IN RICHMOND PARK, the home of St Patrick’s Athletic, there is a small portakabin nestled in the corner between the Main Stand and the West Stand.
It doesn’t look like a whole lot from the outside – and is easily missed next to the towering chip van beside it on match-days – but inside is a collection of football memorabilia spanning decades.
The man running it, Pat O’Callaghan, has been a fan of St Pat’s since the seventies, and got involved in selling the club programme during Brian Kerr’s spell as manager in the late eighties, a job he still does whenever Pats’ play at home in Richmond Park.
Always committed to customer service, Pat wraps each piece of history in his shop in the old plastic wrappings from greeting cards to keep them from getting damaged.
His collection includes historic programmes from clubs across Ireland, Wales, all divisions of English football and further afield. A recent addition is a copy of the 1937 Scottish Cup final programme, played between Celtic and Aberdeen in front of 147,365 fans.
‘If they don’t want to buy it that’s OK, as long as they don’t abuse me. But that goes with the territory’
A well-known face to many Saints’ fans, Pat brought us around his shop and shared his match-day routine with us:
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