Sporting Fingal
I’ve been asked so many times, what is the reason behind starting ‘Forgotten Clubs’? There are a few answers to that question. My love of football is one. The love of football history is another. But the catalyst to creating this site, and going through all of these clubs is one born a few years ago. Yes, I had been to League of Ireland games before. Naturally to the two clubs and ground that were closest to where I live, near Dublin Airport. Shelbourne at Tolka Park and Bohemians FC at Dalymount, but neither really felt like home. It wasn’t until 2007, that my area, had finally gotten another football club. Yes, the area of Fingal had previously played host to clubs like Dublin City, but there was never really a connection in my town, Swords, to that club. This club, well it was born out of Swords really. This story is a bit of a personal one, so I apologise if It seems like I am just talking about my own adventures, but I was there for most of it, but trust me I will also give the facts as well. It’s time we told the story of Sporting Fingal.
Established in 2007, Sporting Fingal FC was a joint project by the Fingal County Council and property developer, Gerry Gannon, designed to bring football to the community of County Fingal. Gannon became the majority shareholder with a 26% stake in the club. Liam Buckley was named the director of football and the club manager. At the launch event in 2008, the club announced its plans to set up an academy to become self-sufficient in producing its own players, while also producing plans to build a new stadium in the area. In the meantime, the club would play their home games in Santry’s Morton Stadium. The club was originally going to compete in the ‘A’ Championship, which at the time was the third tier of Irish football, but an opening to join the First Division came up with the demise of Kilkenny City. And so, the journey began for Sporting Fingal.
They played their first competitive game away to Longford Town, in which they lost 5-1, Peter Hynes being the first ever goalscorer for the North Dublin side. But the season wasn’t to be a total wipe-out and they got their act tighter to finish a respectable fourth, with striker Robbie Doyle claiming the title of top goalscorer in the First Division. (17 goals).
Their second season turned out to be much more successful with them finishing 3rd earning a play-off against runners-up and local rivals Shelbourne FC. (UCD were the first Division champions that year) The play-off game was played at Tolka Park in front of 1632 people who saw Fingal beat Shels 2-1, with goals from Eamon Zayed and Shaun Williams, now playing with Championship side Milwall). The game saw Anto Flood of Shels sent off as well. This win set up a two-legged play-off against Bray Wanderers. Sporting Fingal won the first leg 2-0 with goals from Conan Byrne and Paisley. The second leg was a drawn affair, 2-2, with a flurry of goals at the end of the match. Sporting Fingal had achieved promotion in their second season, but teir season hadn’t ended their. The still had the FAI Cup final to look forward to and they would be facing Premier Division side, Sligo Rovers at Tallaght stadium. Not only was the cup up for grabs but the prospect of playing European football on the table as well.
In the 57th minute, everything seemed to be going according to plan, with Eoin Doyle (Now of Swindon Town) scoring to put the Bit O’ Red in front. But then came the unbelievable, and the last five minutes are why we love football so much. First, Colm James scored in the 85th minute to equalise and it looked like the game was going to extra time until Gary O’Neil popped up to score the winner in the 90th minute to give Sporting Fingal their first trophy in only their second year of existence. Conan Byrne also finished top goalscorer in the First Division with 21 goals. Promotion, and FAI cup and European football next season, everything was looking great for Fingal.
2010 looked to be a great season for Sporting Fingal. The club had signed some high-profile players including Ireland international, Glen Crowe which raised a few eyebrows. On the field the club were doing well, drawing Portuguese side, Maritimo in the second round of the Europa League. After losing 3-2 over in Portugal in the first leg, (Thanks to a late goal from Maritimo’s Tcho, Crowe and FitzGerald scoring for Sporting)), the Dublin side felt confident enough they could get a result at home. The return leg was played at Dalymount Park due to Morton Stadium being deemed not fit for purpose to host a European game. The game ended 3-2 to the Portuguese side, (6-4 agg) (Zayed scoring the two Sporting Fingal goals), meaning the European adventure was over. But Sporting Fingal were to make impressions in the league that year. Coming 4th, (62pts) only five points behind Bohemians (67pts) and Shamrock Rovers (67pts), with Rovers winning the league on goal difference, by two goals.
This fourth-place finish qualified them for the Europa League once again and the Setanta Cup. But the club would participate in neither of them.
Before the 2011 season had started it had emerged that the majority shareholders in the club were in trouble themselves financially. Gerry Gannon, the majority shareholder had restrictions placed on him by the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and therefore putting the existence of Sporting Fingal in jeopardy. The club reported a loss of 75k from 2009, and with no investment being put into club, the club could not afford to pay their players, which resulted in them having to cancel all their players contracts and therefore having to withdraw from the League of Ireland.
Usually at this point I would interview a fan of the club I just spoke about, but I don’t think anybody could tell the stories or remember them mre clearly than myself. That’s not me saying I was the biggest fan of porting Fingal, or devaluing other fans, as I’m sure they could tell a few tales as well, but well, I neve get an opportunity to tell these stories. So here it is, these are my memoires following Fingal.
One of my favourite away days was actually Sporting Fingal FC’s first ever competitive game was against Longford Town, a club who had just been relegated themselves, so it was a tough start. Nine of us travelled down to the midlands and found the main stand was full. The Longford officials obviously didn’t think there would be any Sporting Fingal fans attending as they didn’t have a place for us. In the end they ushered all nine of us into the corner. Our club weren’t expecting us to be there either it seems, as when they came out to warm up and heard us singing, they looked up with confused expressions. ‘The Fingal!’ was one of the first chants we had, followed by ‘We are Fingal, Super Fingal, No one likes us, we don’t care, We are Fingal, Super Fingal, We are Fingal, all the way!’ Not very imaginative, but I promise you the chants and songs get better. And thankfully the results did as well.
The match started and we amazingly took the lead. Funnily enough it was one of the best goals I have ever seen at a live football match. Peter Hynes hit a shot from 40 yards out and lobbed the keeper. 1-0 to the Fingal was chanted but that soon stopped when Longford equalised and then put another four past us. 5-1 but we had gotten the taste of a real League of Ireland away day. We even received standing ovation from the Longford fans, but more because of ow we reacted when they started singing ‘Stand up for the Longford Town!’. All nine of us sat down until the finished and as soon as they did, we all stood up and canted ‘Stand up for the Fingal!’. Maybe we weren’t going to be hated like we thought? Wishful thinking.
Sporting Fingal finished 4th that year with Robbie Doyle finishing top goal scorer in the division. But even though he managed that feat, he wasn’t the fans favourite. That accolade went to Conan Byrne and he defiantly was my favourite player to play for Sporting Fingal. The man who played for local sides Rivervalley Rangers and Swords Rovers. He was a firm fan favourite and epitomised what the club was aiming to achieve by having players from the are represent it on the pitch. Conan, who had played for UCD previously, made 105 appearances for Sporting Fingal, scoring 36 goals. It was a remarkable return for a club that had only existed for three seasons. He also finished the First Division top goals scorer in 2009, We even made up a song for Conan, which went something like this…
‘When Conan goes down the wing, he scores, he scores,
When Conan goes down the wing, he scores, he scores,
When Conan goes down the wing,
The Fingal fans will always sing,
We all know that Conan’s going to score!’
(Again, we weren’t the most imaginative of fans)
Other away days, like going down to Waterford in a Ford Fiesta, was an experience. I remember going into a local pub, it must have been the size of my living room and trying to order a pint. “No pints here lad, only bottles.” The Waterford fans were just as welcoming. We only had nine or ten with us, but we made ourselves heard, but the Waterford fans decided instead of supporting their team they would just shower us with abuse. It was probably because we were winning. The usual, ‘Junkie Dublin bastards’ was aimed at us. Now, we gave as good as we got but me another one of the Fingal faithful decided to go one further. It was probably the alcohol that we had consumed that gave us the courage to do it but we went down and stood Infront of the Waterford fans (The ones who were singing) and started chanting rather abusive words to them. The stewards came over and removed us before we got in trouble.
We weren’t troublemakers, just a group of lads, travelling around the country, watching football and having a laugh. No arm or fights ever broke out. The closest it ever did come to that was outside Tolka Park, after playing Shelbourne and both sets of fans started shouting at each other from across the road. (Think Green Street but with just the shouting and no fighting). The only other time I got in trouble was on the very last game of our first season in 2008. We were playing Wexford Youths away and a few of us had decided to dress up. Only tree of us did. I dressed up as Elvis, and the two others were dressed up as a clown and a genie. We got to the stadium in FerryCarrig and we were hammered. The game itself was meaningless, so all our efforts went into having a good time in the stands. Wexford had a good crowd, (There to see the Fingal was our response). At half time, I went down to get a drink. I had only been diagnosed with type one diabetes so I couldn’t drink anything with sugar in it but of course they only had sugary drinks. I wasn’t pleased but being pised didn’t help either. I bought a bottle of water but continued to moan about the fact there was no diet coke available. One of the Wexford fans must have heard me because while I was walking by them someone shouted, ‘We don’t do diet drinks you fat prick’. I saw red and threw the bottle at him. I don’t know if I hit him, I don’t even know if it hit anyone. I walked back to our fans and stood with them, until I saw a Garda, a steward and some bloke with a brown over coat on pointing at me. Next thing I know, I’m being escorted out of the ground. The funniest part of that was one of my friends shouting, ‘Elvis has left the building’.
I did get to watch the rest of the match, through the fence outside, but the journey home was a long one.
My favourite ground to visit was either Waterford’s RSC or Tolka Park. Only because the games were good. The games against Dundalk were decent as well, but Oriel Park wasn’t a nice place. We would only have 20 fans going there but they weren’t the friendliest bunch and standing out in the open wasn’t great, especially when it rained. The bigger stadiums like Richmond Park and the Carlisle grounds were always great to go to. But if I had to choose, it was probably Tolka Park, just because they were our rivals, even if they say we weren’t theirs.
Even in their short existence, Sporting Fingal made an impression, winning promotion and the FAI cup, along with having a lot of excellent players play for them. The likes of Glen Crowe, Eamon Zayed, Shaun Williams, Ronan Finn, Brendan Clarke and Conan Byrne all pulled on the Fingal shirt at some point. I know other fans of other clubs, (Mostly Shelbourne fans) would have been glad to see the end of the club they saw as nothing more than a Franchise, but for me and a lot of my friends, it created memories, and gave us a first taste of League of Ireland football, something we don’t have out here, in Swords, or indeed in the wider area of Fingal. People will say they should never have existed. I say,
“WE ARE FINGAL, SUPER FINGAL, NO LIKES US, WE DON’T CARE!”