ONE THING IS for sure, Damien Duff wasn’t being wheeled out by Shelbourne to stir up publicity and shift tickets ahead of tonight’s visit of champions Shamrock Rovers.
There will be 4,700 at Tolka Park for the club’s first sellout since 2006.
“Everything is always 2006, isn’t it?” Duff said, sitting beneath an honours board that illustrated that it was the year they were League of Ireland Premier Division champions.
In the two decades that have followed Shels have endured financial collapse, relegation, rejuvenation, and relegation again.
The last few years, beginning with Ian Morris securing the First Division in 2021, have led to a more sustained revival with Duff leading the charge.
This summer they will return to action in Europe after last season’s fourth place finish proved enough to earn a spot in the Europa Conference League qualifiers.
Had they triumphed in the FAI Cup final at the end of Duff’s first season in charge that adventure might have come even earlier.
Duff’s comments earlier this week about the Irish Government’s allocation of €50 million towards the redevelopment of Ulster GAA’s Casement Park to help with the FAI’s joint bid to host Euro 2028 with Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England naturally caused a stir.
His impassioned message about why that money would be of far greater benefit to Irish football, were it invested in League of Ireland academies, also struck a chord.
On the same day FAI director of football Marc Canham unveiled his Player Pathways Plan, Duff called for action to be taken quickly by those in power at the FAI. Yesterday, some of them, including chief executive Jonathan Hill, endured a bruising encounter in front of the Public Accounts Committee.
Duff was speaking on Tuesday, though, and he ploughed through a range of topics with the kind of honesty that comes from not being beholden to a higher power.
The former Republic of Ireland international doesn’t have to sell himself or Shelbourne to create some kind of vacuous buzz of excitement.
The League of Ireland needs all the help it can get in some areas but cheap headlines are no longer required to try and entice people through the gates.
“I can’t see how they’ll (attendances) fall off again. Famous last words,” Duff said.
“I think they’re competitive games, good games. What was the quality like 20 years ago? I was a football snob 20 years ago but I’m not now. All I can speak about is recent history.
“It has grown tenfold but the most important thing is I can only see it growing, with help. I can’t see how attendances fall off again.
“I am very passionate about it. I know people are saying I’m battering the FAI again. Maybe for a lot of people in the FAI, not all, it’s a job to them. This isn’t a job to me. It’s my passion. It’s your passion and why you go to league matches for so long.
“That’s what I was put on this earth for – football, football, football,” he said, clicking his fingers. “If I didn’t have the league right now, I don’t have focus in my life. If you don’t have focus on your life, life ain’t good.”
At Shels it is, despite a takeover from Turkish millionaire Acun Ilicali that was completed last June then being reversed in November with the club returning to the hands of its Irish shareholders – led by Mickey O’Rourke.
It was a deal, as revealed by The 42, that did not cost them a single cent as Ilicali agreed to walk away without recouping any of his investment.
But demands and expectations remain.
A 1-1 draw away to Waterford last week, and the demeanour of some of his players, left an impression.
“It’s always smelling the room. It’s up to us to figure out between now and Friday how to speak to them but I’m not trying to calm them down because if anything last Friday was a bit too calm for me, so I’ll be going the other way,” Duff said.
Rovers are the benchmark and Stephen Bradley, the man Duff “blames” for giving him the coaching bug and setting him on the path with the club’s U15s, is someone he is adamant could “absolutely” be a future Ireland manager.
Shels have added to their squad and also made some aesthetic improvements around Tolka Park, like installing a scoreboard.
Greater strides are being sought with their proposed 250-year lease from Dublin City Council at a cost of €1.5 million edging closer to approval. Until then the quirks of Tolka remain.
“I actually got locked in the women’s toilet there a year ago, it was about 7pm, I couldn’t find a toilet, someone told me the toilets around the side were really good,” Duff began.
“I decided to go to the women’s as I knew they’d be an awful lot cleaner than the men’s, I was in the cubicle and a few women walked in. It was 30 minutes before kick off and I was stuck in the women’s for about five minutes until they left. I was just stood there, I could give the team-talk here.
“Are you going to make it a mini-Aviva overnight? No, it comes down to aesthetics. Are you going to rip Tolka up? No, it will cost €100m. But tweak it, a bit of toilet roll, I will be loitering in the ladies, that’s the headline there.”
