The good new days

I DOUBT that when he started out on a career in accountancy, Neil Hughes ever imagined that the day would come when he would find himself being hailed as some kind of saviour by a crowd of football supporters.

But that was the memorable scene in the Plaza Hotel yesterday, when the court-appointed Examiner to Shamrock Rovers announced details of the plans which, pending the expected approval of the High Court, appear to have secured a bright, new future for the most famous club in the country.

After his press conference, and with the television cameras still rolling, a sheepish-looking Mr Hughes found himself all but obscured by a massive Rovers banner, whilst supporters bearing mischievous grins gathered around him to chant "Neil Hughes is a Hoop, is a Hoop, is a Hoop, is a Hoop, Neil Hughes is a Hoop he hates Bohs."

Rovers may still have a long way to go to escape their currently embattled position, but it was a nice note on which to end what had been an unusually good week for the eircom League, with Cork City, Longford Town and Shelbourne having already secured an historic hat-trick of victories in Europe for Irish clubs.

The trip up north to The Oval with Shels was notable only for being uneventful, with all the action and there was plenty of it in a lively game happily confined to the pitch. The violence the night before in Ardoyne after an Orange march when blast bombs where hurled, police and journalists were injured and the predictable blame game duly ensued suggested nothing but a return to the bad old days. In contrast, the events in the Oval the following night were a reminder of how far we have travelled.

When, shortly before kick-off, Shels fans unveiled a big red banner bearing a tricolour at its centre, it was greeted with a chorus of boos from the Glentoran fans in the stand on the opposite side of the ground. And that, literally, was the full extent of any bad vibes on the night. Indeed, the minute's silence for the victims of the London bombings was scrupulously observed all around The Oval.

A basic display of sensitivity and good manners should hardly be cause for a glowing report, but in light of the shameful performance of a vocal minority in similar circumstances at Croke Park a few days before, the behaviour in particular of the 500 travelling Shels fans at The Oval deserves to be acknowledged.

Despite the violence of the previous night, it also transpired that playing a cross-border game in Belfast in such close proximity to the 12th of July, could hardly have been better timed. The fact is that the city virtually shuts down on the day after the night before, with even the doors of the famous Crown Bar opposite the Europa Hotel remaining closed until the 14th. Somehow, you'll be pleased to learn, the brave southern press corps managed to cope.

It's clear too that this year's inaugural Setanta Cup took some of the potential sting out of what would otherwise have been an over-hyped 'All Ireland' clash on Wednesday. The controversial incidents around the Shels-Linfield game at Tolka Park notwithstanding, the north-south competition went off without a hitch, and even gave us the pleasantly mind-boggling image of Linfield players taking to the pitch in Longford wearing black armbands to mark the passing of a Pope.

The former Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers and Glentoran player Dermot Keely was in attendance at The Oval on Wednesday night, his presence a further reminder that it's certainly all a long way from the really bad old days when Linfield came to Dundalk, all hell broke loose on the terraces, and poor Philip Greene besieged in his commentary position at Oriel Park gave what sounded to startled listeners like a war correspondent's last report under fire.

Of course, the domestic game in the south is still riddled with problems which won't be resolved by a handful of first-round victories in Europe, or even peace in our time at home. Examiner Neil Hughes' report on Shamrock Rovers to the High Court will contain details of financial irregularities which are bound to cause shocks of recognition elsewhere, and we also await with interest the imminent findings of the Genesis report into the state of the eircom League.

The general sense around the game is still that of some clubs living beyond their means, with some of us even questioning the basic merit of on-going moves towards full-time professionalism.

But those are concerns for another day. At the end of the week that's in it, it's right and proper that we should salute Shelbourne, Cork and Longford, and trust that, after a depressing sequence of false dawns, we really are seeing the start of a new era for the legendary Hoops.