John Fallon: Untimely squabbles push Waterford closer to the brink

Former Waterford manager Marc Bircham. Picture: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

When Waterford unveiled a new crest featuring three lions in 2017, the thought of animal warfare wasn’t anticipated.

It was the idea of new owner Lee Power to rebrand the club, dropping the United from the previous name, a turning point to chart a direction from their lowly status of First Division strugglers.

In net terms, there’s been an uptick. Promotion secured within the first year was followed by a top-four finish in the Premier Division.

Although success have been leaner since, the crowd — when guidelines permitted their attendance — stuck with them and warmly embraced the transition from Power to Richard Forrest’s possession in the summer.

Forrest’s first major decision had gone down well in the south-east too.

Marc Bircham’s colourfulness wasn’t restricted to the trademark dyed hair of his playing days; his passionate outlook embraced as a welcome contrast to the rigid demeanour of his predecessor Kevin Sheedy.

Manager and owner chimed to the slogan of “sleeping giant”, validated by the improvement of results on the pitch and harmony in the stands.

A two-year contract extension was tabled in August, with Forrest insistent he too was onboard for the long haul regardless of whether they dodged relegation.

Only now it’s been discovered there’s not enough space in the Den for the two lions.

That the fault lines between the pair of Cockney characters have been exposed three days before the team’s last and most important fixture only serves to deepen the sense of sadness on Suirside.

It has all been going so swimmingly up to a month ago.

A late 2-1 win at Bohemians accumulated 26 points from a possible 36 for the Blues, the sort of form associated with title contenders.

Waterford climbed to eighth in the table, out of the relegation play-off berth and with safety in their sights.

But they haven’t won since, throwing away a lead against Derry City in stoppage time and dropping another two points against a Longford Town side already relegated.

They were costly slips, for Finn Harps plunged them into the play-off by a distance of two points.

Throughout, Bircham said it as he saw it. Referees were heavily criticised, as was the FAI’s disciplinary process, but in recent weeks the flak was closer to home.

Team bonding had become his staple, getting players out on the water and into the boxing ring to test their survival instincts, but that was drifting on the pitch. Bircham felt “disgusted” by the players’ second-half capitulation against champions Shamrock Rovers.

Trouble was brewing in other areas. Forrest admitted part of his motivation to own his first football club was providing a platform for his sons to carve out a football career.

His eldest, George, was among an influx of summer recruits but hasn’t started a league match.

The centre-back was one of only two outfield substitutes named for Friday’s final league game against St Patrick’s Athletic, a consequence of an internal dispute.

“Players from our Under-19 team were told not to come in with us on Thursday because they were training that night for a sixth-placed cup final on Saturday that’s probably more important,” Bircham said, tongue firmly planted in cheek.

By Sunday, a direct response was issued from the Waterford Academy Twitter page, attributing the absence of two teens to a clash with their FAI educational training board commitments.

The touch paper was lit. Bircham, back in England for a family celebration, took umbrage and requested the club hierarchy to publicly back him in the war of words between the two footballing sides of the club. Once words were only communicated electronically, the end game was inevitable.

That disagreement consumed most of Monday, heightening tensions already compounded by a confirmed Covid-19 case among the first-team squad over the weekend. Other players could be affected too ahead of Friday’s decider against UCD.

Forrest spoke last night of being “backed into a corner”, a reference to Bircham informing the world before 8am of the week-long suspension he’d incurred by text message.

In keeping with the early pantomime feel to the episode, the manager learned of his sacking at the same time and through the same platform as everybody else, Twitter.

He had been due to take training yesterday but cancelled his red-eye flight from London.

Bircham won’t be out of work for long but will finish what he started by attending the play-off at Richmond Park as a supporter.

Premium tickets could be sold to witness the exiled boss coming face-to-face with his vanquisher on the banks of the Camac, as Forrest can often be found among the Blues Army, sometimes banging the drum.

As it stands, Bircham holds the moral high ground in this public battle of wills.

Until the sequence of events is aired, rather than a generality dished out in Forrest’s statement about being working off an “ultimatum”, the moneyman is perceived as the bad boy.

But when men act like boys, descending into tit-for-tat barbs across cyberspace, even the most sacred of brands gets damaged. There’ll be a long off-season for the blame game to play out if UCD seize upon the chaos.

Women’s cup final turnout a real head-scratcher

FAI staff used to take bets at the attendance figures being announced for home internationals during the John Delaney era.

They weren’t the only ones puzzled by the turnout called out over the Tannoy when large swathes of empty seats at Lansdowne Road told a different story.

According to the FAI, a record Women’s Cup final crowd showed up at Tallaght Stadium for Sunday’s decider between Wexford Youths and Shelbourne.

For viewers hearing the number of 3,053 fans, just a couple of insights about the logistics around the finale. The main stand that the camera faced into has a capacity of 3,048. On the opposite side, the East Stand held only 20 media personnel while behind the goal in the South Stand, an unscientific count by journalists tallied no more than 250 hardy souls braving the November chill. As a process of elimination, that means that 90% of the main stand’s seats were occupied. That wasn’t what it looked like to this observer.

It should also be noted that the women have shared the Lansdowne Road stage with the men’s final as a double-header mostly since 2003 which regularly saw attendances of over 20,000.

Last year was the first time since 2012 when Niamh Fahey led Galway to glory at Dalymount Park that the final was moved from Dublin 4 and it was closed to fans due to the pandemic.

Bayern lead way on vaccine policy

Bayern Munich’s hardened stance on unvaccinated players should be a lesson to clubs and associations closer to these shores.

Five stars — including Joshua Kimmich — will have their wages docked for being forced to self-isolate as close contacts of Covid-19 positive case.

At a time when the fourth wave of coronavirus is causing havoc across Europe, and medical experts are appealing for the unvaccinated minority to change their views, footballers have a duty to play their part.

Callum Robinson became the most high-profile Irish footballer to refuse the jab in September, his stance all the more baffling due to him twice catching the virus, but the focus seemed to dissipate once he started finding his scoring boots by hitting five goals in his next two internationals.

At that stage, Stephen Kenny confirmed that up to 10 of his squad were in the same boat, some he said with “valid reasons”, but the notion of applying a “no jab, no cap” policy was dismissed.

Maybe Bayern’s new approach could act as a catalyst to set the agenda, for the last month has taught us that the pandemic will be here for much longer than originally expected, most likely by the time of the next international gathering in late March.