, won’t you take us
Back into the light?

A Tolka Murder Mystery

2009-12-05T21:05:00.002Z

Chapter 11 – A tragic turn of events

The familiar figure of Pat Dolan elbowed aside Hank Marvin and stepped out of the shadows. A sinister leer stretched across his face, skirted his ear and disappeared down his neck.
“How did you get in here?” demanded DI McBiscuit, thoroughly shaken by the sudden appearance of his Number One suspect in his office.
“I am everything and I am nothing,” replied the menacing figure with a laugh that seemed to have started in the bowels of Hell itself. “I am light and dark, ancient and re-born, here and not here...” He stopped as he caught sight of the detective’s raised eyebrow. “Up the back stairs,” he finished lamely.
“Where we you on the nights of the three murders in Tolka Park, Mr. Dolan?” demanded McBiscuit, reaching under the desk for a box of safety pins.
“You can’t pin anything on me,” came the reply. “I was live on Setanta Sports on each occasion.”
“Okay,” growled McBiscuit curtly. “You’re free to go. And put down that pie.”

Commissioner Salami had given DI McBiscuit until the end of the league season to bring the murderer to book and with only nine games to go and a roaring fire in the grate, McBiscuit was beginning to feel the heat.
“I believe we can get this wrapped up before the end of the season,” he told his constable at the morning briefing.
“So do I, sir, providing McAllister doesn’t get injured in the near future,” replied the constable, a remark that McBiscuit brooded upon for several days. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. The constable opened the door and was somewhat startled to find a trouser press sitting in the corridor.
“It’s the press, sir,” he called out.
“Tell them that we expect to make an arrest in the next day or two,” remarked McBiscuit grimly.

A steely look of determination on his boots, McBiscuit strode down Richmond Rd, while the constable skipped along behind, singing “We’re going to make an arre-est, We’re going to make an arre-est.”
“Tell the groundsman I want to see him again,” said McBiscuit. “I’m sure there’s something he isn’t telling us.”
The groundsman, Quasimodo O’Regan, who had been sound asleep since Chapter Five. appeared somewhat annoyed at being woken up and gave McBiscuit dagger looks.
“Thank you, these dagger looks will go very nicely in my herbaceous border,” replied McBiscuit, gathering them up and dropping them carefully into a polythene bag.
“What’s all this about?” said the groundsman. “I’ve a pitch to roll before the UCD game and you know how fussy those students can be. Two inches of grass and they’re claiming subterfuge.”
“I believe there’s something you are not telling us,” answered McBiscuit.
“There’s a lot of things I’m not telling you,” replied O’Regan. “There’s a slight chance that the planet Titan may supoport an oxygen-based atmosphere. Adolf Hitler was a Pats supporter and indeed wrote their theme song. Luke from Bros is currently working as a bus conductor....”
“I mean, about the murders,” interrupted McBiscuit. “Three murders take place under your very nose...No, I don’t mean that literally, you buffoon... and you claim that you know nothing. Well, you don’t fool me. I think we ought to have a little chat down at the station.”

“Why are we here?” asked the groundsman worriedly, as the station master announced the imminent arrival of the express train to Maynooth.
“It bothers you that you have to answer questions on a platform?” shot back McBiscuit craftily.
The groundsman recovered his composure and threw it around his shoulders. “Not at all,” he answered. “It just seems like a dessert with the cream on the bottom and the jelly on the top.”
“A trifle unconventional, you mean?”
“Exactly. But I’ll never tell you anything, despite these surreal surroundings. It’s more than my life’s worth, you see, copper.”
“We can protect you,” said McBiscuit. “We can give you a new identity. Two new identities, even. Set you up in a safe house, even.”
“I’ve seen those safe houses,” growled the groundsman. “You have to remember the combination and they don’t have any windows.”
And jumping up, he shook off McBiscuit’s restraining hand and threw himself in front of the approaching express train.
“I suppose you could say he expressed himself very well,” giggled the constable, as they scraped the remains of the groundsman off the tracks.

The call of promotion

2009-12-05T21:01:00.001Z

Come all of ye faithful and lets raise the roof,
Don’t sit on your hands and pretend you’re aloof.
Lets cheer on the lads to win ten on the hoof,
And keep the momentum from falling.
Just glance at the table for obvious proof
That promotion is definitely calling.

Come former supporters throughout this fair land,
We need your attendance to pack out the stand.
Help us to generate confidence and
Dispel the dark fears that come crawling.
Don’t sit in your armchair, a beer in your hand
For the voice of promotion is calling.

Come mothers and fathers and set your kids free
From all of that Premiership codology.
Bring them to Tolka and help them to see
That football in Ireland’s enthralling.
Lets hear their young voices cry out joyously
That they feel that promotion is calling.

Come all of ye oul’ lads we hold in esteem
And give up the way that you gripe at the team.
We need to rise up to the top like the cream,
No more to go Sporting Fingalling.
For all of us share the one ultimate dream
And promotion, promotion is calling

A Tolka Murder Mystery

2009-12-05T20:59:00.001Z

Chapter 10 – A new suspect looms large

After five months, the Tolka Park serial killer still had not been apprehended and the press were having a field day. The Irish Times won the javelin and the shot putt while the man from the Roscommon Herald won the 4 x 400m relay on his own.
DI McBiscuit’s boss, Commissioner Salami was not a happy bunny. In fact he was not a bunny at all, as rabbits have little prospect of rising to any position of eminence in the Garda Siochana.
“Five months!” he yelled, pointing at his egg timer to emphasise the passage of time. “Three murders in five months and we don’t even have a suspect! The press are making us out to look like fools.”
McBiscuit shifted his dunce’s cap nervously. “But sir...” he began.
“I want the murderer behind bars by the end of November,” snapped the Commissioner. “Now, take off that suit and tie and put on these more casual clothes.”

“I’ve just received a dressing down from the Commissioner,” related McBiscuit later. “He says we have until the end of the League Season to find the murderer.”
The constable glanced at the suitcase, hidden in the darkness of the alcove. “L.E. Mentary couldn’t shed any light on the case then, sir?” he sympathised. McBiscuit merely snorted in reply. Then he sneezed.
“Stop that!” he told the constable, who was busy spraying himself with disinfectant. “Can’t a man snort and sneeze these days without people coming over all Howard Hughesy?”
“I’ve been leafing through the files, sir,” said the constable beneath his face mask. “There is one man who hates Shels more than anyone in the whole wide world. And he hasn’t even figured in our investigations yet.”
“Who is it? John Delaney? Bohs till I die? George O’Callaghan?”
“No, sir, even worse.” And he held up a large sinister photograph.
“Urrgghh! That’s horrible, constable. Put it away, immediately. Who is this fiendish ghoul?”
“More of a ghoulish fiend than a fiendish ghoul,” replied the constable. “His name’s Dolan. Pat Dolan.”

“My God! Has this man no morals?” exclaimed McBiscuit, reading the file closely. “He actually tried to pin the blame on a fine upstanding institution like the Post Office? What a cad!”
“Ten years ago, an eminent psychologist described him as a sad man who was perplexed by Shels,” nodded the constable. “Matters came to a head with a vicious attack on him at Tolka Park when he claimed his trousers got splashed with water. There were other incidents. He once tried to kick Owen Heary on the studs while the latter was taking a throw-in. And he nearly broke Pat Fenlon’s leg down in Turners Cross before a match.”
“And why has this man never come on the radar, constable? He seems like a prime suspect to me.”
“Probably too big to fit on the radar, sir. That and the fact that a rumour went around that he had become the coach of Argentinian side Boca Juniors and had left these shores for good.”
After McBiscuit had picked himself up off the floor and wiped the tears from his eyes, he said, “Hmm. Rather like a man leaving his clothes on the beach and pretending he’s committed suicide, eh?”
“Yes sir. We did in fact find his clothes off Bray Head being worn by a sartorial hump back whale. But we have reason to believe that he has changed his appearance radically. He is now the new slimline Pat Dolan, back to almost the same physique as in his playing days. And we believe he is still in the country. Rumour has it that his spirit still stalks the land waiting for vengeance on Shels.”
“Constable, I have lost every wristwatch I own. There is no time to lose. Watch the ports and airports. Watch the bus stops. I want this Dolan alive or dead, whichever is the better for questioning him.”

That night, thousands of “Wanted – dead or alive” posters were put up all across the country. Interpol were contacted as well as MI5, the CIA, Mossad and the Association of Nantucket Lighthouse keepers. Pat Dolan’s image flashed across television screens with the warning not to approach him, particularly if you happened to be carrying pies. Parents of traumatised children complained to RTE when images of him appeared before the watershed.
Alone in a darkened office, McBiscuit clasped the most recent photograph and spoke to it. “Where are you Dolan?” he snorted. Then he sneezed again.
“Will you ever use a tissue, McBiscuit?” came a sinister voice behind him.

Many a slip

2009-12-05T20:55:00.003Z

There’s many a slip
‘Twixt the cup and the lip,
Though it isn’t the Cup we’re concerned with.
Instead, it’s the League,
And bad luck and fatigue
Are the matches we’re scared to get burned with.

Last year we were flying
And raucously crying
That promotion was ours for the taking.
At the end, though, the sound
That rang out cross the ground
Was the sound of a thousand hearts breaking.

Oh yes, there’ll exist
Doubtless many a twist
‘Ere the fate of the title’s decided.
Last year I was sure,
But ‘twas too premature,
So don’t make the same mistake I did.

Yes there’s many a slip
‘Twixt the League and the lip,
There’s four sides still very much in it.
Of course, we might go
For an nine in a row,
But I don’t believe that for a minute.

A Tolka Murder Mystery

2009-08-24T16:42:00.003+01:00

Chapter 9 – McBiscuit enlists some help

“What evidence do we have that Sporting Fingal is the murderer?” said D.I. McBiscuit, lighting his sixth cigarette of the morning and placing it in his mouth, alongside the other five.
The constable took out his notebook from his breast pocket and began to read. “Eyebrows too close together, he looks like a murderer and we don’t have anybody else, sir” he said.
In reply, McBiscuit kicked his cardboard suitcase across the room until it fell apart.
“Hardly the strongest case we’ve ever had,” he mused. “Constable, get me Lionel Edmund Mentary on the phone.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“L.E. Mentary, my dear constable. Ireland’s most famous private eye and a pretty well-known public one too. He has the brain the size of a planet and a backside of similar proportions.” He glanced over at his suitcase, half-hidden in the shadows. “Maybe he can throw some new light on this case.”

“That’s not quite what I meant,” said McBiscuit, as Lionel Mentary trained a spotlight on the suitcase. The great detective was something of an enigma, tall but short of stature, dark skinned and pale, anorexicallly overweight.
“Have you taken his fingerprints?” he asked in a voice that was both loud and soft.
“Yes but we had to give them back,” replied McBiscuit moodily. “The European Court of Human Rights ruled that he was entitled to them.
“I see,” said Mentary. He sat back and closed his eyes and pressed his fingers together. Then he closed his fingers and pressed his eyes together. Eventually he spoke. “Three murders, you say, and yet you do not have a single clue. Does that not strike you as odd?”
“We do have a clue,” said Mentary, producing a plastic bag from his inside pocket.
“Good Lord, what is it?”
“It’s a plastic bag,” replied McBiscuit impatiently. “However, look what’s inside it.”
“Mon Dieu, is that..?”
“Correct. It’s a blade of grass. We found it on the Tolka Park pitch shortly after the third murder.”
“And its significance?”
“Not sure yet. But as clues go, I think it’s a pretty good one.”
“Very well!” cried the great detective. “I think we must go down and view the crime of the scene!”
“The, erm, scene of the crime?”
“Yes, that too!” He slapped McBiscuit gently on the ear. He looked at the big rip in the side of McBiscuit’s suitcase. “Do not worry, my friend,” he said cajolingly. “Lionel Mentary will have this case sewn up before you can translate the books of the Old Testament into Cornish.”

At Tolka Park, Mentary did some more pressing and closing, while McBiscuit got cracking on Genesis. Eventually the two met up outside the tunnel.
“The pitch is in great shape,” said Mentary. “Rectangle. I like that. Tell me, has anyone disturbed the crime scene area since the last murder.”
“Only the players, I think. And the groundsman, the physio, the manager, the backroom staff, the players of Millwall, Leeds, Sporting Fingal and Finn Harps, referees and assistant referees. Other than that, no-one.”
“Excellent,” replied Mentary. “And you say the first victim was found beneath the roller over there. The second victim was found hanging from the goalpost over there. And the third was found beneath the corner flag over there.”
“You have it,” said McBiscuit. “Is that important?”
“But of course, my friend. Do you not see? The three bodies form a triangle.”
McBiscuit slapped his forehead. Then he slapped Mentary’s forehead. “Of course!” he said. “Why did I not see that?” And he leapt high in the air and jumped down on top of himself.
“You should not come down so hard on yourself, my friend,” said Mentary. “It is not for nothing that I am known as the Greatest Detective in Ireland. Now, you say the first murder took place in March, the second in May and the third in July?”
“Yes,” said McBiscuit excitedly.
“Then I think you should have the bodies removed,” said Mentary, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. “They are starting to smell a bit. Besides, I hear the body dangling from the crossbar stopped a Bisto lob against Finn Harps. That could prove vital at the end of the season.”
“And the murderer? Who do you think it is?”
In reply, the great detective removed the sheaf of papers from McBiscuit’s hand and leafed through them. “Not so fast, my good friend,” he said eventually. “Firstly, you have only got as far as Deuteronomy. And secondly, I think you may have made an error with the past participle of the verb ‘to catch someone offside.’”

We’re papering over the cracks

2009-07-30T16:00:00.001+01:00

We’re papering over the cracks,
Absolving undisciplined backs.
We’re blaming the ref in
An orgy of effin’
And turning the vol to the max.

We failed to demolish Athlone
Because we are accident-prone.
But to that, we’re quite deaf,
We’ll just blame the damned ref
And hide our faults under a stone.

Decisions square out in the end.
On that, every fan can depend.
But we’ll play the poor victim
And the ref? We’ll depict him
As someone who’s not a true friend.

We’ll pretend we should win every game
If the ref treats the two sides the same.
But if things turn out wrong,
Sure it won’t be too long
‘Ere we single him out for the blame.

Yes, we’re papering over the cracks
With loud, vitriolic attacks
Let’s hope our myopia
Doesn’t get too much ropier
Or we’ll certainly come off the tracks.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-07-30T15:58:00.001+01:00

Chapter Eight – A deadly foe

“Read all about it! Read all about it! Another murder at Tolka!” yelled the lovable barefooted street urchin.
D.I. McBiscuit fished deep in the inside pocket of his diving suit and handed the boy a euro.
“Thanks, guv, you can read all about it on the internet.”
Commissioner Salami was waiting in McBiscuit’s office, when the latter arrived, an open copy of a newspaper sprawled out on the desk. “I see you’ve eaten my fish and chips, sir,” said McBiscuit. “I hope it was nice.”
“Never mind the fish and chips,” said Salami, his lips wafer-thin. “What’s this about another murder at Tolka Park? This is beginning to look like an epidemic.”
In reply, McBiscuit hopped up onto a battered old suitcase in the corner of the room. “A forty year old male Caucasian,” he said. “At the moment we’re trying to trace his relatives in Caucasia. Early reports suggest he may have been a vegetarian, so we’re checking with the foreign office in Vegetaria too.”
“Name?”
“D.I. Mc Biscuit, sir?” came the puzzled reply. “Don’t you remember me? I accidentally threw up over your wife at the office party.”
“Listen laddie,” said Salami, standing in the fireplace. “I’m starting to feel the heat. If you don’t solve this soon, I’m taking you off the case.”
“Oh please don’t sir. I like it up here.”

At the scene of the crime, the constable professed he couldn’t bear to look and turned away to finish his slice of chocolate cake. Skewered through the heart by a corner flag, the late Miroslav Kampanolojyzt lay motionless, as dead men often do, inside the corner quadrant at the Ballybough end of the ground.
“Kampanolojyzt? That name seems to ring a bell,” mused McBiscuit. “My, look at his sharp pointed side teeth and his Transylvanian passport.” He picked up a herring, lying beside the body.
“This looks fishy,” he said. “Constable, take this away for fingerprints.” He pointed at an old trouser press standing in the six yard box. “And keep the press away,” he added.
“Three murders at Tolka Park,” he said to himself. “John Clapper, Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy, Miroslav Kampanolojyzt. What is the connection between them?”
“Sure beats the hell out of me,” he answered. “What do you reckon yourself?”
“Well,” he countered. “They all died gruesomely.”
“My aunt died gruesomely,” interrupted the constable. “She was strangled by two Amazonian Tree Creepers. She’d never had tree creepers before and I suppose it was her own fault that she gruesome.”
“Who stands to gain from these deaths?” persevered McBiscuit.
“Sporting Fingal, sir,” replied the constable with alacrity.
“Put that alacrity away, constable,” said McBiscuit sternly. “This is no time for soft-boiled sweets. Now, why do you say this Fingal person stands to gain from these deaths?”
“Oh, he’s not a person, sir,” replied the constable with venom. “He’s a franchise. A menacing, shadowy figure that stalks the land putting the fear of death into the ordinary football supporter.”
“Good God, he sounds a sinister figure. Where does he live?”
“Live?” shrieked the constable and was convulsed by hysterical laughter. “Live? He doesn’t live anywhere? He is a child of the night, flitting from one dark alley to the next. Some say he never sleeps for his soul cannot be at rest until he has crushed every other football club out of existence. They seek him here, they seek... Er, Santry, sir.”
DI McBiscuit poured a packet of salt and vinegar over his head. “Very good,” he said crisply. “Then we will go to Santry.”

“I know nothing, I tell you,” said Sporting Fingal gruffly, as he bent over the wash hand basin, washing the blood off his hands. “And kindly remove that safety pin and piece of paper. You can’t pin anything on me.”
McBiscuit paced the floor. Then he paced the wall. “Do the names John Clapper, Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy and Miroslav Kampanolojyzt mean anything to you, sir?”
“The names all ring a bell,” replied the franchise warily. “Why what have they done?”
“They’ve all been murdered, that’s what they’ve done,” replied McBiscuit. “Where were you on the night in question?”
“What’s the night in question?” came back the reply.
“Oh you’re good,” purred McBiscuit. “But we’ll have you, Fingal. Mark my words, we’ll have you.”
Sporting Fingal marked McBiscuit’s words with a big black marker but fell silent. Then he got up again silent. Finally he spoke.
“There are people behind me,” he whispered. “No, not literally, you idiot. I’m advising you to back off. For your own good.” And he took a custard cream from the packet and crushed it in his fist.

In search of the perfect ten

2009-07-08T17:29:00.001+01:00

As almost every Shels fan owns,
We don’t know much ‘bout Bray Unknowns.
Unknown by nature and by name,
To Shelbourne fans, their only fame
Is that we stuffed them once nine - nil,
A score that’s on our records still.
And though the years have flown since then,
We’ve never notched a perfect ten.

But recently we thought at last
That nine – nil score would be surpassed,
When Mervue came to Tolka Park
And Shels ran riot in the dark.
Six – nil up on fifty eight,
We thought our eighty three year wait
To see a wondrous tenth recorded
Was finally to be rewarded.

But no, the record petered out,
Becoming just a sev’n goal rout
And Mervue lost their chance to be
A part of Shelbourne’s history.
But deep down, I’m quite pleased that Bray
Unknowns will fight another day,
For, when the record’s overthrown,
They really will become unknown.

The rare oul’ times

2009-07-06T03:08:00.001+01:00

Raised on songs and stories,
Heroes of renown,
The passing tales and glories
Before we were struck down.
We can’t afford detergents
To spray the terrace weeds,
But still we crave resurgence
For Shelbourne and for Leeds.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,
Weekly pantomimes
I remember Leeds and Shelbourne
In the rare oul’ times.

Oh where did Eddie Gray go,
Paul Reaney and Mick Bates?
And Sheridan and Geogho,
Along with Stephen Yeates?
The older fans remember
And whisper mighty deeds
Of Bobby Browne and Bremner
For Shelbourne and for Leeds.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,
Weekly pantomimes
I remember Leeds and Shelbourne
In the rare oul’ times.

Clarke and Jones play nightly
When Elland Road is dark.
Ben Hannigan looks spritely
And glides ‘cross Tolka Park.
The prayer-books need re-braiding,
Replace those worry beads,
For the ghosts are slowly fading
At Shelbourne and at Leeds.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,
Weekly pantomimes
I remember Leeds and Shelbourne
In the rare oul’ times.

The years have made me bitter
But still I come as planned
And watch the wind-strewn litter
That blows across the stand.
I watch the clubs endeavour
To nurture fertile seeds
And yes, I’ll cheer forever
For Shelbourne and for Leeds.

Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,
Weekly pantomimes
I remember Leeds and Shelbourne
In the rare oul’ times.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-06-29T16:47:00.001+01:00

Chapter Seven – McBiscuit sets a trap

With a legal zeal that would have had the late Ollie Byrne drooling in admiration, Shelbourne’s solicitors quickly secured the release of goalkeeper Dean Delaney, arguing that the police had not a shred of evidence to link the giant goalkeeper to the double murder.
The move did not go down well with DI McBiscuit, who was now back to square one. Broodingly, he handed the stone to his constable who immediately threw it onto square nine and hopped and scotched up to that number with whoops of delight.
“Constable, I want you to conduct door to door enquiries of every road in the neighbourhood,” said McBiscuit decisively. “And don’t just ask the doors – ask the people behind them too. Somebody must have seen something.”
“Right away, sir,” replied the constable. “Can I go for the ten now, sir?”
While the constable was away, McBiscuit leaned back in his chair and chewed his pencil thoughtfully. When this didn’t work, he leaned back in his pencil and chewed his chair. He closed his eyes to concentrate his thoughts and promptly fell asleep.
“Nothing to report, sir,” said the constable, entering the office several hours later. “Not one hall door saw anything. You had any luck, sir?”
“I have been using the little grey cells,” replied the DI enigmatically.
“You mean, the ones we keep our suspects in, sir?”
“No, you fool. The grey cells of the mind. I think in order to catch our murderer, we have to set a little trap.”
“Not allowed to do that anymore, sir. The animal rights people won’t allow it. They say it’s inhumane.”
“But we’re the police,” said McBiscuit. “We’re allowed to do anything we like, aren’t we?”
McBiscuit had his way and at the next Shelbourne home game, which happened to be against a team called Crumlin United, a posse of crack undercover police officers mingled unobtrusively with the home supporters in the two stands. A discerning eye might have noticed their police helmets bulging beneath their red and white bobble hats and the smell of eau-de-Bridewell aftershave was quite overpowering for some but any suspicion they aroused was immediately dispelled by their loud comments that the team should keep the ball on the ground and that Bisto would probably get a hat-trick.
McBiscuit walked around the two sides of the pitch, a posse of armed police in his wake. Occasionally he talked into his sleeve and seemed quite surprised when his sleeve answered back. When the teams came out onto the pitch, he ostentatiously turned to face the crowd, his shrewd eyes scanning the faces before him for any trace of panic, his nose alert to the smell of fear, the hairs on his chin bristling like antennae.
The first half came and went, as first halves often do. “When are we going to spring the trap, sir?” asked the constable, practising beating people with his truncheon.
“We’ll leave the stew simmering for a while longer,” replied McBiscuit briskly, licking the wooden spoon and adding a handful of chives.
As the second half began, McBiscuit’s razor sharp instincts could feel the nervousness in the crowd begin to grow until it became a NERVOUSNESS. He smiled, yet it was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, mainly because he couldn’t get his lips up that far. “Just a while longer,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t leave it too long,” advised his sleeve.
Halfway through the second half, McBiscuit decided the time was ripe. He pointed an accusatory finger at his earlobe, the pre-arranged signal to the PA announcer, and informed his sleeve to keep a watch out for anybody leaving the ground in a hurry.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” intoned the PA, during the next break in play. “A bloodstained knife has been found in the ground. Will the owner please pick it up from in front of the new stand?”
A hush went through the ground. McBiscuit’s head swivelled right and left. Curiously his body stayed where it was. A man rose in the new stand; a family started to come down the steps in Section A; a whole gang of oul’ fellers started trooping out of Section D muttering about Ben Hannigan.
McBiscuit’s sleeve breathlessly reported that at least a hundred people were heading towards the exit and wanted to know what to do. His head swam, first the crawl, then flipping over and doing the backstroke.
“Constable!” he yelled. “What is happening? Are they all in it together?”
“They’re in it right enough, sir,” replied the constable. “Crumlin have just scored.”

Taking it on the chin

2009-06-29T16:43:00.002+01:00

When you lose a game that’s easier to win,
When the underdogs wipe off your foolish grin,
You wish that you possessed a thicker skin,
But have to take it staunchly on the chin.

Undone by one small lapse in discipline
That sees the ball despairingly roll in.
As, all around, detractors make a din,
There’s naught to do but take it on the chin.

The final whistle puts you in a spin,
The yan is ripped asunder from the yin.
You think you might become a Capuchin.
No hiding place – just take it on the chin.

The doubts about reality begin,
The line ‘twixt black and white grows pencil thin,
The punishment, it seems, outweighs the sin –
Sometimes its hard to take it on the chin.

The gutter ball has sailed past every pin
And dreams of gold have turned too rusty tin
By one false bounce that ricocheted off shin.
What else to do but take it on the chin?

Betting slips despatched unto the bin
And, serving you another shot of gin,
The barman asks you for your next of kin.
But no.
You simply take it on the chin.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-06-29T16:40:00.001+01:00

Chapter Six – McBiscuit makes an arrest

DI McBiscuit’s cunning plan to have his constable infiltrate Shelbourne Football Club disguised as Neil Dubble, a recent signing from St. Albans, seemed to be bearing, not only fruit, but some vegetables and dairy products too.
McBiscuit had been afraid that the constable, the possessor of two size thirteen left feet, might not have pulled it off as a semi-professional footballer, but he slotted into the back four quite nicely and even made the sub’s bench on a couple of occasions.
Inside the dressing room, the constable kept his ear to the ground until people told him to get up. He would pretend to be tying his bootlace when other people were talking on the phone. Sometimes, for a bit of variation, he would pretend to be talking on the phone when other people were tying their bootlaces.
“I want you to watch everyone like a hawk,” McBiscuit had instructed him and the constable took him at his word, sitting on the lampshade for hours with a mouse between his toes.
Naturally, talk of the two murders at the club was rife with many of the players speculating as to the murderer’s identity. For some reason, goalkeeper Dean Delaney had been singled out as the most likely suspect, after Mark O’Brien had commented on his “big strangling hands.”
During training one morning, the constable suddenly clutched his calf muscle in apparent agony and limped off painfully in the direction of the dressing rooms.
“Brilliant ruse,” thought McBiscuit, watching from Section E through a pair of binoculars. “That boy’s going to go far.”
Once inside the dressing room, the constable’s limp miraculously disappeared and he felt under the bench for Dean Delaney’s kit bag. Hurriedly, he pulled open the zip, took one look at the contents and closed it up again.
“I think you’d better come and have a look at this, sir,” he said through the tiny microphone strapped to his left nipple. “And bring some back up.”
Seconds later, seventeen combat vehicles burst through the Tolka Park gates, discharging almost two hundred highly-trained marines onto the playing surface. As the players made a run for the tunnel, the sky grew black with paratroopers descending from unseen aircraft and an aircraft carrier positioned itself behind the Riverside Stand to cut off any means of escape.
“Would you mind opening your kitbag, sir?” McBiscuit asked the tall goalkeeper in the comparative quiet of the dressing room. There was a quiet menace in his eyes and a definite sense of threat in his left ear.
Dean Delaney bit his lip nervously. Then he chewed his nose. Suddenly, and with a sense of defiance, he strode over to his kit bag, yanked open the zip and stood back.
Like a cat circling a trapped mouse, McBiscuit slowly meandered over to the kit bag, thrust his hand inside and pulled out a potted geranium. There were loud gasps of astonishment from all present and even from some who weren’t.
“It’s a plant, I tell you!” the goalkeeper yelled. He tried to make a run for it but Daisy Hedderman slid in recklessly and sent him flying. The constable whipped out some thread and a needle and meticulously sewed the keeper’s arms behind his back.
“You’ve stitched me up good and proper,” snarled the net minder savagely.
“Take him away,” said McBiscuit, almost purring. Then he lifted up his leg and licked himself gratifyingly.
“I don’t get it sir,” said the constable afterwards over a large blackcurrant on the rocks. “What was his motive?”
“What’s a motive?” asked McBiscuit cautiously.
“The reason why he did it, sir. You need to prove he had a motive.”
“I do?” said McBiscuit blankly. “When did that rule come in? Surely the geranium is all the proof we need?”
“Don’t think so, sir. How exactly does the geranium prove his guilt anyway?”
“Oh, I suppose we need to prove his guilt now?” shot back the DI. “Take my word; he’s as guilty as hell. But just to be on the safe side, you’d better get back inside the dressing room and see if you can get me the proof.”
“Sorry, sir. Can’t do that, sir,” said the constable. “The manager’s after transferring me to Bray Wanderers.”

Losing to Bohs

2009-05-05T22:46:00.002+01:00

It isn’t quite the deepest of our woes,
It’s somewhat untraumatic, I suppose,
To lose a League Cup fixture to the Bohs.

At other times we’ve writhed in fevered throes,
Shivering from our temples to our toes,
Assailed by hosts of bitter-minded foes
Like ghoulish rooks and sombre hooded crows,
That from the seeds of jealousy arose
When we were overstretched. And goodness knows,
Within the scheme of things, defeat to Bohs
Just merits one small line of sorry prose
Upon the tide of fortune’s ebbs and flows.
Sometimes you lose. And that’s the way it goes
And, beaten in the League Cup by a nose
Won’t count as one of Shelbourne’s deepest lows,
For, though we’re feeling somewhat bellicose
That things did not turn out the way we chose,
We shouldn’t stir unduly in repose,
But lie abed, at peace and comatose,
Saving stress for far more fiercer blows
Than losing in the League Cup versus Bohs.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-05-04T19:40:00.001+01:00

Chapter Five

“Let us recap, constable,” said DI McBiscuit. “Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy and John Clapper were both murdered in Tolka Park. Now what is the connection between the two?”
“They’re both dead, sir,” replied the constable smartly.
McBiscuit knitted his eyebrows. Then he crocheted his moustache and wove his nasal hair.
“It’s a very violent underworld that we find ourselves in, constable,” he said. “There’s plenty of attacking football, killing the game off, stabbing balls home, shooting on sight, fighting to the death, burying the ball in the back of the net and murdering a pint. It’s a wonder there aren’t more fatalities.”
Suddenly the phone rang. The constable picked it up, listened for a few seconds and then handed it to McBiscuit. “It’s for you, sir,” he said.
“Thank you, constable,” said the DI, stuffing the phone into his pocket. “Now let’s get down to Tolka and see if we can nab ourselves a suspect.”

The groundsman was clearly puzzled. “I am clearly puzzled,” he said, removing his cap and scratching the back of his head.
“Is that better?” asked McBiscuit, scratching the parts of his head that the old man couldn’t reach.
“Thank you, officer. It’s all much clearer now.”
Forensics had come up with the conclusion that the latest murder victim, Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy, far from having been hung, drawn and watered, as initial examinations had suggested, had died from being force fed shovelfuls of gravel. And then hung, drawn and watered.
“So you are saying there was a pile of gravel here a few days ago?” queried McBiscuit, pointing down at a particularly gravel-free piece of concrete by the side of the New Stand.
“Yes, sir,” said the groundsman. “Can’t fathom it?”
“Maybe the victim was made to swallow all of it?” suggested the constable.
“I don’t think so,” murmured McBiscuit. “He’d have been too heavy to hang from the crossbar. Besides the chief pathologist said there was only enough gravel in his stomach to build a small path from his patio to the shed.”
“Maybe there was some more lodged in his… What’s the name of that canal that goes right through your stomach, sir?”
“Alimentary, my dear constable. No there was none found there.”
“But why would anyone want to steal a mound of gravel, sir?”
“To hide the evidence, of course. The question is – where would they hide it?”
“Maybe they scattered it all over the pitch, sir?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, constable. This is the League of Ireland. Nobody would dream of spreading gravel over a football pitch.”

“We have one victim flattened by a roller and another one force fed small stones, constable. What does that tell us about our murderer?”
“That he’s a member of the Rolling Stones, sir?”
“Too easy, constable. Though it could be someone is trying to frame a member of the band. Find out where Charlie Watts was last Friday, will you?” McBiscuit placed a suitcase on a chair and then squatted down in the corner of the room, staring at it intently.
“We need to look at this case from a different perspective, constable,” he continued. “I think we need to call the manager in for questioning.”
“Surely you don’t suspect him, sir?”
“Listen, constable. Has he, or has he not, got a gravelly voice?”
“So has Rod Stewart, sir. And Bonnie Tyler.”
“Then bring them all in for questioning, constable. Let’s see what they’ve got to say for themselves.”
Although she had no alibi, Bonnie Tyler’s assertion that she was lost in France at the time of the first murder was accepted by McBiscuit. Similarly, Rod Stewart’s defence that he had been off sailing seemed to be verified when he produced a mackerel from his trouser pocket.
And despite the constable’s suggestion that they might all be “in it together,” the manager’s blunt statement that he had thirty witnesses to the fact that he was on the team bus to Galway at the time of the second murder seemed to make further questioning unnecessary.
“Who shall I call in next, sir?” queried the constable. “BB King? Bryan Adams? Maybe Janis Joplin?”
In reply, the DI jumped off the merry-go-round. “We’re just going around in circles, constable,” he stated impatiently. He pushed a thumb tack into the wall and watched it fall out again. “I think we ought to try a new tack, constable,” he said. “I want you to go to Tolka Park and pretend to be a new player recently signed from St. Albans or somewhere like that. I want you to be my eyes and ears inside that football club.
“And, while you’re at it, give yourself a ridiculous name. How about Neil Dubble?”

Of football pitches and gravel

2009-05-04T19:38:00.001+01:00

In life, there’s things,
Like Lords and Rings,
That seem to go together.
Wingers, crosses,
Foul mouths, bosses,
Bank Holidays, crap weather.
Whiskey, soda,
Shoes and odour,
A district judge and gavel,
But two distinct
Things are not linked –
A football pitch and gravel.

Columbus sailed,
His ship prevailed,
But nowhere could he berth it.
Poor Scott toiled on
Till hope was gone –
The journey wasn’t worth it.
Useless trips
On skis, on ships –
But who would think to travel
To Donegal
To watch a ball
Get punctured on the gravel?

A dead-eyed sleuth
Seeks out the truth
And clears up any mystery.
From Holmes to Morse,
They oft recourse
To precedents in history.
But no event
Or incident
Can help us to unravel
The clue that showed
Why someone sowed
A football pitch with gravel.

From RTE Sport 1st May 2009

2009-05-04T19:37:00.000+01:00

"Finn Harps' home fixture with Shelbourne was postponed tonight after match referee Tommy Connolly deemed the Finn Park playing surface too dangerous.
Connolly conducted his pre-match pitch inspection in the company of his assistants Terence Moyne and Pat McLaughlin, and after mulling over the state of the pitch for 25 minutes, decided that 'in the best interests of the safety of both sets of players it was not safe to play the game'.
In an attempt to dry out their muddy playing surface, in the fortnight between their last home game against Waterford United game and tonight's visit of Shelbourne, Harps officials spiked 80 tonnes of sand into the pitch.
On his inspection, Connolly was unhappy with small gravel-type stones that were mixed into the sand, and after consulting with his assistants and making a call to the league authorities, postponed the game an hour before kick-off.
No date for the rescheduled fixture has been decided on."

Horribly wrong

2009-04-21T20:15:00.001+01:00

The oasis has shrunk as the sand dunes encroach.
The nomads move on with no word of reproach.
The farmers still struggle to till the dry land
But can’t call a halt to the onrushing sand.

The night has extinguished the clear light of day.
The walls of the temple begin to decay.
The firm fleshy tubers lie blackened and dry
Upon the proud furrows that plead with the sky.

Suddenly all has gone horribly wrong,
Since two weeks ago when the Reds were on song.
The summer rain flees from the drought from the north
And from top position, we’ve now slipped to fourth.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-04-21T20:11:00.001+01:00

Chapter 4 – Of murder and marmalade
.
Even a hardened detective like McBiscuit was so upset at the sight that greeted their eyes in Tolka Park that he could barely finish his third packet of Hunky Dory’s.
From the crossbar at the Ballybough end dangled the lifeless body of a man (“between twenty and ninety” noted McBiscuit carefully), a taut Shels scarf from the Deportivo era wound around his neck. Beneath him lay a puddle of water, drops still cascading off the ends of his trousers. A watering can lay in the vicinity like a nearby watering can. On the penalty spot stood an easel.
McBiscuit glanced at the sheet of paper on the easel. It was a charcoal and pen drawing of the scene, composed of bold strokes that hinted at authority yet captured pithily the pathos of the scene with its undercurrents of social exclusion and otherness.
“What are your thoughts, constable?” said McBiscuit with a sharp intake of breath.
“They mainly revolve around a Swedish air hostess and a jar of marmalade, sir,” responded the constable warily, with a sharp out-take of breath, which McBiscuit in-took quickly.
“Do we know who the dead man is?”
“Yes, sir. He’s the victim.”
The D.I. felt the dead man’s wrist. “I’m sure there was no dead body here at the last home match,” he mused wistfully. “The assistant referee would surely have noticed it when the netting was checked. I therefore deduce that the crime was committed since then.”
“But the watering can, sir?” asked the constable. “And the charcoal and pen drawing of the scene, composed of bold strokes that hint at authority yet capture pithily the pathos of the scene with its undercurrents of social exclusion and otherness?”
McBiscuit stroked his chin. Then he stroked the constable’s chin. He moved to the edge of the penalty area and squatted down, holding his arm out in front of him like an amateur golfer pretending to know what he is doing. Then with a triumphant “Aha!” he whipped the unabridged copy of the Encyclopaedia Hibernica out of his inside pocket and leafed excitedly through volume eighteen.
“Got it!” he yelled, his finger pressed to the page. “The easel. The watering can. This explains everything. Constable, it appears our man here is the first recorded case in four hundred years of somebody who has been hung, drawn and watered.”

The dead man was eventually named as Quasimodo O’Shaughnessy. “Bit late in the day to be naming him,” spat McBiscuit caustically. “That should have been done when he was born. Imagine the poor chap going through life without a name.”
“Quasimodo?” mused the constable. “That name seems to ring a bell.”
McBiscuit strode to the filing cabinet and pulled out a file. Carefully he manicured his finger nails with it.
“Seems he was a bit of a Shels groupie,” he said. “Always hanging around Tolka Park. Bit of a hanger-on. Used to phone up the club and then hang up. Used to hang out in a hangar out in Baldonnell, eating hang sandwiches. I can’t help thinking that somewhere there’s a connection between his lifestyle and the way that he died.”
“I’ve taken statements from everyone at the club as you instructed,” said the constable, whipping out his notebook.
“Anything curious?” answered McBiscuit, sitting up, all ears.
“Well, just one thing,” said the constable, glancing nervously at the vast collection of ears in front of him. “It appears that many people think that peanut butter would spread better than marmalade.”
“I see, constable,” pondered the D.I. doubtfully. “And the case?”
The constable glanced down at the suitcase he was standing on.
“I’m on it, sir,” he announced.

“Another Murder at Tolka!” trumpeted the headline in the Independent. “What is McBiscuit doing?” clarinetted the Irish Daily Mail. “Playboy Sex-Swap Pig Farmer was my Gay Lover!” glockenspieled the Sun.
The newspapers lay on the desk of Commissioner Salami. In front of him, McBiscuit stood in an old shirt and work trousers, having been given a good dressing down. Commissioner Salami scrunched up the newspapers and flung them on the fire. The flames soared.
“You may call me Kildare County. I need results!” he hissed at McBiscuit. “I’m beginning to feel the heat.”
“Yes sir. We are following a definite line of enquiry, sir.”
“And what might that be?”
“We are asking everybody if they committed the murders and watching their eyes carefully, sir.” Suddenly McBiscuit let his suitcase slip but managed to catch it before it hit the ground.
The Commissioner appeared mollified. “Very well. You appear to have the case under control. Carry on.”
As McBiscuit turned to go, the Commissioner added, “And tell your constable that I’m partial to a bit of apricot jam myself.”

Mrs Ingle, please pray tell

2009-04-21T20:03:00.002+01:00

Mrs Ingle, please pray tell
(For my nerves are shot to hell)
Tell me how young Wesley’s doing over there?
Is he pining for his home
Far away o’er sea and foam?
Is he getting any tender loving care?

There were times he seemed so small,
Defenders shrugged him off the ball,
Maternal instincts flared with every foul
And the day he went away
We begged him on our knees to stay,
As his forlorn figure chilled us to the bowel.

Up to Livingstone he went,
Where the poor wee wretch then spent
A lot of time out injured eating porridge.
Then to Blackpool where his skill
Mesmerised the fans until
Money talked and off he went to Norwich.

We had heard that your last coach
Utilised the wrong approach
To get the best from players such as Wes.
But it seems our darling son
Is now on something of a run,
At least that’s what a friend in Wymondham says.

Yes we miss him very much,
Miss that feint and great first touch.
Since he went away we haven’t been the same.
And of course we wish him well
But Mrs. Ingle, please pray tell
Do you think that he will make it in the game?

(The following reply was received by Norwich City poet SB Ingle on the www.footballpoets.org website)

Greeting Pete: Carrow Road: Chez Wes

Hoolahan could be a hero

A fans favourite elsewhere

He's been slow to settle in

But now he's reaching for fifth gear

Wes is only five foot six

We play "little man - little man"

Strike force rubbish aerially

We need a cunning plan

Cureton is five foot eight

Our attack is lacking height

We need a leg-up to climb the league

The bottom rungs in sight!

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-04-06T14:14:00.001+01:00

Chapter 3 – The Murderer Strikes Again

The discovery of the body of football triallist John Clapper beneath the roller at Tolka Park had caused quite a stir at Shelbourne Football Club. This was never more apparent than in the game against Limerick FC, when DI McBiscuit insisted that the murder scene remain cordoned off and the players were told to avoid the ten yard square area of pitch at the Ballybough end.
The receipt of a sick letter from the murderer had given McBiscuit a lead but unfortunately when he followed it up there was a vicious Jack Russell on the other end of it and he had to run into the local Spar to evade its snapping jaws.
Back in the office, the constable patiently explained to McBiscuit that the phrase “being on trial at Shels” did not have criminal implications.
Somewhere over the city, a clock struck ten times.
“I have a feeling he will strike again,” said McBiscuit.
“No, sir,” said the constable, checking his watch. “It’s only ten o’clock.”
“No, the murderer, I mean. I have a definite hunch.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad when you stand in profile, sir,” offered the constable.
McBiscuit suddenly strode over to the fridge, flung open the door and pulled out a battered old suitcase. He felt it carefully. “The case is growing cold, constable,” he announced mournfully.
“Yes, sir. What we really need is another murder, I suppose.”

It was a glorious sunny day as the squad car drove through the town of Athenry, heading westwards.
“Look at the way those free birds are flying,” murmured McBiscuit. “Curious, eh?”
“It’s a result of the prevailing geographical phenomena, sir,” answered the constable. “They’ve no need to fly particularly high because, as you see, the surrounding fields lie very low.”
The journey had begun earlier in the day when, as a result of secret surveillance, several of the major suspects of the murder had been seen to board the same bus in Dublin.
“Maybe they are all in it together?” surmised McBiscuit, as the bus left the Pale. “Did you ever see Murder on the Orient Express?”
“Or maybe it’s the team bus and the players are on their way to Terryland Park to play Mervue United,” replied the constable, a remark which had the DI brooding darkly for an hour or more until he found that brooding lightly was more comfortable.
The constable’s suggestion proved correct and the bus disgorged its plethora of players outside the revamped Terryland. McBiscuit watched them closely as they alighted but was disappointed that none wore the tell-tale signs of a murderer, except perhaps Alan Keely, whose beard immediately marked him out as a person of ill repute.
“Just a moment, driver,” said McBiscuit curtly, flashing his wallet as he ascended the steps.
“Your Dunnes Stores Club card?” replied the driver evenly.
McBiscuit flicked his wallet open again and this time proffered his police badge. The driver shrugged and the two men walked down the bus.
“What are we looking for exactly, sir?” asked the constable.
“Clues, constable, clues!” came the curt rejoinder. “Honestly we’ll never make a detective out of you.”
He stopped suddenly and bent down and picked up a copy of Nuts from the coach floor. “A forestry magazine,” he said, reading the title. He flicked through a few pages. “Good Lord, constable!” he uttered. “What do you make of this?”
Pages six and seven were full of holes as though somebody had cut letters out of the articles in order to compose an anonymous letter.
Before the constable could answer, McBiscuit’s phone rang. He answered it and listened as an excited voice on the other end relayed some urgent information. Then he said “Right!” and thrust his phone back in his pocket.
“What is it, sir?” asked the constable.
“It’s a phone,” explained McBiscuit. “A device for communicating with people who would ordinarily be out of earshot. Come on, back to the car!”
They jumped down from the bus and sprinted over to their car like a police constable and his superior officer.
“Where to, sir?” cried the constable, starting the engine.
“Back to Dublin!” responded the DI. “There’s been another murder!”
Leaning back, he pulled his battered old suitcase off the back shelf, where it had been sitting in the sun. He felt it carefully.
“Do you know, constable,” he said at last. “I do believe this case is hotting up at last.”

Slow start to the season for Ghent?

2009-04-05T14:01:00.001+01:00

Chilling words

2009-04-05T09:33:00.002+01:00

When you plummet from the summit
To the bottom of the hill
And your body’s lying, badly bruised and broken,
There are words, once for the birds,
That send your blood into a chill –
Words you never dreamed you might hear spoken.

“There’s quite a crowd,” you say out loud,
When the numbers reach four figures.
“It’s really great to see a large attendance.”
“Brilliant play!” you’re heard to say
(As the Bohs supporter sniggers)
At three passes you’ll recount to your descendants.

The perspective is subjective,
Things are diff’rent looking up –
The same events but viewed from a new angle.
A single win can now begin
To be “a good run in the Cup.”
The draw to play Dundalk makes nerve-ends jangle.

But last week, ‘twas more oblique.
And they cut me long and deep,
Recurring words that haunt me constantly.
It’s a phrase that doth amaze
And it’s caused me loss of sleep –
“Next week the Big One – versus UCD.”

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-03-24T07:57:00.002Z

Chapter Two – The Murderer Sends a Letter

“Any man that chooses to dress entirely in black has to arouse suspicions,” remarked Detective Inspector McBiscuit to the constable at his side. “I wouldn’t be surprised if his name was Genghis or Grizzly Pete. Find out who he is and tell him I want a word with him.”
“That’s the referee, sir,” replied the constable, who was well up on the ways of football. “I can’t really haul him in for questioning during the match, particularly after Bisto’s goal. We’d have a riot on our hands.”
“The Referee, eh?” said McBiscuit. “Is that some kind of criminal code-name like The Viper or The Squirrel?”
It had been several days since John Clapper’s body had been found beneath the roller at Tolka Park and McBiscuit was no nearer to solving the case. Forensics had examined the pitch with a fine toothcomb and then with a pair of nail scissors and some tweezers. Specially trained sniffer dogs had merely sniffed haughtily and urinated over the roller. The state pathologist had come up with a theory that the victim had been drowned, though McBiscuit suspected she was a pathological liar.
Acting on McBiscuit’s assertion that the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, the D.I. and the constable had taken their places in Row D as the crowd started to come in for the game against Wexford Youths.
“Suspect everyone and suspect no-one,” whispered McBiscuit, as the place started to fill up.
“Erm, what exactly are we looking for, sir?” asked the constable.
“Watch their faces, laddie. Anyone who looks guilty or has a bloodstained shirt.”
Despite scrutinising the crowd, players and match officials intently, McBiscuit admitted at the end of the game that the exercise had been worthless, (“apart from the three points of course, sir.”) As they left the ground, several reporters moved forward and climbed onto the D.I’s brawny shoulders.
“The press are really on my back now,” gasped McBiscuit.

There was another murder committed the following morning but it was only on The Marino Waltz. “It’s no use, constable,” said McBiscuit, laying down his violin and pacing the floor intently.
Keeping out of his superior’s way, the constable paced the ceiling intently and said nothing.
McBiscuit produced a door handle from his trousers pocket and tried to screw it onto his suitcase. After as minute or two he gave up.
“I can’t seem to get a handle on this case at all,” he said forlornly.
Suddenly, the door opened and the postman handed the D.I. a letter.
“What is it, sir?” asked the constable curiously.
“It’s a letter, constable,” answered McBiscuit, eying the other suspiciously. He laid it down on the table. “Open up! This is the police!” he shouted through a megaphone.
After several minutes crouched behind his computer, he straightened up, marched over to the letter and slit it open with a flamboyant swish of the letter knife. Quickly he unfolded it and began to read.
“Good Lord, sir, is that blood?” remarked the constable.
“It is, constable,” answered McBiscuit drily. “I appear to have sliced my thumb off. Kindly call forensics and get someone up here with a needle and thread immediately.”
As the constable reached for the phone, McBiscuit re-read the letter. “You’ll never catch me McBiskit he he he,” he read out loud. “Clapper was a fool and deserved to die. The next one will join him soon.” Beneath the writing was a picture of a packet of Coco Pops with a knife stuck through it.
“Good God, constable. We’re looking for a cereal killer,” he exclaimed. “One with fairly atrocious handwriting too.”
“I think you’ll find he’s cut the letters out of magazines, sir,” replied the constable.
“The fiend!” yelled McBiscuit. “The next person who wants to read it will have terrible trouble. Is there any other clue to this murderous magazine mutilator’s identity.”
“Just one, sir,” said the constable. “He seems to have inadvertently signed his name and address at the bottom.”
“I knew it!” declared the D.I. “They think they’re so clever but they always make one small mistake. Come on, constable. I think we ought to pay this Mister Red Herring a little visit. Let’s go and catch us a murderer.”
“Where to, sir?”
McBiscuit unfolded the letter again. “Number 32, Tony Sheridan Gardens,” he yelled, and promptly passed out through loss of blood.

The Table

2009-03-20T01:45:00.001Z

I once had a bedside table
Which came all the way from Rome.
It was owned by Betty Grable
So I’m told.
And I miss our gate-leg table
That stood proudly in our home,
The one my sister Mabel
Went and sold.

That full-sized snooker table
Was my father’s pride and joy.
It was kept inside the stable
Where we’d play.
And my uncle’s coffee table,
Built when Adam was a boy,
It propped up the Tower of Babel,
So they say.

Yes, my granny’s drop-leaf table
Under which her gin was hid –
It became the stuff of fable
In our school.
And the periodic table
Always stumped me as a kid.
Perhaps that’s why folk label
Me a fool.

My old television table
Which was painted brilliant white –
It would hide the TV cable
And its strands.
But I don’t think I am able
To recall a finer sight
Than the First Division table
As it stands.

Starting off the season with a win

2009-03-20T01:44:00.002Z

Photo by Maurice Frazer (Ringsendred)

It’s not a thing we do with regularity.
In fact, it’s more exception than the norm.
To start the season off with more than parity
Ain’t typical of Shelbourne’s normal form.
In years gone by, we’ve ladled out the charity.
Our first opponents go home with a grin,
So it was a first day peculiarity
To start a brand new season with a win.

Against the Youths, our game showed much diversity.
‘Twas short and sharp, or hoofball o’er the top.
You don’t need to have been to university
To know that’s how to catch teams on the hop.
With spirit we won out against adversity
And took their equaliser on the chin.
And when the whistle blew, through sheer perversity,
We’d started off the season with a win.

A decent start is always a priority,
Though it’s not happened much down through the years.
A few games we have won, but the majority
Of first day matches often end in tears.
And I have been informed on good authority
That this is how a good team should begin.
So thankfully the Reds’ superiority
Has started off the season with a win.

A Tolka Murder Mystery by Christie Agatha

2009-03-01T20:30:00.001Z

Chapter One – Murder by Death
.
The police constable pulled the roller off the flattened figure on the pitch, and Detective Inspector McBiscuit reached down and removed a wallet from the breast pocket.
“Hmm,” he mused, and scratched his nose thoughtfully. When this didn’t work, he scratched the constable’s nose thoughtfully. “John Clapper,” he said. “Clapper? Clapper? That name rings a bell…..”
“On trial with Shels,” volunteered the constable. “Or, rather, he was…”
“Thank you, constable,” remarked McBiscuit. “Are you any relation to the famous landscape artist of the nineteenth century, by the way? Never mind. Now, does anything strike you as remarkable about the body?”
“You mean, apart from the fact that he’s twelve feet long, eight feet wide, but only an eighth of an inch thick, sir?”
“Yes, constable. Look – he was found beneath a roller. Does it not strike you as suspicious that there should be a roller here, on the pitch in Tolka Park?”
“They use it to roll the pitch with, sir,” replied the constable, eying his superior with a puzzled expression
“Exactly, constable. I’m starting to smell a rat.”
“Yes, sir, they come up out of the river, sir.”
“No, no, you misunderstand me, you buffoon. I mean that I am starting to suspect that something may be afoot.”
“That big pink thing there,” pointed the constable. “I think that’s a foot. God, what a mess!”
“Foul play!” continued McBiscuit unperturbed. He removed a packet of walrus flavoured pretzels from the pocket of his trench coat and offered one to the constable. As the latter put out a hand, McBiscuit quickly withdrew the packet and sniggered. “I suspect foul play, constable.”
“At Tolka, sir?” replied the constable. “The season hasn’t even started yet and Longford aren’t due to play here until May 8th.”
“I believe this was the perfect crime,” continued McBiscuit. “What a fiendishly clever place to hide the body! Beneath a roller on a football pitch in the close season. It could have lain here until...until...”
“Friday, sir. Season starts on Friday. Playing Wexford Youths.”
“Really, constable? What’s that stuff I see on television?”
“That’s called the Premier League, sir. Soap operas for men. Doesn’t really exist. Only actors, sir.”
“Is that so?” mused McBiscuit. “I never knew that. Tell forensics to get cracking. I see some footprints all around the body. We are looking for a murderer with very small circular feet.”
“They’re football studs, sir.”
“I knew that,” retorted the D.I. sharply. “A footballer, eh?”
“Yes, sir. Almost as implausible as the roller, what?”
McBiscuit removed the pipe from his mouth. Strangely enough, it was three feet long and made of galvanised steel. He idly wondered why he’d had it in his mouth in the first place. Suddenly, he got down on all fours and began examining something in the grass through a magnifying glass. After about five minutes, he beckoned the constable down beside him.
“What do you think this is?” he asked, handing him the magnifying glass.
“It’s a magnifying glass, sir,” replied the other.
“Thank you, constable,” replied McBiscuit, straightening up. “Just as I suspected. Now, tell me, who found the body?”
“The groundsman, sir. Quasimodo O’Reagan.”
“Quasimodo? Quasimodo? That name rings a bell. Bring him to me. I want to question him.”
As the constable disappeared, McBiscuit paced the touchline with a frown. Then he sent the frown away and paced the touchline with a grin. Finally he tried it with a frown and a grin at the same time.
At length, the constable approached with a wizened old man. “Quasimodo O’Reagan, sir,” he announced.
“No, I’m D.I.McBiscuit, constable. Try and remember that. Who’s this?”
“Er, the groundsman, sir. You wanted to see him.”
“I know that.” McBiscuit then turned to the old man in front of him and opened his notebook. “You are Quasimodo O’Reagan?”
“I know.”
“First name?”
“Yes.”
“So far so good. Now Mr. O’Reagan, can you tell me where exactly you were on the night in question?”
“I can do better than that, officer,” responded the old man. “I wrote it all down for you.” And from a pocket, he produced a crumpled paper handkerchief, covered in writing. “I hadn’t got any proper paper, see,” he added, offering the object to the D.I.
McBiscuit took it and scanned it quickly. Then he held the offending article up. “I put it to you, Mr. O’Reagan,” he announced dramatically. “that this is a tissue of lies.”

Do we want to do it all again?

2009-02-24T14:44:00.002Z

Oh do we want to do it all again
And suffer all the darts that lie in store
As part and parcel of the new campaign?

Oh do we want to risk such dreadful pain
As that we felt ‘pon Lim’rick’s seismic score,
When emptiness was all that did remain?

Oh would it not be wiser to refrain
From hope that leads you glibly to the door
Then slams it shut with cavalier disdain?

Oh must we ever bear the mark of Cain
Occasioned by events three years before
Condemned to linger on this barren plain?

What oracle exists that can explain
Why Tolka’s floodlights should be such a draw
On filthy nights of cold and constant rain?

Oh why should we subsist on this terrain
Where earth is hard and nutrients are poor
And break our backs for very little gain?

Oh is it right for hopeful men to deign
To suffer angst, yet still come back for more
When hope runs out and light begins to wane?

Oh yes.
Can’t wait to do it all again.

New season upon us. Here we go again

Ten days

2008-11-28T20:44:00.003Z

It’s now ten days
And still my mind
Is in a haze.

The wound is raw,
Still not resigned
To that late score.

My cheeks are dry,
But still I’m blind
In either eye.

Could God above
Be so unkind?
The God of love?

Ten days have passed
But still I find
The feelings last.

And tears of rage
Are not confined
To tender age,

For, though I’m old,
You can’t rewind
A bell that’s tolled.

In all my years following football, I don't think I've ever experienced such a low. Thirty seconds from the end of the match and we were going up. Then a late, late Limerick equaliser and Dundalk couldn't believe their luck.

Last match terzanelle

2008-11-08T18:43:00.002Z

The fates have set November’s sky aflame.
Like Lazarus, we’ve risen from the dead
And now it all comes down to this one game.

The night was dark; the hopeful stars had fled
But then we started this unbeaten run.
Like Lazarus, we’ve risen from the dead.

Dark clouds had blotted out the summer sun
For football can be cruel as well as kind,
But then we started this unbeaten run.

But still our season waits to be defined –
A season’s work may hinge on one mistake,
For football can be cruel as well as kind.

And Limerick may get a lucky break!
Who knows what way the fickle fates may turn?
A season’s work may hinge on one mistake.

Above the ground, our aspirations burn.
The fates have set November’s sky aflame.
Who knows what way the fickle fates may turn,
As now it all comes down to this one game?

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-11-08T18:39:00.002Z

Chapter 17.

The trial, Lionel thought, was a complete farce. The barrister’s trousers kept falling down and the judge was mistakenly accused of having an affair with the usher, whose wife made sudden sporadic appearances with a rolling pin and curlers.
The impartial jury of six men, five women and a chipmunk called Marvin, who had been constantly chanting “Hang him! Hang Him!” all during the trial, got their desire when the judge donned his black cap and sentenced Lionel to be hung by the neck until he was dead. Fortunately, the clerk informed him that capital punishment was no longer on the statute books due to health and safety concerns and the sentence was commuted to four weeks imprisonment.
“Four weeks!” yelled Lionel. “That means I’ll miss the end of the season! Can you not let me go now and I’ll serve four weeks after the Limerick game?”
The judge however was adamant, even going so far as to do the silly Prince Charming dance with Diana Dors. Lionel was led off in handcuffs and tears, as the chipmunk pelted him with salted peanuts.
The warders in the Joy proved to be curiously unsympathetic to Lionel’s requests to have access to Shelsweb on Friday nights to keep up to date with Shelbourne’s final few matches of the season. His plaintive appeals of “Don’t you know how important this game against Longford is, you morons?” fell on deaf ears as well as on other parts of the body that were hard of hearing too.
One evening a pigeon landed on the ledge outside Lionel’s cell while he was lying on his bunk, dreaming of the late departed Karen and the alluring way that a big green bogey used to dangle elegantly from her nasal hairs. Lionel had once seen The Birdman of Alcatraz – the film, not the actual birdman – and he recognised the poignant bond that existed between the prisoner and the bird.
“Food!” he yelled, making a grab for it. With a dummy and a feint worthy of Sparky in his heyday, the pigeon hopped further down the ledge. Suddenly Lionel had an idea. If he could tie a message onto the pigeon’s leg, he could get word of how Shels had done against Lokomotiv Fingal.
He ran back to his writing desk and began to write, the pigeon following him curiously and leaning over his shoulder, correcting spelling mistakes. The pen is mightier than the sword, he thought, though it probably wouldn’t be my choice of weapon in a duel.
He wrote to Zug, who was now living in Slovenia with her “Uncle” Reuben. He poured out his heart to her, though the ventricles kept smudging the ink. He told her how he felt about her – thirteen pages of aching words of love that had the pigeon gagging uncontrollably – and then he tied the letter to the bemused pigeon’s leg.
Carrying the bid to the window, he kissed it on the head and threw it gently through the bars, where the weight of the paper caused it to plummet three floors to its death.
The days dragged. Lionel heard on the grapevine that Shels had drawn 0-0 with Hajduk Fingal and he heard on the banana vine that a McAllister penalty had disposed of Waterford. It was all down to the final game of the season! This was the most important game in Shelbourne’s history since the last one and Lionel couldn’t believe he was going to miss it over a trifling little crime like murder.
The day of the match loomed grey and Novembrish and Lionel used the bucket seven times during the day, which irked Crusher McBonehead, his cellmate, to the point of violence.
Only thirty minutes to go, thought Lionel, trying to unwrap his left leg from around his throat. What I need is a miracle.
Suddenly the door flew open and there was Karen, as lovely as he remembered her, her golden hair flowing mellifluously from her ears.
“Karen!” he yelled.
“Yes I know,” she said.
For a moment neither of them spoke. “Lionel, I’m sorry I was so late,” blurted Karen eventually. “When I got swept out to sea, I thought I was a goner but fortunately I got harpooned by a Japanese whaling boat and brought back to Ibaraki. It’s a long walk home and I’ve only just arrived. I’ve told the police everything and they say you’re free to go.”
“Er, yep, sorry about that,” mumbled the police officer in the doorway. “Off you go then.”
Lionel looked at Karen. Karen looked at Lionel. Then they rushed into each other’s arms, embracing long and passionately.
“Oh Karen,” whispered Lionel, coming up for air from between her enormous breasts. “Let us never be apart again. Let us get married and have many children and bring them all down to Tolka…”
“Tolka!” yelled Karen. “Haven’t we a much more important match to attend to first?”
And arm in arm, giggling like a couple of love-struck teenagers, they ran out the door.

The End

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-10-26T09:06:00.002Z

Chapter 16
.
In the interrogation room, the Chief Inspector huffed and puffed in his attempts to batten down the hatches of a large suitcase full of Garda t-shirts and swimwear. Eventually, with the help of a burly PC, he managed to click the locks shut. Turning to Lionel, he snapped his fingers and exclaimed, “The case is closed.”
Lionel felt very alone at that moment, notwithstanding one of Zug’s goats who had agreed to attend the interrogation. “What do you mean?” he stammered.
Sighing, the Chief Inspector went back over to the suitcase. He snapped open the locks and lifted the lid. Then he closed it again. Then he opened it and closed it once more.”You see, it’s an open and closed case,” he said.
“Say nothing,” whispered the goat. “I sense a trap.”
“People have come forward to say that they witnessed an altercation between yourself and Nigel de Havilland Ponsonby Smythe on Richmond Road on the night in question,” said the Chief Inspector. “Mr Smythe has never been seen since.” He slid the suitcase over to the radiator. “This case is hotting up nicely,” he added.
“How many times have I got to tell you?” shouted Lionel, as the goat laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Yes, we had an altercation. But in the middle of it, a rogue satellite crashed back to earth instantly vapourising both Nigel and itself. If Karen was here, she would tell you!”
“Ah yes, Miss Strangely-Buoyant,” responded the Chief Inspector, leafing through his notes. “Tell me again. What exactly became of her?”
“She tripped and fell into the Tolka, never to be seen again,” muttered Lionel, the defiance visibly seeping out of him.
“And three days later you moved your Mongolian mail order bride into the flat and into Karen’s bed?” He produced a sheet of wrapping paper and a roll of sellotape from behind his back and proceeded to parcel up the suitcase. “I’ll soon have this case wrapped up,” he said.
“You’ll never take me alive, copper!” snarled Lionel, which caused the Chief Inspector to furrow his eyebrows and look darkly over at the defendant. Then he strolled over to the suitcase and jumped on top of it. “Be very careful,” he warned, “The Chief Inspector’s on the case.”
Back in their cell, Lionel and the goat continued to pace up and down, though the goat kept tripping over. “Don’t know why they removed my shoelaces,” he said gruffly.
“Maybe we can tie some sheets together to make a rope and escape out the window,” suggested Lionel.
“You already tried that,” said the goat, nodding at the bare bed. “You forgot to tie one end, remember?”
Suddenly the cell-door swung open. “You got a visitor, Snitchie,” said the screw, laughing cruelly. (Due to cutbacks, prison warders had been replaced by pieces of ironmongery) “Oh good,” said Lionel and the screw stopped laughing.
“I have some good news and some bad news,” said Zug, her fingertips pawing the glass pane between them. “The bad news is, my darling, that I never loved you and I only agreed to marry you so that I could rip you off and claim EU citizenship. I have sold your apartment – you’re going to be banged up for 30 years anyway, so you won’t be needing it – and on the proceeds, Reuben and I are going to get married and live in a dacha in Slovenia. The baby was his all along, not yours, and I didn’t put Geogho down on the birth cert– we called him “Robbie Doyle” instead. Grandma has given a statement to the police that she swears she saw you washing blood out of Karen’s clothes before you incinerated them and you’ve been disowned by your entire family who have told the papers they always knew that you would come to no good.”
Lionel gulped visibly. The six inch nail by the wall glanced over at him, truncheon at the ready. “And the good news?” he stammered.
“You beat Wexford Youths 1-0,” answered Zug. “Great diving header from McGill. Still top of the table on goal difference from Dundalk. Longford Away and then Torpedo Fingal at home.”
“Yessssssss!” yelled Lionel at the top of his voice and was immediately hopped on by two raw plugs and a picture hook who proceeded to hammer the bejaysus out of him before dragging him back to the cell.

We need goals

2008-10-26T09:05:00.001Z

We need goals, goals and even more goals,
Kneel down contritely and sell off your souls,
Blow them in, suck them in, summons dark holes,
All we need now is a hatful of goals.

Lets get right at them and knock it around
We look quite a team when its played on the ground
So lets play the football for which we’re renowned,
Pass it and move as we knock it around.

A dead eye for goal we’re relying upon,
Our shooting boots must be the ones that we don,
Don’t be afraid or the chance might be gone,
A dead eye for goal we’re relying upon.

The fans must be vocal and urge them to score,
Not one or two but a dozen or more
Let’s spur them on with a deafening roar
Raise the roof loudly whenever we score.

Certainly we must be firm in defence,
Losing eight-seven does not make much sense
The games left are few and the atmosphere’s tense,
But they say that attack’s the best form of defence.

We need goals, goals and even more goals,
The season’s near over, we all know our roles,
Give us one more of those Tolka Park strolls,
With some goals,
Lots of goals,
A whole netful of goals.

Legend nearly played at Tolka this year?

2008-10-17T14:35:00.002+01:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chrischarles/2008/10/review_of_the_week_5.html

"Never mind the Borats, there was only one story that really caught the eye last week - the news that Morrissey is a Millwall fan.
The sardonic genius/grumpy old git (delete where applicable) has been swanning around LA in a Lions top bearing the legend 'Mobster' - and the famous quiff could be putting in an appearance at the New Den this Saturday when Millwall take on those other shrinking violets, Leeds.
At first glance the lentil-munching, Thatcher-hating, gladioli-wearing pop star and the club whose anthem is "No-one likes us, we don't care" make for strange bedfellows. But then this is the fella who penned tracks called Sweet and Tender Hooligan and that popular ode to Dennis Wise, Bigmouth Strikes Again.
In another startling revelation, Millwall number two Joe Gallen revealed: "Me and Morrissey have been best mates for years and he's always emailing me to see what's going on at the club. He's obsessed with Millwall and its culture." Extraordinary.
Gallen added: "He kept badgering me to ask if he could play 10 minutes in our pre-season friendly against Shelbourne but we couldn't do it. He hasn't been to see a game at the Den yet but he says he is going to try and get over for the Leeds match."

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-10-17T14:31:00.003+01:00

Chapter 15
.
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success, as Georges Pompidou once remarked to Lionel Ritchie. Shels’ demoralising defeat in Oriel Park, followed by the frustrating goalless draw at home to Waaaaterford, seemed to be the last iced bun that broke the camel’s coffin, but subsequent victories against star-studded Kildare County and the Magic Mons breathed new life into Shels’ promotion charge.
For Lionel, the talk of building for next season had been replaced by the need for Shels to beat Athlone and Wexford. He argued constantly with Zug’s Cousin Genghis over whether Bisto should be brought back into the team for the two matches. Lionel’s point of view was that the aforementioned striker’s presence was vital to the team. Cousin Genghis merely drew his hand across his throat and grinned menacingly which, to Lionel, did not constitute a well-reasoned argument delivered in a cogent and lucid manner.
On the Wednesday evening between Claudia Winkelman and Coronation Street, Zug gave birth to a healthy baby boy. “What is it?” called Lionel over the heads of the goats, who had gathered round to watch the birth. “It’s a baby,” snapped Zug’s grandmother. “What were you expecting, a vaccuum cleaner?”
“I think I will call the baby Geogho,” said Zug, cradling the tiny infant in her arms. “Look at his moustache and the little jink he does when he runs up to take a penalty. You are happy with this, Lionel?”
Lionel could not have been happier. He had heard rumours that mail-order brides do not often work out but here was Zug, producing a son for him only six weeks after they had met. He couldn’t wait to teach the child how to execute a perfect slide tackle while unobtrusively kicking his opponent with his trailing leg. He couldn’t wait to bring him to Tolka and show him how to abuse the opposition players. He couldn’t wait to smack him around the head and tell him not to be leaving those magazines where his mother might find them.
Curiously Zug’s Uncle Reuben, who shared a bed with the happy couple, also took a great shine to the baby and insisted on breast-feeding it during the night. However, Zug assured Lionel that this was the custom in her native Mongolia. Also, she suggested, it would be an advantage to put Reuben’s name down on the birth certificate, purely for tax reasons, to which Lionel acceded willingly.
On the Saturday afternoon of the Athlone match, Lionel was preparing to leave when Zug announced she was not feeling well and would prefer to stay in bed. Full of concern, Lionel offered to stay behind with her but she assured him that Uncle Reuben had already volunteered and that she would not want to spoil his enjoyment of the match.
He kissed her tenderly and loaded up the 93 Sunny. Grandmother took the baby in the back with Cousin Genghis while one of the goats sat in the front seat. The other goats, tethered to a piece of washing line, trotted along behind. Glancing up at the bedroom window, he could see Uncle Reuben standing there in his underpants and idly wondered if he had turned the heating up too high that morning.
The procession started off down the M50, the goats paying their way handsomely by bunching up as they passed the toll plaza, thus concealing the number plate from the camera. They turned off onto the N4, with Grandmother softly singing “When Jayo went to Poland” to the baby and Cousin Genghis amusing it by pretending to decapitate it with his scimitar.
They were just about to branch off onto the N5 when Lionel noticed the blue, flashing lights in his rear view mirror. Well, they were actually behind him, not in his mirror, and by the time Lionel realised this, the car had pulled up alongside and the long arm of the law was telling him to pull over. Being a law-abiding citizen, Lionel did so, though the goat in the passenger seat urged him to make a run for it.
“I was only doing 20mph, officer,” said Lionel, puzzled, as a team of marksmen took up position around the car.
The policeman leaned into the car and spoke through a megaphone. “Step out of the car and lie down on the ground with your hands behind your back!” he yelled, waking the baby.
Slowly, Lionel did as he was told, as did Grandmother and the baby and the goats. Only Cousin Genghis defiantly drew a finger across his throat until a bullet in the thigh put an end to his bravado.
Lionel felt the handcuffs click round his wrist.
“Lionel Snitchie,” shouted the officer through the megaphone. “I am arresting you for the murder of Nigel de Havilland Ponsonby Smythe.”

The First Division Championship

2008-10-17T14:30:00.002+01:00

She is slim, she is brash,
She’s beguiling
In her low-cut flamenco red dress.
If you flash her the cash,
She’ll be smiling,
But its no guarantee of success.
And the suitors surround her,
They’re always around her,
They all try to woo her,
She beckons them to her.

She is wild, she likes fun,
She laughs loudly,
As you grasp her cold hand with intent.
Your actions are done
Very proudly,
Yet she’s of a flirtatious bent.
She dances with passion
In amorous fashion,
She twirls you intently,
Then lets you down gently…

The men almost fight
To escort her,
But she’s an incredible tease.
Deep into the night
They exhort her
With plaintive and heartrending pleas.
For everyone knows
At the evening’s close,
With a flick of her head
She will bring one to bed.
And I’m hopeful this time,
She will indicate I’m
The one she’ll hold tight
At the end of the night.

Classy pic

2008-10-12T17:23:00.000+01:00

Pic by Ringsendreds

A Tolka Romance

2008-10-01T00:59:00.001+01:00

Chapter 14
.
Even Tosh Moher, the kindly and affable man that organises the supporters’ buses for Shelbourne away trips, drew the line at livestock. Irish Rail were similarly unimpressed, so Lionel was forced to hire a mini-bus to get himself, Zug (his Mongolian mail-order bride), her extended family and the family’s herd of goats down to Limerick for what was Shels most important game of the season since the last one.
“We win this and we go second,” he explained to Zug. “Then, all we have to do is beat Dundalk away and Waterford at home and Bob’s your uncle.”
“She already has an uncle,” muttered the old man passing behind them, pointing angrily at his own chest. “If this Bob shows up, I will slit his throat.”
“Oh you make it sound so easy, Lionel” sighed Zug, laying her head on Lionel’s chest. “If only it could be this way all the time. We’d soon be back up among the higher echelons of Irish football where we belong.”
Lionel stroked her hair gently. She really was perfect in every way, he thought. His life had really changed for the better that dreadful day three weeks ago when Karen had been swept downstream by a raging River Tolka, never to be seen again.
After the match, as they drove the minibus down to Henry Street Garda Station to collect Zug’s grandmother and the goats, she nuzzled up to him again. “This James Keddy, he is a great player, no?” she asked. “Why are you laughing?”
She slept beside him on the minibus on the long drive home, waking only when Grandmother and Uncle Reuben broke into a particularly rowdy verse of “We’ll keep the red flag flying here.”
As the Dundalk match neared, the tension grew. Grandmother wandered around the apartment muttering “G’wan Shels!” to herself and Cousin Genghis came down with a particularly nasty case of itchy bowel syndrome. Even the goats refused to give milk, though as they were all male, this was probably not too surprising.
“You must believe!” said Zug to Lionel, whenever he got into one of his pessimistic moods. “Have you never listened to Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers? We can do anything we really want to. He is not big in Ireland, no?”
“Darling, I really don’t know how I’d get through this without you,” said Lionel, nibbling her fingers affectionately.
“I wouldn’t do that,” she warned him. “I’ve just been trying to milk the goats.”
The day of the match dawned hot and humid. Well, it was hot and humid in Yemen but in Drumcondra it was overcast and grey. Lionel climbed over Uncle Reuben and the goat on the bathroom floor and put his head under the tap. After about thirty seconds he turned it on.
“We will win Lionel!” called Zug. “I felt the baby kick me three times. In Mongolia that is a sign that we will win 3-0. One for Bisto and two for Forsyth, I think. Believe!”
“You sure?” asked Lionel doubtfully. “Unborn babies can predict football scores? This is a proved medical fact?”
“In my country, yes,” said Zug simply. “In your backward Health Service, who knows?”
Buoyed by this premonition, Lionel’s mood lightened and even the grim discovery that one of the goats had eaten his vinyl copy of “Dancing on the Ceiling” during the night could not stop Lionel grinning. He whistled as the party tore up the M1 in the outside lane at 30kph and waved cheerfully back at all the drivers who waved their fists at him as they overtook on the inside lane.
Grandmother tethered the goats to the railings of the railway station and the party made their way into Oriel Park. “They have funny grass here,” remarked Zug wistfully, as the rain came down in bucketfuls. “No wonder it is so green with all this rain.”
When Dundalk went ahead on the quarter hour mark, Lionel looked quizzically at Zug. “Believe!” she said. “We can still win 3-0.”
When the second blasted past Dean Delaney, she shrugged and went silent. Lionel’s optimism evaporated and the tears ran down his cheeks, down his arms, twice round his midriff and finally streamed down his legs. Alan Keely’s consolation goal near the end set up a grandstand finish but it was not to be.
When the final whistle blew, Lionel just sat there, while Cousin Genghis shouted at the Dundalk fans and drew his finger across his throat. At last he spoke.
“Of all the liars,” he said. Zug blanched visibly. Then she blanched invisibly. Then she blanched in and out of vision.
“Of all the liars,” he repeated, “that there baby of yours is the worst I’ve ever come across. I’ll not believe a word out of its mouth when it’s born.”

The end of our season?

2008-09-20T11:41:00.000+01:00

The optimists tell me I ought to believe,
But after Dundalk, sure, I just want to grieve.
How we’ll get promoted is hard to conceive,
Defying all logical reason.
I’m a mis’rable sod, wear my heart on my sleeve,
And it looks like the end of our season.

The damage was caused in our midseason slump.
It took us too long to get over the hump.
When it started to rain, we could not find the pump,
Though to say so was very near treason.
Our aces were no match ‘gainst Dundalk’s late trump
That effectively finished our season.

To look at the table, they’re too far in front.
That recent defeat means we’re out of the hunt.
Our defence was too porous, our attack was too blunt.
The footballing gods need appeasin’.
Ideas were reduced to the long hopeful punt
And its spelling the end of our season.

And so, as we’ve sown now, we surely shall reap.
Our boat is too flimsy, the water’s too deep.
The hare gives a laugh and the tortoise a cheep,
There’s no word yet that Hell might be freezin’.
Crawley and Giller will not fall asleep
And be caught at the end of the season.

But football, I’m told, is a funny old game.
A horse on the gallop may well pull up lame
The moth can’t give up, he must seek out the flame,
The north wind shows no sign of easin’.
Failure might hurt but it doesn’t bring shame
If we fight till the end of the season.

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-09-02T22:40:00.002+01:00

Part 13
.
Lionel was so upset by the sight of Karen disappearing down the swollen River Tolka like an upturned whale that he could scarcely finish the Snickers bar that he was eating. After going home for a leisurely bath and a meal, he immediately phoned the police, the coastguards, the lifeboat service, Tesco home delivery service and anybody else he could think of. An air-sea search and rescue operation was launched but it unfortunately proved fruitless except for a crate of nectarines discovered near Poolbeg Lighthouse.
The tragic and traumatic circumstances of Karen’s disappearance and almost certain death were slightly assuaged however by Shelbourne’s 5-0 drubbing of Longford Town, a scoreline that renewed hope among the faithful that a serious attempt at the title could be launched. Okay the defence was still as watertight as a colander but sheets had not been renowned for their cleanliness of late and Lionel clutched at every straw that blew his way.
Ten days had passed since Karen’s untimely disappearance and Lionel realised that the time had come to let go. What they had had, had been beautiful, he thought, though not nearly as beautiful as stringing three consecutive “hads” together in a sentence. But everywhere he turned in the small flat reminded him of his one true love.
There was the dirty underwear scattered over the bedroom floor; the wart cream in the fridge; the dentures still grinning madly by the side of the bed; the chicken leg she had playfully discarded down the back of the settee. Like an enduring old composer, the Liszt went on. There was her wooden leg still propped against the wardrobe; the surgical stockings dangling from the lampshade; her underarm hair scattered over the chest of drawers.
Lionel realised he would have to make a clean break. “I’m sorry, darling,” he whispered as he stuffed everything in a large black sack and tiptoed to the skip down the road at two o’clock in the morning. He felt as if he was betraying her memory, as if he was finally cutting the strings and letting her fall over the cliff to be lacerated by the jagged rocks below. The guilt washed over him like a giant wave of chocolate custard and he hesitated before the skip. “Sod it,” he said and threw the sack in.
Without Karen’s personal belongings, the flat somehow felt emptier and Lionel realised in a there’s-a-hole-in-my-bucket sort of way that he would have to fill it up with non-Karen things. He immediately sent away for a Mongolian mail order bride called Zug and was pleasantly surprised when she arrived two days later with her extended family and a herd of goats in tow.
He brought them all up to Morton Stadium on the Friday night to see Shels play Torpedo Fingal. He was delighted that he was able to get all thirty eight of them in on a family ticket for €20, though he had to leave the goats with the police at the gate, as they constituted a potential hazard in case of fire (the goats, that is, not the police)
Zug became animated when the match began and insisted on asking the name of every player who touched the ball. “Hed-der-man,” she would repeat and nodded sagely as she said the name over and over until he passed it. In broken Egyptian, she confided to Lionel that she had followed Shels 2004 European run from her yurt outside Ulan Bator and still couldn’t believe how Jason Byrne’s lob had missed by so much in the game in Á Coruña.
It was an awful game but Zug’s family seemed to enjoy it and her grandmother even initiated a chant of “We are Shels!” near the end of the match. Zug sensed Lionel’s despair at the three points dropped to the team just behind them and rubbed his buttocks frenetically to buck up his spirits. Karen had never done that, he thought, and then he was suddenly racked with guilt again, even though it was a whole fortnight since she had been swept to her doom.
As they walked home through Whitehall, Zug confided to Lionel that she was pregnant and he was the father. Lionel was delighted. All that effort trying to make a baby with Karen and here was Zug carrying his baby only 48 hours after they had met and before they had even slept together.
As he settled down on the bathroom floor between Zug’s Uncle Reuben and one of the goats, Lionel realised he was the luckiest man alive.

Another good chant...

2008-09-02T22:37:00.002+01:00

...sung by Shels fans after the Reds had taken the lead against Dynamo Fingal -

"One -nil to the football club
One-nil..."

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-08-21T20:23:00.002+01:00

Part 12

Once Lionel got the hang of it and didn’t need to consult the diagrams, he found that trying for a baby with Karen was actually quite enjoyable. These were the halcyon days of the summer of 2008 when gales ripped the country apart and flash floods brought back memories of the great Tolka inundation of October 2002, particularly to those who witnessed it and remembered the occasion.
Shels meanwhile found their scoring touch too, banging in six goals in two games against Athlone and Wexford to claw their way back up to third spot in the table. Even the perennial grumblers in Section D were heard to grudgingly admit that there was a touch of optimism in the air, even though “yer man’s no Val Harris,” which was true enough in its own unique way.
Far away in Beijing, a load of drug-fuelled sporty types competed in something called the Olympics, somebody in the news invented a place called South Ossetia to help start up a new cold war and a young man in Santry lost a pencil.
Lionel and Karen were blissfully in love. They snogged in the queue for the butchers and they snogged in the queue for the ATM machine. He put his hand on her backside in the queue for the bus and she, gigglingly, pushed it away, causing a slight dislocation of his elbow. Public Health officials were called in to deal with an epidemic of vomiting as they snogged in the queue at the Social Security office and the lovebirds even found themselves singing along to Boyzone songs whenever a DJ on the radio accidentally played one.
Of course such bliss could not last and from their apartment window, Lionel and Karen lay in bed watching the storm clouds gathering over Tolka. Someone called Dave Rogers was issuing a severe weather warning on behalf of Met Eireann and Lionel’s mind instantly flicked back to the volley against Hajduk Split.
“Ow!!” yelled Karen, nursing her hip gingerly.
“Sorry darling,” said Lionel, retrieving his foot from the rolls of flesh. “I was just remembering those golden days of 2004 when we were heroes.”
“Before you met me, you mean?” bristled Karen and Lionel knew instantly that he had put his foot in it, an image that is best left to the reader’s imagination. A drop of rain hit the window pane.
“It doesn’t mean to say there’s a thunderstorm coming,” advised Lionel, who had experience in such matters. A second drop hit the window. Then a third. Then there was a pause before another drop. Then a fifth and a sixth, though not necessarily in that order.
“There’s a thunderstorm coming,” said Karen matter-of-factly and sat up in bed, fumbling in among the sheets for her bra.
“Where are you going, love?” asked Lionel, idly counting the pimples on her back and suppressing an urge to squeeze a few of them.
“We,” corrected Karen.
“You don’t need to get dressed to go for a wee,” said Lionel, puzzled. Karen fished out what appeared to be a parachute from the bedding and put it on.
“No, darling,” said Karen, “We are going down to Tolka to see if they need a hand. The bar is below road level and subject to flooding, you know.”
As they stepped through the door, the rain bucketed down like buckets of rain. It hit the ground, bounced up six feet and came down a second time. Several ducks floated down the middle of the road, yippee-ing and giving each other high fives. Above, on the main road, a large black dog strapped a triangle on his back and swam around humming the theme tune from “Jaws,” until he was eaten by a shark.
“Come on!” yelled Karen, grabbing Lionel tenderly by the nose and ploughing gamely into the eye of the storm. They sloshed through the flooded streets, the water at times coming above the height of their flip-flops and soaking their feet. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed and Noah’s carpentry stores on the corner appeared to be a hive of activity.
Wading along in Karen’s wake, Lionel wished he was at home in bed again, flag in hand, preparing for another assault on Karen’s unclimbed south side. So deep was his reverie that he failed to see Karen stumble against the kerb and plunge headlong into the River Tolka.
“Karen!” he yelled, but if she answered, it was lost in the drumming of the rain on his head.

The rule book

2008-08-21T20:19:00.002+01:00

The rule book’s writ in black and white
And Ollie, rest his soul, would say
That whether it was wrong or right,
It is imperative to fight
To make sure that the clubs obey.
And if a rule is deemed to be
An ass, as people oft maintain,
Then change the rule if all agree,
But keep the law’s integrity –
Thus Ollie often would explain.
For if a rule’s but half-observed
And not enforced by strength of law,
The game itself is badly served
And leads to madness, death and war.

And thus, when Shels were shown to breach
Financial rules, we’d no defence.
Our relegation sought to teach
The League of Ireland clubs that each
Should monitor their pounds and pence.
But now comes news that sev’ral teams
Are tottering upon the brink.
They’ve over-reached whilst chasing dreams
And wage caps have been breached, it seems,
And caused a large financial stink.
The current quagmire thus expels
An odour of the worst degree –
You cannot have one rule for Shels
While others walk away scot-free.

Cork, Bohs, Galway, Sligo and Cobh all believed to have infringed the same rules that got Shels demoted

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-07-31T20:32:00.001+01:00

Part 11
.
“Lionel?” said Karen.
Lionel looked up in surprise at the mention of his name. Karen usually flicked her fingers in exasperation when called upon to remember it.
“Yes, darling?” he replied, watching her eyebrows arch like some demented viaduct. The uninspiring football being served up between Shelbourne and Dundalk had caused him to glance down at his open programme and he had been reading some unadulterated tosh called “A Tolka Romance,” when Karen spoke.
Karen broke wind nervously. “Lionel,” she repeated and her face reddened. Then it browned, purpled and finally reddened again. There was no other way to say it, she realised. In the end, it all came out in a rush, together with a half a pint of spittle. “Do you think we ought to try for a baby?”
Lionel ducked suddenly as a Hedderman clearance slammed into the stands. “That was a close one,” he remarked jovially as the ball struck Karen square in the nose, splattering it all over her face.
“Go on, lad, show us what you’re made of!” he shouted loudly as the quick throw in was intercepted by the ever-dangerous Georgescu.
Karen wiped the blood and mucus from her face and repeated her question, watching the back of his head closely for a clue to his inner feelings.
When the ball went out of play on the far side of the pitch, Lionel turned and held her giant pudgy hand in both of his. “Sorry darling,” he said. “Something about gravy?”
“A baby,” Karen repeated again, gripping his hand tightly and causing sudden paralysis of his lower arm. “Do you think we ought to try for one?”
“Try for one? What do you mean - try for one?” he asked, clicking his tongue in exasperation as Keddy went down again.
“What do people normally mean when they say they’re going to try for a baby?” asked Karen incredulously. “Buy a raffle ticket for it?”
“Is that how it’s done?” asked Lionel in all seriousness, missing the sarcasm in her voice. “I always wondered. Do you think Bisto’s ever going to score again?”
“Oh forget about Bisto for once, will you!” she snapped and Lionel gasped audibly at the sacrilege. “This is important. This is you and me. Are you seriously telling me you don’t know how babies are made?”
Lionel opened his mouth to speak but Karen pointed a warning finger at him. “Don’t you dare tell me you think Dave Crawley raises his game every time he plays against us,” she threatened, breaking wind again aggressively.
Lionel closed his mouth, an act which probably saved his life. He thought a while. “No,” he said at last. “It never really came up.”
With a lot of finger pointing and with the help of the ring doughnut that she had been saving for the end of the match, Karen painstakingly and graphically explained to Lionel the facts of life. Lionel kept quiet, his face down, only looking up when Dave Freeman seemed for a split second to be in on goal. His face turned green at one point and Karen thought he was going to be sick but he held it in like a man until she had finished.
“I had no idea,” he said eventually. “How bizarre! And you say birds and bees do all that?
“Humans too,” said Karen quickly, afraid he might be missing the point of her spiel.
“Good Lord!” replied Lionel. It was like the relevations to Saul on the Road to Damascus. The pieces all fell into place.
“Well?” asked Karen. He looked at her quizzically.
“Do you think we should try for a baby?”
Lionel stood up suddenly. “He’s not one of the Untouchables of India! He’s only from Dundalk!” he yelled, as the Shels defence backed away. Muttering and shaking his head, he sat down again and turned to Karen. “You want a baby very much, don’t you?” he said tenderly, picking at the matted blood in her hair.
She nodded, not daring to her speak. This was her moment, she realised. His response would either fulfil her spiritually, mentally and physically or else she might as well be as barren as Anto Flood’s current scoring record.
Lionel looked at her and love swept over him like a bath of treacle. He could see the fear in her eyes, the snot hanging precariously down her nose and her beauty wart on her bottom lip. He knew he hadn’t the power to refuse such loveliness but yet... but yet...
Eventually he spoke. “I think,” he said, “that maybe we ought to wait until the end of the match.”
And he was instantly enveloped in a mass of slobbering kisses that Anto Flood would have given his right arm for.

Two paintings

2008-07-31T20:29:00.002+01:00

At two ends of a great hall
Hang two pictures on the wall,
One small in size, the other somewhat bigger.
And in this great museum,
Joseph Public flocks to see ‘em,
The fav’rite, though, is not too hard to figure.

The smaller tells the story
Of a club that’s gained great glory.
Upon the pitch, a player holds high the Cup.
In the stands the fans are singing,
On the terrace, praise is ringing.
It seems this is a team now on the up.

But if you peer more closely,
Look! The chairman stares morosely
At those vultures that are circling overhead.
And regard those bailiffs knocking!
Not a happy scene, but shocking
And one that should be viewed with pure dread.

The larger one, conversely,
Shows defeat inflicted tersely,
The players sink to the turf, their heads in hands.
But although the fans are grumbling,
Those old terraces aren’t crumbling,
And no dandelions are sprouting in the stands.

Mister Keely, the curator,
Tries to talk to each spectator
‘Bout the special merits of the larger painting.
But that Cup is gleaming brightly
And the masses crowd round tightly,
So tight in fact that some of them are fainting.

Yes the team that’s won promotion’s
At the hub of the commotion,
The vultures and the bailiffs notwithstanding.
The curator, feeling slighted,
Claims they must be all short-sighted –
“You should see the bigger picture!” he’s demanding.

Following a poor run in form, criticism has been levelled at the club for playing friendlies in the middle of the season - Millwall, Leeds, Celtic. Dermot's response ids that the critics ought to see the bigger picture

The greening of Millwall

2008-07-31T20:25:00.005+01:00

Oh Millwall, how thy name doth rouse
The passion in the purist’s heart
And raptures those that doth espouse
The beauty of this sporting art.
For though thy name brings forth to mind
Elysian fields of verdant hue,
And dappled brooks that twist and wind
Round hillocks moulded ‘pon the view,
Still I recall a distant time
When athletes played the noble game
For football’s sake, not fleeting fame,
Adored by thousands in their prime.

Upon the walls the names that we know,
Dunphy, Kennedy, Cascarino…

Ah, Dunphy, with his boyish grin
And reticence to get stuck in.
McCarthy, Eamonn’s nemesis
To whom he gave the Judas kiss.
Bold Tony, yet another scribe,
Adept with head and foot and pen,
And Kennedy, who felt the vibe,
Sometimes. Every now and then.
And giant Richard, tall and keen
To whom cruel fate was roundly rotten.
Oh they will never be forgotten
Who painted Cold Blow Lane so green.

Upon the walls the names that we know,
Dunphy, Kennedy, Cascarino…

Last night I dreamt of Paul Reaney

2008-07-31T20:23:00.001+01:00

Last night I dreamt of Paul Reaney,
Still sporting those Boney M locks.
He was driving a red lamborghini
And was wearing an odd pair of socks.

And no, there was no Norman Hunter,
Nor Madeley, nor Charlton, nor Giles.
Just Paul and the Argentine junta,
Who chased the calm fullback for miles.

No Bremner, no Jones and no Cooper,
No Lorimer, Clarke, Sprake or Gray.
Just Reaney the curly-haired trouper
Who kept roving wingers at bay.

How wondrous the intricate workings
That power the cerebral machine!
Perhaps ‘twas that jar of fresh gherkins
That triggered this unlikely scene?

Or maybe ‘twas my fascination
With those who don’t get much acclaim,
Who don’t capture the hearts of the nation
But play a huge part, all the same.

Among the fine jewels assembled,
This quiet undemonstrative gem
Was noted because he resembled
The lad who sang in Boney M.

In my dream, that red lamborghini
Disappeared in the desert’s warm haze,
The same way that thoughts of Paul Reaney
Disappeared in my young adult days.

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-07-06T09:44:00.001+01:00

Part 10
.
It was shortly after Sporting Fingal hit the bar for the second time that Karen made her request.
“Hobnobs and custard?” echoed Lionel. “Where on earth am I going to get Hobnobs and custard at this hour of the night? Clear it down the line, will ya!”
“Of course if its too much trouble...” sighed Karen despondently, picking her nose and examining the contents forlornly.
“No of course not, darling,” whispered Lionel earnestly. “I’ll be right back.”
The girl serving in Burdock’s merely looked at him blankly, causing him to ponder a quick dash to Tesco’s on the Drumcondra Road. Thankfully the sudden appearance of the Hobnobs and Custard man – who had replaced the irreplaceable Rocket Man some time previously – saved him a journey.
“Thank you, darling,” said Karen and she bit his ear playfully in appreciation before wolfing down the contents in one foul swoop and belching loudly.
“No problem darling,” replied Lionel weakly, as the St. Johns Ambulance men tried to staunch the flow of blood.
It was a good match, keeping the fans on the edge of their seats throughout, particularly those who were sitting down. Some poor deluded souls even conceded that perhaps Torpedo Fingal had deserved all three points and Lionel, walking hand in hand with Karen out of the ground whispered that it took all sorts to make a post-match discussion.
“Do you know what I’d like?” said Karen, stroking one of her chins. “A packet of liquorice allsorts. Dipped in chutney. With a banana on top.”
Lionel raised one eyebrow then, exhausted, let it go again. “Tesco’s it is so,” he capitulated and they headed off into the night, like Laurel and two Hardys.
Tosh Travel departed Tolka Park at 2.30 pm the following Friday for the trip down to Waterford. As they boarded the coach, Lionel took Karen’s handbag as four burly supporters put their shoulder to her backside to force her through the door.
“Good Lord, what do you have in here, darling?” asked Lionel, rupturing a muscle in his back as he heaved it down the aisle to a vacant seat.
“Just a little snack,” she panted as a sudden exertion from the four men catapulted her onto the cowering driver.
Full of curiosity, Lionel snapped open the padlock and peered inside. There was a packet of crunchy nut cornflakes, three tins of semolina, a half pound of sausages, a packet of wagon wheels (not the confectionery – actual wagon wheels), a bowl of mashed potato and broccoli, a quart of red lemonade and a tube of toothpaste. And that was just in the side compartment.
“In case I feel peckish,” snapped a red-faced Karen, sitting down heavily in the two seats across the aisle and snatching the bag from his grasp, pausing only to wolf down three packets of Hunky Dorys and an olive and marmite sandwich. Hurriedly, Lionel tried to change the subject.
“What do you think of our chances tonight, love?” he asked. “Isn’t it great to have Bisto back?”
“Bisto??” she yelled incredulously and smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand.
During the game, Lionel tried to resist any references to feeding the forward line, nutmegs or Max Cream. He refrained from calling either of the own goals a cracker and he didn’t accuse the Waterford full-back of “making a meal of it” when he was accidentally scythed down. Bringing Sparky on might prove more profitable, he stated at one point, changing the adjective from “fruitful” at the last minute. He chose his words carefully when Chambers got sandwiched in the middle of the park and he made no reference whatsoever to Bisto or his poaching abilities.
On the bus home, Karen finished off the last of her Werther’s originals and cleared her throat, sending bits of caramel flying in all directions. “Lionel,” she said softly. He didn’t stir, tired after a hard day’s travelling and avoiding food metaphors.
“Lionel darling,” she whispered again, smacking him forcefully across the temple with her now empty handbag. Lionel snapped awake in an instant.
“Darling,” Karen said. “You know I’ve had these strange cravings for weird combinations of food recently?”
Lionel felt his heart simultaneously sink and leap. Could it be? He didn’t dare enunciate the words. “It isn’t because...because...” he stammered.
She looked at him and grinned. “Yes,” she said. “Its because I’m a greedy cow.”

Summer football at the RSC

2008-07-06T09:41:00.001+01:00

The fans gazed around
The rain-spattered ground,
Unable to fathom the mystery.
In their years watching ball,
None could ever recall
Quite anything like it in history.

The God of the Wind
Blew his cheeks out and grinned,
As the ball swirled about with great revelry.
And the God of the Rain
Sang a lusty refrain,
Which many ascribed to sheer devilry.

“So what?” you might say,
“Just an ordin’ry day.
Our summer’s are often quite scuttery.
Full of rain, wind and sleet
And to make it complete,
The surface turns greasy and buttery.”

But this was not why
Faces turned to the sky,
Amazed at the unforeseen frippery,
For great numbered balls
Bounced down ‘mongst the squalls
As conditions got even more slippery.

Bright coloured and gay,
They broke up the play,
Like a bull in a shop full of pottery.
No it doesn’t make sense
But these lurid events
Had turned the match into a lottery.

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-06-23T16:18:00.001+01:00

Part 9

Reunited, and it feels so good, warbled legendary singing duo Peaches and Herb over the tannoy and, as Lionel and Karen’s relationship blossomed, it seemed that the only thing that could spoil the party was a downturn in fortune for Shels. Lionel had won her heart – and the other 22 stone of her – but since that balmy evening when Wexford Youths had been despatched to the corner of the classroom, the team had experienced a wobble not seen since Karen had dashed down the New Stand at half time to get to Burdocks before the crowd.
The mauling at home in the Cup by Dundalk had been an aberration, Karen said, as she nibbled his ear at the end of the match, leaving it like a shredded beefburger. Besides, she continued, the Cup was only a distraction. “Would you rather make love to me once on a white beach in Mauritius or regularly in my flat in Fairview?” she asked by way of an analogy and Lionel agreed that the latter was entirely preferable, as she might be mistaken for a beached whale in the Indian Ocean.
The break came. Not between Lionel and Karen whose love was as strong as that of Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslett in “Titanic,” but in the League season. Lionel spent the evenings in Karen’s apartment and they made glorious love on the floor all during the group stages of Euro 2008, pausing only to urge on their respective teams to further efforts.
Lionel had gone for the Croats because, as he explained, it was hard not to feel a great warmth towards them for their mauling of England in the qualifying stages. Karen had adopted the Italians because she “liked their food.”
One night, after debating van Nistlerooy’s offside goal for nearly an hour, Karen rolled on top of Lionel and said, with deadly seriousness, “I think we should get married.”
Lionel said nothing. It was as though the thought had struck him dumb and that he was grappling with his thoughts and emotions. Karen searched his face for the answer, even checking behind his ears, but Lionel made no reply. It was only by his frantic gestures towards his throat that Karen realised the problem and rolled back off him.
“Oh darling,” he gasped at last, as Eamonn explained how it was possible for a player lying four yards off the field to play the Dutch striker onside. “Do you think we can really make it together in this harsh and cruel world that we live in? What if Shels go on a losing streak and Dundalk surge past us, holding their thumbs to their noses and shouting “Na, na, na-na na?” Can our love survive the pain of losing out on promotion?”
Karen placed a tender finger on his lips, chipping a tooth. “If Bisto should get transferred back to Rovers during the transfer window,” she said. “If Roddy Collins should take over from Dermo and signs Robbie Doyle and Trevor Molloy. If Shels get demoted to the AUL and leave Tolka and ground share with St. Francis. If Shels become a feeder club for Bohs,” – here Lionel turned away and was violently sick into a discarded fried rice container – “If all of these things happen, will you still follow them?”
As Liam explained to a confused Bill that Pirlo had not technically left the field of play with the referee’s permission and was therefore lying on the touchline, playing everybody onside, Lionel could feel the tears welling up in his eyes and, curiously, in his nose. “That’s the most beautiful speech I have ever heard, since Gerry Collins made an impassioned plea for reform of agricultural policy in the Daíl twenty years ago,” he said. “Darling, do you think it can really work? You and me, alone in this mad, mad world? Just the two of us, building castles in the sky?”
Her lips sought his. They roamed over the settee and across the Chinese rug until at last they found them on his face just below his nose. As John explained that Don Revie had always said that the offside law should be dictated by common sense, they locked in a deep embrace. Lionel could feel his life force slowly ebbing away as he melted into a liquid world of warmth and contentment. What adventures lay ahead, he wondered, as he slipped slowly into unconsciousness?
What indeed?

Just a little wobble

2008-06-23T16:15:00.001+01:00

Before the break we seemed to take
Each game with such conviction.
“We’ll win by four,” “A cricket score,”
Was often the prediction.
Then came the Cup, we messed it up,
The ball began to bobble.
Was this malaise a passing phase,
A temporary wobble?

Going down to Longford Town
Has altered our perspective.
Things aren’t as sweet since that defeat –
It’s made us more reflective.
Our surging run, once full of fun,
Has turned into a hobble.
Oh, has our dream run out of steam,
Or is this just a wobble?

Those two losses ran across us,
Striking without warning.
Unprepared, we’re now quite scared
We might end up in mourning.
To lose again would inflict pain,
Cause team and fans to squabble.
Oh will we start to fall apart?
Or is this just a wobble?

So we, as fans, must make our plans
To roar the team to glory.
No more slips or little blips
Must mar this rampant story.
A good win then, ‘gainst Bucko’s men,
Is what we need to cobble,
To fan the flames and show those games
Were just a little wobble.

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-06-23T16:14:00.002+01:00

Part 8
.
All the way home from Lissywoolen, Lionel and Karen talked about revitalising their relationship, the concept of true, unselfish love and whether Philly Hughes would ever be fully fit. Lionel could scarcely believe his luck. He thought he had lost Karen forever, though at 22 stone, she was not a girl who you could lose easily. Yet here she was sitting demurely in the passenger seat, the rolls of fat from her thighs making the gear stick difficult to move.
The smell of her aftershave mingled with her underarm sweat and Lionel had to pinch himself to make sure he hadn’t died and gone to heaven. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl puts boy in a neck-brace, boy finds girl – it was the classic love story.
In his minds eye, Lionel could see himself and Karen queuing up outside Tolka with lots of little Lionels and Karens, waiting to go in and see Real Madrid getting thumped in the quarter final of the Champions League. He could see them living happily in a whitewashed cottage with pictures of all the Shelbourne greats – Gannon, Sheridan, Trebble – adorning the walls.
For her part, Karen admitted that putting Lionel in hospital had caused her many minutes of anguish. If only he could find it in his heart, or even in his pancreas, to forgive her, she knew that they could start to build a relationship that could stand the test of time. Impulsively, Lionel leant over and kissed her tenderly on the cheek and the magical moment only came to an end when Karen screamed “Watch out!” and grabbed the steering wheel forcefully from his grasp.
They arranged to meet the following week at the Wexford Youths game and all through the week, Lionel could hardly contain his excitement. He was so nervous that three times he put his fork through his cheek at mealtimes and got seriously wet when he tried to take a short cut home over the canal on his way home from the chicken factory.
It seemed to Lionel that Friday would never come. He tried crossing the days off two at a time on the calendar but that didn’t work. He had butterflies in his stomach and a ferret in his bowels, excitedly anticipating Friday. Every tree with low hanging branches that he passed he would jump up and head the leaves until somebody fired a warning shot at him.
Love, as Annie Lennox had once told him, is a stranger in an open car, though Pat Benataur had argued that it was a battlefield. Foreigner, remembered Lionel, just wanted to know what it is and John Lennon said it was all you need. According to John Paul Young it is in the air anytime he looks around, though Lionel found scant evidence of this.
Whatever that many splendour’d thing actually was, Lionel knew he felt it as Karen eased herself into two bucket seats beside him and squeezed his hand tightly, fracturing two fingers. All that is needed now was three points, he thought, and I know my life is complete.
Shelbourne pressed hard and Lionel’s hand wandered towards Karen’s thigh like a distracted crab. Problem was, once there, he didn’t know what to do next and played incey-wincey-spider up and down her leg until she told him to cut it out.
Bisto went close, Freeman went close but Wexford Youths belied their tender years and held firm against wave after wave of red pressure. Lionel slid his arm around Karen’s shoulder but could only reach halfway across her back and withdrew it when he found he had nothing to hang on to. Yells for a penalty went ignored and Lionel nibbled Karen’s fingertips until she reminded him where they had been recently.
Scoreless at half time, Lionel could feel the old frustration welling in his loins. One point wouldn’t be good enough to leapfrog Dundalk who had clawed their way passed Lokomotiv Fingal the night before. He hoped Dermot’s team talk would be an encouraging one, accentuating the positive and garnering hope.
Shels continued to press in the second half and Lionel resumed his explanation of Karen’s anatomy. Bisto went close again and Lionel stroked Karen’s cheek and she bit his hand. The Wexford keeper fumbled but the ball was cleared and Lionel, in Section D, sympathised with him. And then it happened!
A cross ball and Bisto was in the clear to stroke the ball home. The place erupted, with rivulets of molten lava flowing down from the back of the stand. Celine Dion in a nearby stadium, paused in the middle of “My heart will go on,” to declare to an ecstatic crowd that “I guess Shels must have scored.”
And Lionel and Karen, locked in a passionate embrace that nearly asphyxiated the former, entwined in a love clench that would have left Bob Marley in no doubt, celebrated the goal in the best way possible.

Superstitious Cedric

2008-06-23T16:08:00.003+01:00

Managers in general are quite blunt and down to earth,
But Cedric, the exception, had been spiritual from birth.
He didn’t have that nous that made, say Fidel Castro logical,
But rather he was driven by events more astrological.

He consulted every horoscope before he made decisions,
His matchday routine was a constant stream of superstitions.
He always wore his lucky rabbit’s foot, through force of habit,
[Lucky, maybe, for himself, but hardly for the rabbit.]

One time, when things weren’t going well, he sought a fortune teller,
With great big bushy eyebrows, like a female Uri Geller.
He sat down in her kitchen and he crossed her palm with gold,
For nothing rhymes with “silver,” or so I have been told.

She took his mutton hand in hers, examining the lines,
Which told, she said, a lot regarding discipline and fines.
And then she got the tarot cards and shuffled them up well,
Imparting that their title charge would soon be shot to hell.

And then they had a séance and they held hands round the table,
When suddenly appeared the ghost of Cedric’s Auntie Mabel.
They asked about the tactics that his charges should adopt,
But Mabel burst out crying and the apparition stopped.

Mrs. Fortune-Teller then brewed up a cup of tea,
And offered it to Cedric, who did sip it gratefully.
“No, no, you ass!” she scolded him, “Just swirl the cup around.
Throw out the tea, the leaves will form a pattern most profound.”

Sheepishly, the manager did just as he was bade,
And placed the cup upon the table, terribly afraid,
When suddenly her cat jumped up, and with a wayward paw,
It smashed the cup to smithereens upon the linoed floor.

Tea-leaves, tea-leaves everywhere, and not a drop of drink.
The fortune-teller whispered it was worse than she dared think.
“What does it mean?” poor Cedric wailed, not daring to look up.
“Obvious,” she muttered. “You’ll get knocked out of the Cup.”

Another photo

2008-05-26T18:22:00.003+01:00

Found this photo in "My Computer" on, well, my computer. Have no recollection of downloading it!

From Shelsweb

2008-05-26T17:53:00.002+01:00

"My favourite moment of the game was when the players for both sides spontaneously decided to play out an interpretive dance routine." - Comment and pic by Pizzapie

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-05-26T17:18:00.001+01:00

Part 7

Spring arrived at last in Ireland. The sun came out, admitting in a live TV interview that it had always had feelings for Alpha Centauri, starlings hurriedly completed snag lists for their nests and Shelbourne surged up the table like testosterone rising in a buck rabbit just emerging from four years in Glenstal Abbey.
A veritable goalscoring fest from Freeman, O’Brien, Dunne, Hedderman and Brennan saw the Mighty Reds reach the pinnacle of the First Division in the middle of May as Dundalk struggled with altitude sickness at Camp V, yet Lionel was a troubled man. Amid the euphoria that greeted every goal, he knew that his life was incomplete, as if there was a piece of the jigsaw missing and somebody had hidden it for a laugh. As the great Irish composer Stephen Gateley once said, “Have you tried looking under the settee?”
Of course he knew the reason for his malaise. Karen. The love of his life, the girl of his dreams, twenty one stone of pure woman. He had gone to the Kildare game, hoping to bump into her – not literally of course, as that might have resulted in serious injury – and explain his feelings. He was sure she would understand, providing he spoke in English. But, although he lay in wait by Burdock’s for most of the game, her ample frame was nowhere to be seen.
At the Tuesday night game against Monaghan, he circumnavigated the ground three times before admitting that she wasn’t there. She had always joked that hide-and-go-seek hadn’t been her forte at school, laughing jocosely that many of the other kids had used her as a hiding place. And Lionel knew well that she was no Wally, blending effortlessly into the background like Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora.
On the coach down to Lissywoolen, Lionel brooded over Dundalk’s sneaky Friday night attack on the summit, pushing Shels back down the slope and robbing their chocolate. And he brooded over Karen. He knew she hadn’t gone by Tosh Travel since that embarrassing incident with the coach doors on the way back from Wexford but neither had he heard any mention from AA Roadwatch that a large load was moving slowly down the M5 and that motorists were being advised to continue on the N4 to Edgeworthstown before cutting back.
“Let me tell you ‘bout the way she looked, the way she’d act and the colour of her hair,” he remarked to the bearded guy in the seat next to him, and from Kilbeggan to Moate he poured his heart out to a complete stranger, stopping only when the latter pulled out his earphones and said “Wha’?”
She wasn’t in Athlone at all. Lionel knew this by the absence of a large shadow across the playing surface. He tried to concentrate on the football, marvelling how Sparky, now in his early eighties, still managed to cover every blade of grass on the pitch, except perhaps seven of them near the far corner flag. He roared with the sizable travelling contigent as the net bulged for the opening goal and watched Shels slowly inch back up to the summit, panting at every step.
It was a game of two halves but Nigel only remembered this as he got back onto the dual carriageway. Cursing his forgetfulness he returned to the ground to watch Shels playing into the teeth of a hurricane like Captain Birds Eye lashed to the mast for the second half. The minutes dragged by, limping heavily and with their noses in a sling. The tension was unbearable. Deano looked vulnerable. The normally watertight back four were springing leaks everywhere and there was no Carl van der Velden to stick his fingers in the dyke.
But then it was all over and Shels were back on top and it was Dundalk’s turn to camp on the windy ledge high above the sheer cliff face and hope they didn’t roll over in their sleep. For a moment, Nigel forgot Karen. The relief of victory washed over him like relief washing over somebody and he exited the ground whistling “There’s a whole lotta loving going on in my heart,” by The New Seekers.
And then he stopped dead in his tracks.
Karen.
She was there, leaning lightly against his passenger door, which had buckled alarmingly under the pressure. Panting, as if she had run all the way from St. Mel’s Park, and with rivulets of sweat flowing copiously from her armpits, she idly squeezed the pimples on her chin as she waited for him.

I’m Tosh. Fly me.

2008-05-25T09:39:00.001+01:00

Oh Iarnrod Eireann is known through the land,
An option when distances have to be spanned
From the wastelands of Cobh up to bustling Mayo,
But they won’t bring you where the damn train tracks won’t go.

Bus Eireann is great when you’re out in the sticks,
In need of a sharp agricultural fix.
Their tentacles reach out from Malin to Schull,
But the driver won’t stop if your bladder is full.

Oh back in the past, there were times when I drove
Through Cashel and Mallow and on down to Cobh,
But on the road home, I’d regard with dismay
The welcoming pubs that I’d pass on the way.

Oh sometimes I dream of a twenty foot chopper,
Although my wife says this is highly improper.
Away trips to Lim’rick would be quite sublime –
We’d be back up in Dublin before closing time.

Some folk see an offer and hurriedly book it,
Queue up at the station or else Thomas Cook it,
But whenever the Reds have a match out of town,
There’s only one way for the fans to go down.

Tosh Travel! Tosh Travel The ideal approach,
Discovering Ireland by luxury coach.
The craic and the humour have won much acclaim
And sometimes you’ll get there in time for the game.

Oh Tosh is a rare and a wonderful breed,
He knows every hedge that could do with a feed.
Like a wandering minstrel, he’s criss-crossed the land
And knows every route like the back of his hand.

He’s been hiring coaches since 1915,
Is acquainted with every small pub and shebeen.
The young and the old, the deprived and the posh
Are assured of a welcome when travelling with Tosh.

For the love of Bisto

2008-05-18T17:46:00.001+01:00

I thought he didn’t care for me,
I thought my love was just a one-way ride,
For though I’ve watched him lovingly,
The gulf between us always was too wide.
I’ve yearned his body from afar
And marvelled at his rising star,
And got down on my knees and begged the Lord,
And when Bisto ran into my arms
And held me tight in deep embrace,
I knew right then and there that I had scored.

‘Twas only a long punt from Dean,
Defender should have knocked it out the ground.
The header down was quite pristine,
But fortunate my gangly love was found.
He nipped in quick around the back,
So damned incisive in attack,
His narrow-angled shot brought its reward.
And when Bisto ran into my arms
And held me tight in deep embrace,
I knew right then and there that I had scored.

I’ve played it back a thousandfold,
His joyous run to me with arms outstretched.
The way he ran to me to hold –
Upon my mind the imprint’s ever etched.
My rivals all bitch constantly
About the way he ran to me
And showed me where the grapes of joy are stored,
For when Bisto ran into my arms
And held me tight in deep embrace,
I knew right then and there that I had scored.

Since first we lovingly embraced,
There’s never been a setting of the sun.
So now I will make sure I’m placed
At that one point to where I know he’ll run.
I’ll cheer him on in snow and rain
And pray that he will score again,
And run to this one spot where he’s adored,
For when Bisto runs into my arms
And holds me tight in deep embrace,
I know right then and there that I have scored.

From Shelsweb - "So there i am, hanging over the wall, arms outstreched, screaming at the top of my lungs after Bisto has just scored his first and Shels second, when who comes sprinting over and straight into my arms but Bisto himself. He nearly knocked me out as he never even slowed down." - Anto (legendary Shels fan)

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-05-11T20:36:00.004+01:00

Chapter 6
.
Lionel discharged himself from the Mater Hospital still suffering from amnesia, although he was sure in his mind that this was a type of rice pudding. Trouble was, he couldn’t remember. Neither could he remember his name or his address or how he had landed in hospital in the first place. The only clue to his former existence was a red and white scarf with the name ‘Shelbourne’ emblazoned across it.
He hailed a cab. “The Shelbourne,” he said peremptorily and the taxi sped off down Eccles Street, leaving Lionel on the pavement.
He reached the end of the road on foot and tossed a coin. He caught it in his left hand so he turned left down Dorset Street heading in the direction of Drumcondra. Somewhere Sandie Shaw was singing “Always Something there to Remind me,” though Lionel suspected it was only a recording. Strange how he could not remember his own name but he was still sharply focussed on barefooted singing stars of the sixties.
On and on he walked as the yellow sun slipped slowly down behind a bunch of poplars and then shot back up again, as though stung on the backside. He passed Fagan’s. “Spare the price of a pint of Bass, pal?” an old man accosted him. Lionel thought he looked familiar and stopped. “What is Shelbourne, old man?” he asked. The man looked quizzically at him and scuttled away, the cord of his deep-pocketed anorak trailing the ground.
He reached the corner of Richmond Road and tossed another coin, though it might have been the same one as before. This time he caught it in his right hand, so he turned right, down the row of red-bricked terraced houses. Somewhere, Andrea Corr was singing “Forgiven, not forgotten,” though as she was up in Dundalk, Lionel couldn’t hear her.
As he walked down the street, Lionel’s brow furrowed. Then his elbow furrowed and the little dinge below his ankle followed suit. He came to a large red double gate upon which someone had scrawled the name “Quasimodo.” That rings a bell, thought Lionel and approached with trepidation. Remember, he urged himself. I must remember! Damn this rice pudding.
The gate was locked and the turnstile beside it was fairly well on itself. He pressed his fingers against the metal sheen, willing his memory to return. Somewhere Elvis Costello was singing “Remember you’re a Womble” but Lionel instinctively knew that the bespectacled crooner could not be trusted. Suddenly the sky seemed to turn black and a large shadow squashed him against the gate. With difficulty he turned around and there facing him was a familiar figure.
“Karen,” he whispered, and his memory came rushing back like a memory rushing back from somewhere. “Karen, you look lovelier than ever. Darling, I’m sorry for whatever I did. It was wrong of me and I know it. I’ve been a damned fool. Can you ever forgive me, darling? Can you? Can you?”
The burly policeman stroked his ginger moustache carefully and considered Lionel with a detached air. Years of psychological training led him instinctively to mark Lionel down as a nutter. Somewhere Patsy Cline was singing “Crazy,” though Lionel was sure she was dead.
“Yes of course I forgive you,” said the policeman and the couple embraced warmly. “However,” he said, disentangling himself, “I fear you may be confusing me with somebody else. This Karen. Can you describe her for me?”
With a tear in his eye, Lionel described the angel that was Karen while the policeman dutifully jotted down the particulars, interrupting only to enquire if “moustache” had an “o” in it or not. “She sounds quite something,” he said, when Lionel had finished. “I knew a girl with a flatulence problem once. She really blew me away. Well,” he said, laying a kind and compassionate hand on Lionel’s shoulder and an evil and spiteful hand on his head. (Lionel idly wondered how two hands could have completely different personalities.) “I hope you find her.” He turned and walked away, whistling a sad, melancholy air, that sounded like “Mama we’re all crazee now,” by Slade.
I’ll find her, vowed Lionel under his breath. I was her. She was me. We were one. We were free. If there’s somebody calling me on, she’s the one. He glanced up at a poster adorning the wall of the turnstile. “Next match – Shelbourne vs Kildare County. Friday May 16th,” it said.
“Good lord!” said Lionel. “A talking poster.”

Idle chat in the workplace

2008-05-11T20:31:00.002+01:00

Normally, I think of a witty riposte about a day and a half too late and the moment is lost but for once on Friday, it came to me. I had been waxing lyrical about Shels v Dundalk when a Liverpool supporter asked me which English team I supported. Normally I just give them a withering stare and say, "I'm Irish - why would I be supporting an English team?" but this time I was quick.
"That's like asking which is my favourite member of the Royal family," I said, which drew a fair bit of laughter.

Dundalk 1 Shelbourne 3

2008-05-11T20:28:00.002+01:00

Sometimes but only very rare,
There comes a match that sparks a fire,
A match that crackles in cold air
And fans the flames that breed desire,
Exploding in sulphuric glare
That blinds the darkness of despair.

And, when it comes, it’s unexpected,
A lightning bolt quite unforeseen,
A thunderclap by Zeus projected
Through the evening’s balmy sheen,
With unerring aim directed,
Leaving no-one unaffected.

A very early goal conceded.
Eyes awash and teeth clenched tight.
Then as hope like waves receded
Came the flash of blinding light.
Life’s true course trailed off unheeded.
Believe! the banner said, and we did.

Dundalk, pounded and defeated,
Trooped away in deep dismay.
The vicious battering just meted
Clouded o’er their glorious day.
As their title hopes retreated,
Shels grinned wide, the rout completed.

Banner of the Season

2008-05-11T20:26:00.001+01:00

"B.D. Girls - Always Ultra"

at the Dundalk v Shels match

A Tolka Romance by Bill Zunmoon

2008-04-26T12:07:00.002+01:00

Chapter 5
.
She looks the part of the grieving widow anyway, thought Lionel, as Karen pushed her way through the turnstiles in a long, flowing black dress and a dark veil that covered the bacterial playground that was her face.
Lionel watched her rotund figure wobble by on her way to the New Stand and grinned. If there’s a smile on my face, he thought, it’s only there to fool the public. Inside his heart was broken, aching for the girl he had loved and lost, a girl who had eyed him nervously ever since his love-rival Nigel had been mysteriously vapourised by an obsolete rogue space satellite.
Don’t go breaking my heart, he whispered, as she ascended the stone steps, the force of her footsteps causing the whole stand to sway precariously. He yearned for her to turn around and tell him that she couldn’t, if she tried, but instead she grabbed a large bearded man by the testicles by way of a friendly greeting.
Lionel dipped another chip into his tomato sauce and rammed it with his ferocity up his nose. Damn this hand-eye coordination thingy, he thought, retrieving it slowly.

Bisto scored twice, one early, one late, to secure a valuable victory over Waterford United, thus catapulting Shels into second place in the table. He had celebrated the goals with the rest of the Section D faithful but he could not help glancing over to the large black-clad figure in the New Stand twirling her red scarf around her head like a demented helicopter.
In the period between the goals he had listened morosely as the oul’ lads kept telling number eight to play it down the wing, young feller, and do you remember Ben Hannigan in that game against Cork Hibs?
Dermot had been his usual erudite self in the dugout, eloquently relaying his tactical reading of the game to his players with a richness of language that would have had Damien Richardson scurrying in dismay for the dictionary.
The three massive points certainly put hope in Lionel’s heart but he still walked alone and it was in this solitary mode that he intercepted Karen as she demurely made her way through the crowd at the end of the match like a battering ram.
She saw him coming through the crowd towards her like a salmon swimming upstream and stopped. He halted too about a yard from her. “Somebody get that bleedin’ crane out of the way!” yelled a voice behind her.
“Karen,” he said. It was more a statement of recognition than anything for her name had burned a swathe across his heart since the pre-season games in Cabra.
“Laurence,” she said simply.
“Lionel,” he corrected her. “Karen, do you think that...do you think we could ever regain what we once had?”
She furrowed her brow. “Sausage and chips?” she guessed.
“No Karen, our love. We had a love that was true and kind and good and ... and ... and true. Do you think we can ever regain that?”
“Oh Laurence,” she whispered, and her stomach trembled like a deep Atlantic swell. “Maybe someday. In a future that’s bright and happy and ... bright. But right now, I need some space.”
“Of course you do darling,” said Lionel, stepping back two yards. “You’re a big fat girl. You take all the space that you want.”

When he awoke in the Mater Hospital, Lionel couldn’t remember a thing. The wire through his jaw and the bandage on the place where his left ear had once been led him to suspect that he had suffered some kind of impact injury. He didn’t know who he was, or where he lived, or indeed the name of the footballing franchise that had recently been created in the artificially created “county” in Dublin’s northern hinterland.
Dr. Lobotomee told him that his memory would probably return slowly and in small chunks, but, when the esteemed surgeon ran away trying to stifle a fit of giggling, Lionel knew that he would have to try and piece his life back together himself. The only starting point he had was a red scarf with the word Shelbourne emblazoned across it.
What was Shelbourne, thought Lionel, as he sipped his dinner through a straw?
What, indeed?