John Fallon: Harsh lessons won’t derail UCD’s core curriculum
Fighting for their place: Luke Boore of UCD in action against Tunde Owolabi of St Patrick's Athletic at the UCD Bowl in Belfield.
Villarreal’s return to prominence always evoke memories of UCD’s torpedoing of the Yellow Submarine in 2011 but a section of League of Ireland purists are revelling in the Students' own form of sinking.
Just over a third of the way through the Premier Division season and the team managed by Andy Myler are heading straight back to the second tier they escaped from via the playoff.
Winless in 13 matches so far, their four draws have them anchored to the basement, six points adrift of Finn Harps.
Ten goals conceded in their last two matches – including a 7-1 walloping at leaders Derry City – has again raised the age-old debate about the relevance of University College Dublin having a team on the highest stage of Irish professional football.
Their attendances, against a trend of national growth, continue to be pitiful, always guaranteed to be outnumbered by away support. As the late, great comedian Dermot Morgan dryly remarked, the lure of Belfield was couched in his aversion to crowds.
That leaves them reliant on alternative revenue streams such as summer camps and campus leagues to generate income.
Limitations on the pitch too are influenced by the policy of fielding a team composed entirely of students.
That wasn’t always the case. Four years after their 1979 entry to the League of Ireland, “outsiders” were permitted to join, helping the club lift the 1984 FAI Cup by shocking Shamrock Rovers. They held arguably the greatest Everton team of the last 50 years scoreless in the European Cup Winners Cup the following season, only to succumb to the eventual winners in the second leg at Goodison Park.
Lay players also featured in the famous win over Santi Cazorla’s Villareal in a pre-season friendly but by the time UCD returned to the European stage in 2015, courtesy of a bonus place under Uefa’s Fair Play rules, they were populated by Students.
That’s the approach which has remained since, underlined by the ethos of prioritising the school graduates they accept annually into their scholarship scheme.
On the plus side, they’ve achieved a couple of promotions and produced a gallery of players scattered throughout the best teams in the country. The two latest high-profile exports to the UK, Liam Scales and Georgie Kelly, are UCD alumni.
Another duo from the conveyor belt, Colm Whelan and Liam Kerrigan, are expected to depart Belfield in the summer – potentially abroad too – once their degrees are completed.
Conversely, humblings like that suffered at Derry are inevitable, causing as much damage to the broader reputation of the league than the club itself. Outrage at mismatches is further pronounced by the calibre and tradition of club in the First Division, ones typically attracting multiples of fans.
The man at the helm of UCD’s football operations, Diarmuid McNally, followed in the footsteps of the late legend Dr Tony O’Neill and is equally pragmatic about the state of play.
He doesn’t consider the downsides to be diminishing the overall objective of what UCD stands for.
“We’re always going to get criticism because it’s UCD but we’re in the Premier Division on merit,” he notes. “The fact that Cork City, Galway United and Waterford are in the First Division is their fault, not ours. We’re liable to get a few heavy defeats because Derry and Shamrock Rovers have taken professionalism to a new level.
“We’ve had an all-student team for the last seven years and are sticking to that. Results aren’t the be all and end all for us because our goals are different to others. Winning last week’s All-Ireland Universities title, the Collingwood Cup, means a lot. Our aim is to develop players while giving them an education and Liam Scales is the latest example.”
Scales was one of three players, along with Neil Farrugia and Gary O’Neill, that Shamrock Rovers snapped up from UCD’s promotion winning team of 2019. They were in no position to demand handsome fees but secured a share of the €600,000 windfall that Rovers banked when Celtic swooped for Scales last summer.
Transfers of that magnitude remain a rarity across a domestic industry still plagued by short-term contracts but they’re welcome additions to fund UCD's suite of nine teams, including three in the Leinster Senior League.
The future of their standard bearers, admits McNally, is off broadway.
“Longevity in the Premier Division isn’t realistic for UCD - but that’s okay,” he affirms. “We are the starting point in the careers of so many brilliant players and know they'll move on. If we hung onto them, it would stop us developing the next intake.
“The big problem is low transfer fees across the League but we can do well on the second transfer, like the knock-on for Liam.
“We’re quite happy doing what we’re doing and are aware that we can’t have it every way. It should never be forgotten that we’re a University.”
A salutary tutorial for the uneducated.
A big night beckons for the Irish Women’s Super League colony at the opposite ends of the table.
Victory in the penultimate series of fixtures is the only show in town for Arsenal to stay in the title hunt and Birmingham City to prolong their faint hopes of survival.
Katie McCabe’s Gunners welcome Tottenham Hotspur to the Emirates four points off leaders and champions Chelsea.
Fifth-placed Spurs held their north-London rivals to a 1-1 draw in November but lost 3-0 in the most recent meeting five weeks ago. Arsenal will be favourites to take the destiny of the title down to Sunday’s high noon concluding batch of games.
Less optimism surrounds Birmingham’s prospects. Although they collected four of their paltry return of eight points in recent weeks, nothing less than six from their last pair will do for the comeback to retain oxygen.
Their problem is the quality of tonight’s opponents, Manchester City. A slow start for the gilded squad killed their title bid but they have hit 15 goals in their last three matches against sides situated above Brum. Should they produce a shock tonight, then they must also beat Aston Villa on Sunday and pray second-from-bottom Leicester City don’t nick a draw at Tottenham.
Only then will the futures of the Irish brigade be clearer. It features the Quinns – Louise and Lucy – along with Harriet Scott, Marie Hourihane, Jamie Finn, Emily Whelan and Eleanor Ryan-Doyle.
As a young player, Stephen Bradley aimed for the stars at Arsenal but navigating his managerial journey through modest means is the way to go.
While Lincoln City doesn’t carry the most glamorous brand, their €6m playing budget signifies the opportunity available to the 37-year-old.
His current employers Shamrock Rovers are the biggest brand in Irish football, yet function on a third of the budget Lincoln are dangling before his eyes in talks this week.
Decision time is imminent and all the indications are that a deal will be struck before Rovers next take to the pitch for Friday’s visit of Finn Harps.
Professionally, the pull factors solve the dilemma and the short commute makes family arrangements manageable.
Like Stephen Kenny and Pat Fenlon before him, the draw of the UK market, especially a stable, traditional outfit such as Lincoln, is compelling.
There should be no obstacles once Bradley receives assurances of autonomy and his staff. In that regard, assistant Glenn Cronin is more likely to join him than Stephen McPhail.
The Director of Football will be tasked with headhunting a successor to complete the three-in-a-row quest that Bradley started. Naturally, his former teammate Robbie Keane will be in the mix. He’s based in Dublin, seeking a fresh challenge and is already working informally within the club’s underage ranks.
Could the stars be aligning for Keane’s Rovers to face off against Damien Duff’s Shelbourne on May 27?
Email: john.fallon@examiner.ie
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