Fenlon haunted by past Romanian trips

JUST like many other former League of Ireland players, Shelbourne manager Pat Fenlon has a few recollections of being on the receiving end of a drubbing in European competition.

But while normally Fenlon shrugs his shoulders about Irish club's previous dismal record in Europe, visiting Bucharest again brought too many bad memories flooding back to simply ignore.

Fenlon twice visited Bucharest as a player in the early 90s and, for the conspiracy theorists, there are worryingly too many similarities between the Shelbourne boss' first two trips to Romania and the current one.

In 1990, Fenlon was part of the St Patrick's Athletic side that faced Dinamo Bucharest in the European Cup. After a 1-1 draw at Harolds Cross in the first leg, Pats arrived in Romania and were promptly routed 4-0.

Two years later, Fenlon returned to Bucharest with Cup winners Bohemians to face Steaua Bucharest. A scoreless draw at Dalymount was hard earned and, once again, his team lost 4-0 in the return leg in Romania.

While Romania as a country has greatly changed since Fenlon's first visit in the year following the end of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's reign, he fears that, football-wise, Romania may have even improved.

"There is an unbelievable difference," he said. "It is incredible really compared to when I was here before. The first time I was here with St Pat's, in 1990, was unbelievable.

"There was nothing in the place. There was no food or anything. Everything was barren and empty. We brought our own food and our own chef and it was lucky we did because we would have struggled otherwise.

"It had changed a bit by the time I went back in 1992 with Bohs but not a lot. There was perhaps a little bit more money about but not like now.

"We got draws in Dublin before getting tanked away when I played against Romanian sides. The Bohs one was the better one.

"With St Pat's, we had a bad start. We were 3-0 down within 20 or 25 minutes. With Bohs, we were holding them to 0-0 and we had a great chance when Joe Lawless went through on his own but he missed it. They scored soon afterwards and we caved in.

"We haven't progressed as much as Romanian football has since then. If you look at Steaua's team. They had quality all over the park. They had a young left back, who was only 20 but he looked like a seasoned campaigner.

"If we were to throw a 19 or 20-year-old into a European game, he would struggle badly. If you look at the likes of Owen Heary, he is now an established player but probably could have been at 20 rather than 25.

"We have closed the gap in a fair few things. In preparation and attitude and all of that sort of stuff, we are definitely miles ahead compared to where we were in 1990 or 1992.

"But, in regarding producing better players, we haven't really moved on certainly not to the same extent as countries like Romania."