Shelbourne

Competition: League of Ireland Premier Division

Date: 21 April 2023

Result: Shelbourne Rovers 1 – 1 Dundalk

Tickets: €17 (adult), €6 (kids)

Attendance: circa 4,000

Game/ Experience Rating: ☆☆☆

The Game: A last minute shout, this one, to catch what is really a mid-table clash in the League of Ireland top tier. Dundalk are not going well this year, but started strongly in this game, in particular when they won a penalty early on, and a Shelbourne defender reacted by hitting an opponent and promptly got sent off with just 12 minutes on the clock. The penalty was saved, but Dundalk dominated from there on, with Shelbourne occasionally getting free on the break but largely forced to defend.

Unfortunately for Dundalk, they are not great at breaking sides down, and for a lot of the time, didn’t look like doing much. Rayhaan Tulloch, who won the early penalty, conceded one to allow Shelbourne to go in front around a hour in, against the run of play. Tulloch then equalised, which meant almost every relevant action in the game involved him in one way or the other. He’s on loan from West Brom.

Overall, this was like a win to Shelbourne, given the amount of opportunity Dundalk had to take advantage of them being down to ten men. It kind of petered out in the end.

The ground: I’ve been trying to follow the Tolka Park (knock it down or keep it) saga, and I understand it’s currently back under ownership that makes it likely it will be around a bit longer. I love the place. It’s unpopular with some fans, but it’s a proper old-world football stadium, one that has entire sections that have to be roped off, but feels like watching football 30 years ago.

I actually thought the peripheral facilities were decent today, too.

Extras: A decent sized club shop, several food stalls, and there seems to be a bar under the main stand (I didn’t go in). I didn’t see a programme, but there was an unoffocial supporters zine on sale outside, which I thought was quite cool – you don’t often see that at League of Ireland level.

Assorted asides: I learnt that Shels fans sing that Lily Allen song about… erm… sexual satisfaction as part of their chants. “It’s not fair and I think you’re really mean” might be one of the funniest things I’ve heard sung in a football stadium.

My totals for the year so far:

Games: 10. Home wins: 5 Draws: 4 Away wins: 1

Goals: 25. Home goals: 16. Away goals: 9. Goals per game: 2.50

VIEW ALL GROUNDHOPPING POSTS HERE.

CE-BeWDWoAAhlZZ For the past two months, I’ve been freelancing in sports journalism at the Gazette Group, which publishes seven papers a week (a separate paper for each of Dublin City, Swords, Lucan, Clondalkin, Blanchardstown, Dundrum and Dun Laoghaire). I even ran the sports section for a week while the normal editor was away, which was an intense and memorable experience – far more full-on than the likes of GoldenPlec Magazine purely because of the time constraints, but extremely rewarding and something I really hope to be able to do again (you definitely need another holiday, right, Stephen?!).

The Gazette offers a uniquely complex sports role, in some senses. There are no specialists – a small team of sports journalists have to be able to deal with every sport that could possibly come up, and to cover it well. It’s also highly local: the Gazette only cover sports that are typically at a level below what the national papers are interested in: Leinster Senior League soccer, age group soccer, senior and intermediate championship GAA, age-group sports across all disciplines, and local athletes going for big things. The remit involves knowing – or finding out – what’s going on across small areas of Dublin, and what’s of interest to the people living there. That might be straightforward, except there are seven different local areas to deal with, so it’s not knowing about one place and its stories, it’s knowing about seven. It goes without saying, the editor has perhaps the most impressive local sports knowledge of anyone I’ve ever come across.

I’ve flicked back through all my pre-edit drafts, and in the past eight weeks I’ve had over 80 stories run in the paper (they don’t all come with a byline, presumably because it would just look ridiculous on some of the smaller ones).

So this is a bumper post, but nothing like as bumper as it could have been, because.. well, I have to make some effort to preserve the sanity of those who happen to visit this site. I thought I’d narrow things down to my five of my favourite pieces….

Feature: an inspirational interview with Dundrum lady Carol Brill, on dealing with the sight and hearing debilitation that comes with Usher’s disease, and how she’s found solace in the unlikely world of blind golf…

Groundhopping: Shelbourne (v Dundalk, Tolka Park)

Dublin Gazette Sports Stories: May/ June 2015