I recently designed a 2008 calendar for Bohemian FC. It’s a pictorial record of the history of the club, spanning twelve decades from the 1890s to the 2000s.

When Bohs was founded in 1890, Frank Whitaker, who later became Brother Francis de Sales Whitaker of the Order of Saint John of Gods, proposed the name Bohemians. The vote was tied and the chairman, Dudley Hussey, who later became a senior civil servant, used his casting vote – the club would be called Bohemians instead of Rovers. Here’s the earliest report that I have found of a Bohs match, from the Irish Times on November 4, 1890: >>>

Saturday, November 1, 1890, Bohemians versus Brittania on the ground of the Bohemians, Phoenix Park.

The Bohemians, who had much the better of the game throughout, scored a goal within a minute of kick-off, and kept the ball well up at their opponent’s goal most of the time, but did not succeed in adding to their score.

Brittania got the ball out once when the Bohemians were all around their goal and, softly passing the backs, dribbled a goal without an attempt being made to stop them.

A dispute as to a corner kick which the Bohemians claimed, and which the referee awarded them, led to much unseemly altercation, the spectators interfering to the entire stoppage of the game. The argument was becoming fierce when time was called, and the Bohemians captain claimed another six minutes for the time that had been lost.

The referee considered the claim just, and decided that the match should be played out, but Brittania refused to play. The referee then awarded the match to the Bohemians.

The Bohs History Calendar is A3 in size, ringbound at the top, and would be a perfect gift for anybody with an interest in Irish football, Irish history, or both. It costs €16.50, including postage to anywhere in the world.

You can buy the Bohs History Calendar from the Bohs online shop here.

As the players ran out, it was clear that John Giles was slowly reshaping Rovers into the team that he wanted, the classically clichéd mix of youth and experience. They lined out with young Alan O’Neill in goal, who had ousted veteran Pat Dunne. The back four was Denis Burnet, who had played with Milwall and Brighton, Ireland international Eoin Hand, former Bohemians captain Johnny Fullam and young apprentice Pierce O’Leary.

The Rovers midfield combined two Ireland internationals, Eamon Dunphy and Giles himself, with another young apprentice, Mark Meagan. Their front three was young Steve Lynex, who later played for Leicester City and West Brom; Ireland international Ray Treacy; and David Irving, a striker from Fort Lauderdale who had previously played for Everton, Sheffield United and Oldham.

Apart from the midfield trio of Dunphy, Giles and Meagan, only two others had lined out in Rovers opening game of the season – Johnny Fullam in defence and Ray Treacy up front. But the biggest surprise in their line-up came when the tannoy announcer mistakenly told us that Jimmy Magee would be substitute for Shamrock Rovers. It was, in fact, Paul Magee, a son of the RTE memory man Jimmy.

The contrast with Bohs was immense; despite the sale of Gerry Ryan to Derby, Billy Young had already shaped a confident, settled side. And we were again at full strength: Mick Smyth in goal; Eamon Gregg, Joe Burke, John McCormack and Fran O’Brien in defence; Pat Byrne, Tommy Kelly, Padraig O’Connor and Tony Dixon in midfield; Turly O’Connor and Eddie Byrne up front.

The shed was in fine voice, with the usual chants even louder than usual: ‘B-O; B-O-H; B-O-H-S; Bow-ez!’ ‘I’d walk a million miles for one of your goals, oh Tuuuurleeee!’ And we hadn’t long to wait for the God of Goals to deliver. An early Rovers kick-out fell to Pat Byrne, who put Turly through. Instead of his trademark one-on-one dribble up to the keeper, Turly almost passed the ball into the net from a considerable distance out. One nil!

On the half hour, we got a free just outside the Rovers penalty area. As GypsyDownUnder has already commented earlier in this blog, such a free kick always posed the conundrum for Bohs fans: would we see a ‘Turly Curly’ or a ‘Joe Toe’? Well, this time it was a ‘Turly Curly’, with the ball swerving past the Rovers wall and into the top corner of the net, scored with all the style but none of the theatrics of Victoria Beckham’s husband. And before the interval, we celebrated a third goal, this time by Tony Dixon, before it was disallowed for reasons that none of us could fathom other than the illegitimacy of the referee.

Soon after the restart, Dixon had again put the ball in the net, after Eddie Byrne had dribbled past seven million Rovers defenders. This time the goal stood, and the shed erupted in footballing orgasms. It didn’t get much better than this: we were three nil ahead against Shamrock Rovers, we were all over them in every position on the field, and we still had over half an hour of enjoyment to come!

And so the pleasure continued. Another free kick on the edge of the area; this time we saw a ‘Joe Toe’, as Stony Burke hammered the ball through the Rovers wall and past the helpless Alan O’Neill, only to see it rebound off a crossbar that is probably still reverberating today. And Turly was cruelly denied a hat-trick when a late goal was disallowed for offside.

Instead of taking the bus, we instead walked a good bit of the way home with the ‘Thor-lough O’Connor: God of Goals’ banner held high. I’m sure most of the passers-by between Phibsboro and somewhere around Mobhi Road (where we finally caved in and flagged down a passing bus) must have wondered who we were, and who ‘Thor-lough O’Connor’ was. But we knew, and that was what mattered.

Most of the rest of the day’s results were kind to us. Down the road at Tolka Park, Finn Harps beat Home Farm, and they stayed top on sixteen points. But second-placed Drogheda only drew and third-placed Waterford were beaten. So we were now one of four teams on fourteen points each, along with Sligo Rovers, Drogheda and Cork Albert.

Surely, at some stage, some of these teams would have to drop off the pace?

They signed local docker Bob Fullam from rivals Shels, and reached the first Free State cup final that season. They were beaten by St James Gate, and responded by beginning a long tradition of hooliganism. Rovers fans and players physically attacked the winning team, both on the pitch and invading their dressing room, until the brother of one of the winning team fired a revolver into the ceiling of the dressing room.

A year later Rovers joined the new Free State league in its second season. They soon dominated Irish football, winning the league in 1923, the double in 1925, the league again in 1927, and the cup again in 1929. By now they were playing at Glenmalure Park in Milltown, and local bookmaker Joe Cunningham was a director. His family would own Rovers for the next half century.

They had also become ‘the Hoops’, when Belfast Celtic gave them a set of green and white hooped jerseys to replace their traditional striped ones.

Rovers did the double in 1932, and virtually owned the Free State Cup: their 1933 cup win was their fifth in a row. They won the cup again in 1936, and the league in 1938 and 39. Their star player during that era was striker Paddy Moore, the first player ever to score four goals in a World Cup qualifying match. His skill and charisma matched that of George Best, as did his drinking; Moore tragically died from alcoholism aged just 41.

Football in Dublin began to change during the 1940s. Cork United won the league five times and the cup twice, and the local Dublin battleground shifted with the collapse of Bohs and the emergence of Shelbourne and Drumcondra. Rovers won no titles but four more cups in the 1940s.

Then everything changed in 1953, after Sam Prole took over Drumcondra. The big Dublin rivalry quickly became Rovers on the south side of the river Liffey versus Drums on the north side. From then to the end of the decade, the Rovers side of that rivalry was known as Coad’s Colts. The team included goalkeeper Eamon ‘Sheila’ Darcy, midfielder and club captain Paddy Coad, outside left Liam Tuohy and striker Paddy Ambrose. Between them, Rovers and Drums won seven league titles and six FAI Cups from 1954 to 1964. Rovers also became the first Irish side to play in the European cup, losing to Man United in 1958.

After Coad left, Sean Thomas led the new Rovers side that won the double in 1964, with outside right Frank O’Neill signing from Arsenal and Liam Tuohy returning from a spell at Newcastle. Thomas then left to manage Bohs when Rovers’ owners refused to allow him to pick the team himself. That was the last time Rovers won the league, but from 1964 to 1969 they embarked on a record-breaking six-in-a-row FAI Cup wins.

The cup, however, was not overflowing with cash. By the early 1970s, the only real contest between Rovers and Drums was which was closest to bankruptcy. Both clubs’ owners, the Cunningham and Prole families, both wanted to get out of football.

But another family wanted in. Louis Kilcoyne had recently quit his job as assistant manager of the Gresham Hotel to become a football promoter, bringing Pele’s club Santos to Dublin, and he now wanted an insider’s position on football committees. To do this, he and his property developer brothers agreed to buy Drumcondra from Sam Prole. But Prole changed his mind and sold Drums to Home Farm. The Kilcoynes then turned their attention to the Cunninghams, and in 1972 they became the new owners of Shamrock Rovers.

Five years later, having lured Johnny Giles home from England, Shamrock Rovers were at the start of the boldest attempt ever to reinvent Irish football. Or so they thought. (Insert demonic cackle laden with schadenfreude!)

So far this season, on the field, Dundalk had self-destructed after their Showdown at the Dublin Airport Corral, just before boarding the flight for the away leg of their European Cup Winners Cup tie against Hajduk Split. You may recall that they refused to let two key players travel, after Tony Cavanagh and Tommy McConville had asked the club to reimburse their dole money. Well, they had since effectively sacked both players, citing ‘a serious breach of club discipline’. And club captain Jackie McManus, who had argued for the players at Dublin Airport, had been transferred to Drogheda. So hopefully they would still be in disarray this afternoon.

Leeds had lost to Middlesboro the previous day, but I had no idea how Bohs would do today in the absence of the comforting Law of Leeds and Bohs Having the Same Result Every Weekend. The team was at full strength: Mick Smyth in goal; Eamon Gregg, Padraig O’Connor, Joe Burke and Fran O’Brien in defence; Pat Byrne, Tommy Kelly, John McCormack and Tony Dixon in midfield; Turly O’Connor and Eddie Byrne up front.

To put it mildly, things did not start well. Early on, Dessie Oakes crossed into the Bohemians area, and Noel King headed the ball on for Terry Flanagan to head past Mick Smyth. Oakes was then injured, and Dundalk manager Jim McLaughlin came on as substitute. Before half-time Padraig O’Connor had given away a penalty, and Jimmy Redfern had put Dundalk two ahead from the spot. Bohemians piled on the pressure in the second half, but somehow could not find the net.

Then, with fifteen minutes to go, Billy Young replaced midfielders Tommy Kelly and John McCormack with Niall Shelly and striker Joey Salmon. The pressure intensified and, within minutes, Turly O’Connor was upended in the box, and the God of Goals scored from the resulting penalty. Then Fran O’Brien got a pass from a short corner, and his shot was deflected into the net of Noel King. 2-2! As the final whistle blew, we had somehow escaped with a point.

The other results were not too bad. Finn Harps were the only team above us to win, and they were now top of the league on 14 points. Drogheda had drawn and Waterford had won, putting both of them joint second on 13 points. And we were in joint fourth place, level on 12 points with Sligo Rovers, Shamrock Rovers and Cork Albert. In a league of this tight, I could live with that. As long as we remained only two points behind the leaders, we could sort them out whenever we played them next.

But the following week was the second-biggest day of the season after the Newcastle game. Next Sunday, Shamrock Rovers visited Dalymount.

In 1964 Dundalk became the first Irish team to win a European Cup match, but went out on aggregate to Swiss champions FC Zurich. They won the league again in 1967, and the following year beat Dutch side Utrecht to reach the second round of the European Fairs Cup. It was a bittersweet victory, as defender Patsy McKeown had his career ended by a broken leg in the away game, which ended with the sides level. Dundalk replaced McKeown for the home game by re-signing John Murphy, who had captained the club to the league title five years previously. They claimed the historic victory in extra time, when defender Jimmy Morrisey, from the edge of the penalty area, headed home a cross from Tony O’Connell.

After a fallow period, Dundalk had once again become a top side in the mid-seventies. They won the league in 1976, losing only once throughout the season, and followed up with a remarkable performance against PSV Eindhoven in the European Cup. Fans descended on Oriel Park, chartering coaches from Dublin and a flight from London. An early goal by Seamus McDowall put the Louth side ahead against the Dutch champions, who had eight internationals from the home of ‘total football’. A late Eindhoven equaliser failed to spoil a great night for the club, though they were beaten comprehensively in the away leg. Dundalk went on to win the FAI Cup in 1977, beating Limerick in the final thanks to two goals from former Bohemians striker Terry Flanagan.

They had a poor start to the 1977-78 season, and were languishing in mid-table when Bohemians travelled to Oriel Park with some confidence.

After Bohs beat Cork Celtic, I tried to understand how the Law of Leeds and Bohs Having the Same Result Every Weekend had failed to work. I absolutely had to figure this out, or else I would have to go to Bohs matches without knowing the outcome in advance. Maybe the Law didn’t work when Leeds and Bohs were both at home? No, it wasn’t that. Maybe the Law didn’t work when Leeds had the same result two weeks in a row? No, it wasn’t that either. So something must have been unusual about this weekend. Maybe something unrelated to football. But what could it have been? Well, here are some of the events that hit the Irish news headlines during that fateful weekend:

• Singer-turned-actor-turned-singer David Soul had reached number one in the charts with Silver Lady, confusing my regular Saturday night schedule of Starsky and Hutch, Match of the Day and Parkinson.
• Bill Crosby and Charlie Chaplin had both died on the Friday, but this was more than compensated for by Joe Dolan celebrating his 36th birthday at his Saturday cabaret show at the Chariot Inn in Ranelagh.
• RTE had rescheduled a new drama series, The Spike, amid concerns about rude language, but they were planning a series of one-hour ‘spectaculars’ to market Red Hurley around the globe.
• In Ballyhaunis, a bullock had escaped from the market square, climbed a set of steps off Abbey Street, crashed through the ceiling of a dry-cleaning shop, jumped over the shop counter, and escaped back onto the street.
• A bright young lad called Pat Kenny had compered the Miss Ireland Finals at the Shelbourne Hotel. Lorraine Enriquez from Dublin won, after one of the other beauties burst into tears because she didn’t like her curls.
• A local branch of the Irish medical Union was proposing that smoking be banned at the Union’s AGM in Galway.
• Letter-writers were complaining about the recent Shere Hite Report on Women’s Sexuality. A Carlow woman wondered who would want to be educated in advanced filth, and a Donegal man suggested adding the letter ‘S’ before the word ‘Hite’.
• In Ennis, the local Labour Exchange gave out banknotes to people on the dole queue that were not legal tender. The punched notes had got mixed up in transit, and local traders refused to accept them.
• Satisticians who analysed a GAA match between Dublin and Kerry concluded that, out of the official seventy minutes of play, the ball was actually in play for less than thirty minutes. Dublin forward Jimmy Keaveney said he was astonished.

So, all in all, I had to conclude that nothing unusual had happened in Ireland that weekend. The unexpected failure of the Law of Leeds and Bohs Having the Same Result Every Weekend would remain a mystery.

The FAI had relented on their ruling that had prevented Fran O’Brien from returning to Bohemians, so the red and black Light Brigade that faced their doom that day were Mick Smyth in goal; Eamon Gregg, Padraig O’Connor, Joe Burke and Fran O’Brien in defence; Pat Byrne, Tommy Kelly, John McCormack and Tony Dixon in midfield; Turly O’Connor and Eddie Byrne up front.

Sure enough, after twenty minutes, Brian McSweeny put Cork Celtic ahead. To pile on the misery, news came through that Sligo Rovers had also gone one up in their game. Then something quite inexplicable happened. Eamon Gregg put Pat Byrne clear on the right wing, and he crossed for Eddie Byrne to head home an equalizer. Then the laws of nature were somehow turned upside down. Pat Byrne shot us into the lead, and while I waited for Celtic to equalise, Pat Byrne crossed again for Eddie Byrne to put us 3-1 ahead with just minutes to go.

The other results come through, and I could not believe how close the league was. First placed Drogheda had played a scoreless draw with Dundalk, as had second placed Cork Albert with Shamrock Rovers. Finn Harps had hammered Thurles Town, and Waterford had beaten Shelbourne. So the top six teams had just one point between them: Drogheda, Harps and Cork Albert were on 12 points each, while Bohs, Shamrock Rovers and Waterford were all on 11 points. And reigning champions were in seventh place on 10 points.

That was two points, or just one win, separating the top seven teams out of sixteen. I could not remember a closer title race.

Celtic were the better team in the early sixties, and Hibernians in the late sixties, but neither won any major trophies despite both reaching two cup finals. In 1969 Celtic signed Derby County’s teenaged goalkeeper Alec Ludzig, who was now with Cork Albert, and former Bolton striker Carl Davenport, who soon moved to Cork Hibernians. Davenport famously expressed the opinion that the best showers in the old Turners Cross dressing room were when the rain came through the holes in the corrugated roof.

Celtic saw rivals Hibernians win the league in 1971 and the cup in the next two years. Then in 1973, former Chelsea star Bobby Tambling moved to Ireland to work as a Jehovah’s Witness missionary, and also joined Celtic. Tambling had become a Witness around the same time as Wolves’ striker Peter Knowles, prompting the English footballers union to suggest that: ‘If any player is approached by these people, we would welcome a chat with him before he gets too involved.’ With an unquantifiable level of assistance from Jehovah, Cork Celtic won their first ever league title in 1974.

Since then they had been a mid-table team, but featured two world-class stars in cameo roles. Donie Forde, who had signed Raich Carter for Cork Athletic in the 1950s, had become Cork Celtic’s secretary. In October 1975 he brought over Georgie Best, who concisely commented of the modest Turners Cross dressing room that: ‘It’s different’. In 1976 England’s World Cup Final hero Geoff Hurst spent a month with Celtic, before he joined Seattle Sounders in the new North American league. Hurst had also agreed to coach English club Telford, so he would watch Telford on the Saturday, be driven to Swansea, get the overnight ferry to Cork, play for Celtic on the Sunday, and fly back to England on the Monday.

These cameos certainly brought in big crowds, but Celtic were still struggling both financially and on the pitch. And so I was looking forward to their arrival at Dalymount Park for a match that could put our title challenge back on the rails.

Our line-up certainly had the potential to attack. Young goalkeeper Gerry Peyton of Fulham was protected by Paddy Mulligan of West Brom, Mark Lawrenson of Brighton, Dave O’Leary of Arsenal and Jimmy Holmes of Spurs. The midfield three were former Bohemian Gerry Daly of Derby County, Johnny Giles (who was the first Shamrock Rovers player to line out for Ireland since Eamon Fagan in 1973) and Liam Brady of Arsenal. And the front three were Don Givens of QPR, Frank Stapleton of Arsenal and Steve Heighway of Liverpool. There were two League of Ireland players on the bench, Bohemians goalkeeper Mick Smyth and Sligo striker Paul Magee, alongside Ray O’Brien of Notts County, Ashley Grimes of Man United and Mickey Walsh of Blackpool.

But, as usual, Ireland flattered to deceive, though we had by far the better of the possession. Johnny Giles came close with a long shot early on, and Gerry Daly, Don Givens and Steve Heighway all missed chances before half time. But the longer the game remained scoreless, the more confident the Bulgarians became and the more frustrated we did. Givens was booked for blocking their goalkeeper, and Dave O’Leary was booked for throwing the ball at an opponent. Gerry Peyton had only one save to make, but by the time Frank Stapleton blasted a late chance over the bar, it would hardly have mattered if it had gone in. Our chances of scoring another 999,999 goals in the final few minutes were remote.

And so I prepared myself for yet another World Cup Finals without Ireland playing in it, which to be honest was not that hard to do as it was all that I had ever known in my life. Meanwhile in Belfast, Holland beat Northern Ireland with a goal from Willie Van De Kerkhof, almost ensuring the Dutch a place in Argentina. And England beat Luxembourg away with goals by Ray Kennedy and Paul Mariner, but looked unlikely to finish ahead of Italy in their group.

But Scottish fans were celebrating a 2-0 win over Wales at Anfield that meant they had qualified for their second World Cup finals in a row. Their first goal came from a penalty after a hand-ball in a crowded Welsh penalty area; ironically, it may have been Scotland’s Joe Jordan, and not a Welsh defender, who handled the ball. But there was no doubt about Kenny Dalglish’s winning header with just minutes to go, which had Scottish comedian Andy Cameron rushing for pen and paper to write perhaps the most addictively enduring football song of all time:

We’re on the march with Ally’s army
We’re all going to Argentine
And we’ll really shake them up
When we win the World Cup
Cause Scotland are the greatest football team.

The B side of Cameron’s hit record was not quite so enduring:

Ah want tae be a punk rocker
But ma mammy wullny let me
She says if ah’m a punk
She’ll throw me oot and hit me
Ah want tae be a punk rocker
But ah’m feart tae be a punk
Cos ma mammy wullny let me be a punk.

Finn Harps had come a long way since they were founded in 1954. They won the FAI Junior Cup in 1968, and a year later they joined the league of Ireland along with fellow newcomers Athlone Town. They started less than auspiciously with a 10-2 defeat by Shamrock Rovers, but two years later notched up their own record win, hammering Athlone by 8-1. In the past few years, thanks largely to the goals of their prolific striker Brendan Bradley, Harps had become regular league challengers. And in 1974 they won their first major trophy, beating Saint Pat’s 3-1 in the FAI Cup final.

Today they faced a Bohs team that that was thrown into administrative chaos because of the Fran O’Brien saga. The FAI had told Bohs that, because O’Brien had left the League of Ireland for a dew days, he could not play again in the League for eight weeks. And so, having already played against Athlone in midweek, he was left out of the team against Harps. The rest of the team remained unchanged: Mick Smyth in goal; Eamon Gregg, Padraig O’Connor, Joe Burke and Austin Brady in defence; Pat Byrne, Tommy Kelly, John McCormack and Tony Dixon in midfield; Turly O’Connor and Eddie Byrne up front.

Harps were in control of the game from the start. Brendan Bradley scored two goals with shots from inside the penalty area, and had another two goals disallowed. His strike partner Hilary Carlyle, who had returned to Donegal after a term playing summer football in Hawaii, scored a third with minutes to go. The only damage done to the Finn Harps goal had nothing to do with Bohemians strike force: the home goalkeeper, Eddie Mahon, literally pulled the goalposts down when trying to reach a cross, and the match was held up until a man with a stool could hammer it back together again.

Today’s other results were devastating. Not only Finn Harps but also three other teams had overtaken us. Drogheda hammered Cork Celtic 4-1, Cork Albert continued their unexpected good form by putting three past Dundalk, and a late header by Ray Treacy gave Shamrock Rovers a 2-1 win against Sligo Rovers before a large crowd of over 8,000 fans at Milltown. We had dropped from first to fifth, and were now level on nine points with Waterford, a point behind Sligo Rovers and Shamrock Rovers, and two points behind Drogheda and Cork Albert. Luckily, we were playing Cork Celtic next week, who were on a bad run of form.

But before that we had another big midweek game to look forward to: the World Cup qualifier between Ireland against Bulgaria on Wednesday.