The Slow Match Report: Shelbourne 1 Shamrock Rovers 2
Forget your Temple Bar — derby day under Tolka's rusty rafters is where the real wild beauty of Dublin resides
Down where the stag herds prowl and tour buses grunt, they did not know. They thought that Dublin could be found in plaques and pint glasses, in tour guide bluster and Temple Bar crawls. Yet the cleansed centre is never where a place’s soul resides and its interesting warts muster.
Dublin is the kid kicking a cigarette lighter at a statue of James Connolly until it puffs in micro-explosion. Dublin is the Garda man saying “You can’t park there” to the tram driver as he stops at the station, and the tram driver laughing even though he’s heard the line 68 times before. Dublin is the toddler shouting “Ma! Ma! Ma!” and the Ma shouting “Wha’? Wha’? Wha’?”. Most of all, Dublin is Tolka Park on derby night.
Those of us in on the secret traipsed north to Drumcondra, Shelbourne’s suburban realm. Slithers of shirts red and green seeped from beneath supporters’ jackets as they passed through this cheerful neighbourhood of neat terraced houses and cherished front gardens. “How are ye, Tommy?” one Shels man greeted another. “Nervous as shite”, replied Tommy. Though last season their team won a championship that will always be talked about, now they festered in midtable. Their visitors from south of the river were perched cocksure at the summit.
Outside the Cat and Cage pub, conversation had turned to next week’s Champions League qualifying-round draw and journeys of bygone seasons. Time and money can always be found for away escapades. They chatted, too, of the Shels manager, Damien Duff, each proclaiming his love to be greater than the last man’s. Football bestows this de-ageing gift: we are never too old for heroes, even heroes younger than us.
Glossy evening sunshine upgraded the scarlet terraced houses of Richmond Road to a more luxurious shade. From between their chimney pots peeped the lipstick-red details of Tolka Park’s main stand and its comely barrel roof. Turnstiles from a century ago nodded supporters inside, eyes tickled dewy by the vintage Riverside Stand opposite and its rooftop gantry, a rickety eyrie.
Tolka Park is a tonic and a place that scatters goosebumps like confetti. Seasoned fans who have been 500 times before still seem to inhale as they arrive, as if taking in the holy air. For those suffering hiraeth for Bootham Crescent or Brockville or Roker Park, it is an intoxicating remedy. It is chilling that not so long ago this place was close to being flattened for houses as those grounds were.
Over on the Riverside’s terraces and among its pointless seats, Dubliners cackled and crackled. Packed willingly together as if magnetised by the colour red, they swerved their flags meatily and bellowed their anthems heartily while the two teams walked on. Behind the goal, marauding green and whites saluted their own likely lads. Here was occasion, commotion, Montague and Capulet rancour.
Then, as if trying to bring calm like a parent shushing a toddler gangster tripping on Skittles, winger Jack Byrne used Rovers’ kick-off to take the ball all the way back to his goalkeeper, Ed McGinty.
Early on, their side showed no interest in rapid progression, instead endlessly tapping possession from side to side as if in a game of pass the parcel and seeking to unravel Shelbourne. The home side chased to little effect, provoking frenzied gesticulations from Duff. The boss could not keep still, circling manically in his technical area like a Labrador who’d just heard the word “walkies”.
Perhaps bored by the situation, Shels conceded a free-kick by the touchline. Byrne placed the ball down, raised an arm and ran on the spot to whip up motion in the manner of a wind-up toy. He then stepped forward and with his right foot clipped into the box a smooth, enticing cross. Lanky Rovers centre-half Daniel Cleary glided through the air like an absconded kite and swished the ball into the net. In the green end, pandemonium; in the red, temporary silence and then a man shouting, “Youse are still all pricks, Rovers.”
Noise soon fizzed anew as Shels fans mobilised to demand an equaliser. In the middle, robust duo Mark Coyle and Kerr McInroy responded, seizing control of the game as if they had only just found the instruction manual. Their command gave defender Kameron Ledwidge the courage to canter forward with the ball in tow, two opponents bouncing off him like flies ricocheting from a glass window.
Ledwidge now scooped in a question mark of a cross. Near the penalty spot, the ball was met by the wrong kind of head — that belonging to Rovers wing-back Joshua Honohan, recently called to the Republic of Ireland squad. Yet instead of fleeing wide for a corner, Honohan’s intervention fluttered into the net.
An own goal elicits a different kind of cheer, one in which pure delight is peppered with amusement. So it was here, as rusty rafters creaked under the pressure of the Shelbourne audience’s chortling euphoria. It meant that, in home quarters at least, half-time was a pleasure rather than a chore.
The second-half began in faint mimicry of the first, Rovers passing copiously. There were, this time, a number of chances — a fluffed Aaron McEneff header, a choppy shot from Graham Burke — and even a disallowed goal. The game drifted a little. Kids ran along the gangway at the front of the Riverside and scored winners with discarded lager cans. The sky lapsed to the pale pink of a withering rose and weak floodlights squinted into life. As a stimulant, Rovers called on the cavalry of a triple substitution and Shels a double. Duff seemed to cheer his additions onto the pitch, a parent at the village fun run.
The combative style of one of his introductions, Sean Boyd, irked the officials into giving Rovers free-kicks as his side attacked. The awards enraged Riverside choristers. Next to me, a father and his son of eight or nine climbed on a fence behind the advertising hoardings to raise Vs at the referee and holler, “Fuck you, Lino.” Forget sheds and fishing, it would have made for a delightful Father’s Day card image.
Onslaught negotiated, Rovers once more took custody of the ball. With eight minutes remaining, their sums finally added up. Tip followed tap, triangles were crafted and despite the bomb disposal work of Shelbourne’s Sean Gannon, Honohan walloped home from just about the crime scene of his first-half misdemeanour. He deserved to go berserk but celebrated understatedly, more in the manner of a man who had landed the petrol pump totaliser on exactly £20.00.
For the normal time that remained and the eight added minutes, Shelbourne clotted in the Rovers half, tossing in crosses and splurging chances. Then, as the Father’s Day card son asked his dad whether a chipper visit was still in the offing, the last whistle sparked elation in one end and wretchedness in three.
Meanwhile, down in Dublin’s fair city, they knew nothing of this wild beauty at heavenly Tolka Park.
