• Six-year-olds play a match
    For six-year-olds, the training’s done – they’ve run and passed and passed and run and dribbled slow around red cones with just the minimum of moans and learnt the art of ball control and shooting at a cone-based goal and let the ball roll out of reach and been to the toilet three times each. […]
  • Orange leather footballs in the snow
    Orange leather footballs in the snow, when struck with force from some attacker’s toe, would sting but you could never let it show. Arctic troughs could change the status quo and games that went ahead would always go with orange leather footballs in the snow. Orange leather footballs in the snow have often laid a […]
  • The end of Tolka Park
    The ‘i’s are dotted, ‘t’s are crossed and Tolka Park appears lost. The football ground will pay the cost. Financial targets? Sure, we never met them. Shels will go and share with Bohs, their bitterest and oldest foes, bidding to cast off the woes that for the past long decade have beset them. The flags […]
  • I miss the old clock at the Ballybough end
    I miss the old clock at the Ballybough end that used to run slow when we had to defend. We’d play to it, pray to it, some folk would swear at it. And when we conceded, we’d voice our despair at it. But oh how it quickened when Shels were behind. It raced through the […]
  • Trampolining
    There doesn’t seem to be a clear pace-setter, careering through the fixtures with incision. There’s not one club that seems a whole lot better than all the other teams in the division. Everybody’s waiting to see whether someone’s going to string some wins together; and if, by chance, one of the eight teams does, I […]