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In a democracy dissent
is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its
taste, but in its effects.
~ James W. Fulbright
Grounds For Complaint
Dr Infallible on
Bohemian FC
Reader Health Warning!
A word of warning! This week’s polemic is not for the easily bored or
those with short attention spans. This article is devoid of even the
most clumsy attempt at witty word play or sloppy puns. Anyone attempting
to read this will, perhaps in some cases for different reasons, end up
as distressed as I was while writing it. If you only have eyes for
positivity, take my advice and do not read any further. If you are the
type of person apt to confuse scepticism with cynicism or you label as
cynical any opinion which disputes the existence of Santa, do not read
any further. If any of the foregoing applies to you then go and find
something more entertaining to do with your time because there is
nothing in this article for you so let me save you the trouble of
bothering. Do not read further.
Apart from being very long and very boring this assignment is actually
the polar opposite of cynical. It is in fact all about principle; it
grapples with fundamental questions such as what being Bohemian is
really about and whether we have lot our way. It takes a wide angle look
at us Bohemians and refers to the distant past and also to a future
beyond our immediate problems - a future not completely bounded and
defined by the fiscal wreck we have so recently created.
What Ails Us?
Ok, if there is anyone still on board then perhaps the rest of this
might be for you. Our last session in the surgery saw us take a wide
ranging look at the patient, his endless range of ailments both real and
imagined. My observations in relation to this have provoked comments
both agreeable and critical. It was ever thus.
Having previously verbalised at length on topics general, this week sees
a more focused examination of Bohemians and those nearest and dearest to
it. Allow me to set the scene for what is to follow with a comment bound
to provoke some comment; Bohemian F.C. is suffering from chronic
insecurity and that insecurity is now entering an acute phase. The
condition is compounded and complicated by an acute identity crisis.
What does it mean, “Bohemian F.C.”?
This insecurity exists in ways both tangible and intangible. In the
former category belong feelings of fear over the club's ability to
survive it's current problems and remain intact. Add into that matrix,
specific and real concerns about our home ground and you have a very
heady cocktail indeed. In the latter category belongs a more general
failure to have any clear definition about what Bohemian F.C. is really
about, what it means to be Bohemian; all of which creates a, for want of
a better term, spiritual vacuum. While both of these categories can be
described as symptoms there is an argument, one to which I am not
opposed, which claims the former is actually caused by the latter.
Emotional Detachment Or
Doomed Love?
If you are following me so far then I am confident I have your attention
to the end, so the least I owe you is a more clear and grounded
explanation for those observations and to do that I will have to
downshift from a detached clinical perspective to one more personal and
hopefully more engaging. Unfortunately in baring my soul I display my
vulnerability and also my hypocrisy. In a nutshell I have made the
classic mistake, the mistake which I have spent most of my professional
life warning my interns against, I have become emotionally involved with
the patient. More than that, I am in love with the patient. Thankfully
the chances of being struck off are minimal as the patient is an
institution, not a person.
Institutional Chaos
So just what is this institution? What is Bohemian F.C? Superficially,
of course, the explanation is an easy one; Bohemian F.C. is a football
club. But what type of football club is it? What is it about this
institution that distinguishes it from all the other clubs I could have
wound up supporting? For years I thought I knew. For years I was sure we
had an identity and although none of us troubled ourselves too much with
trying to work out exactly what it was, I think we all more or less
shared, roughly, the same notions as to what we were about.
A Recent Historical
Primer
So what were we about? Or what was it I believe we were about. Well, I
am a child of the Billy Young era and I suppose many of my firmly held
beliefs about Bohemian F.C. were born in that era. That was an era where
the concept of (semi) professionalism was new to the club and although
great changes had taken place there was no shortage of the remnants of
the aul decency about the place. While we were indeed professional (for
the purposes of this article "professional" refers to the semi pro era)
many of the old habits remained. Billy was kept on a tight leash,
expected to find and nurture young talent and hold onto it long enough
to win the occasional trophy before his squad was raped from overseas or
closer to home. These were the days when the transfer system was
actually expected to be a profit centre for the club and while English
clubs then, as now, got away with embarrassingly small fees there was a
steady stream of exports and future Irish internationals bred at the
Dalymount stables and a reasonable few bob, by the standards of the day,
making its way back in to the club coffers.
It was also still an era when the club was able to cash in on the work
of our founders in receiving rental from the FAI for the use of
Dalymount Park for the staging of internationals and various other
prestige events in the Irish football calendar. In those days a Bohemian
membership card was truly something to be valued as it gave the owner a
guaranteed blag into International games at Dalymount. Nowadays you
can't even be sure it will get you into every Bohemian F.C. game at
Dalymount.
This happy arrangement continued into the early eighties by which stage
International matches were moved completely to Lansdowne. The early
professional era had been successful, in fact, spectacularly successful.
We had a smart manager who moulded fabulous squads and in particular the
77/78 squad who played a vibrant and exciting game never equalled since.
Dalymount and the rental we received were also significant drivers for
success but the early eighties brought an end to that and while Billy
still managed to keep Bohemians in the hunt for major honours it was to
become a perpetual hunt and Bohemians went the guts of a quarter of a
century and a massive change in attitudes towards money before we again
landed the league. In the intervening years, Billy and others did their
best to work within the confines of what we could afford to spend and
did enough to maintain our position as one of the top clubs. This was
managed while others took a more cavalier and reckless approach to squad
building. Both Rovers and Dundalk, particularly Rovers (common
denominator Jim McLaughlin) enjoyed periods of dominance fuelled by a
belief that if you put a winning team on the pitch the football loving
public will thank you with huge crowds and an endless revenue stream.
Both Rovers and Dundalk spent in haste and have been repenting at their
leisure ever since. Another club which adopted the same approach was
Limerick. Spending like footballers wives they went out and bought the
best, had their moment in the sun and can now be found in the same place
as both Rovers and Dundalk, The First Division. Notice a pattern
developing?
Note: For a more up to date corresponding example of the benefits of
sole ownership of a valuable sporting asset look no further than Windsor
Park and Linfield. Linfield have managed to lever the hell out of their
ground and while the amount of money stuffed into their pockets by the
IFA each year remains a hotly disputed topic north of the border there
can be little doubt that the earnings of Windsor Park as a venue
contribute substantially to Linfield's ability to dominate on the field.
While Windsor is no San Siro, Linfield have been careful to maintain
it's superiority to the next best ground, probably Ravenhill. While it
was never realistically within our ability to compete in the same way
with Lansdowne we most certainly could have done more to ensure that
Dalymount remained the next best option. It would not have taken much;
after-all how good is Tolka really? I'll tell you how good it is, it is
marginally better than Dalymount in terms of the criteria the FAI are
looking for and that’s enough to ensure that everything goes to them and
nothing goes to us. In essence, more covered seating is the "difference
that makes the difference." Had we been as careful in protecting
Dalymount's status as Linfield have been with Windsor then I have little
doubt that the massive forward strides taken by Bohemians in the 70's
would have built upon throughout the 80's and 90's. Instead we stalled
very badly indeed.
Continued on
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