Dundalk Football Club, more than just a game

Most peo­ple remem­ber their first cars reg­is­tra­tion num­ber. For me, I remem­ber my broth­ers num­ber, RZI378. Martin’s first ever car‑a sil­ver Ford Mini in 1968. For me, its place in his­to­ry relates to the fact that it car­ried my broth­er, my mum (Anne) and myself to Oriel Park. Some con­text here-we lived in Castle­belling­ham-home to the O’Connells GAA team who pro­vid­ed sport­ing enter­tain­ment for most of the local pop­u­la­tion. There was one hon­ourable excep­tion, one Vin­cie Cran­ny, his body con­tort­ed by polio yet he was an ever present on the Oriel Park side­lines for many years cheer­ing on his beloved Dun­dalk FC.

My dad was more inclined towards the GAA-my mam, in con­trast was steeped in Soc­cer tra­di­tion as her dad Edward Kier­nan was a founder mem­ber of Long­ford Town FC (who coin­ci­dent­ly cel­e­brat­ed their cen­te­nary in 2024). When the old Oriel Park ground was turned on its axis and a ‘The New all-seater Stand’ added this pro­vid­ed the incen­tive for Annie and her two boys to ‘clean up quick­ly after Sun­day lunch’ and ‘let’s head to Oriel Park’ for the 3:30 kick off. I almost shud­der with embar­rass­ment as I remem­ber the rug that moth­er insist­ed on wrap­ping around the three of us as we set­tled into our seats in the stand.…….’jeez, I hope none of the lads from school see us.

Although only nine years old at that time, my Castle­belling­ham friends and I were some­what fer­al! Like them, I was a smok­er ‑although not in pub­lic and cer­tain­ly not in front of ‘the Matri­arch’. On a par­tic­u­lar­ly cold autumn Sun­day, we took our seats for the match. A gen­tle­man one row in front of us ‘lit up’ his Car­rolls No 1 and the smoke waft­ed past my eager nico­tine crav­ing face……I inhaled it in with all my worth only to be set upon by my dis­gust­ed moth­er seek­ing to dis­ci­pline her wee boy for this ‘dis­gust­ing car­ry-on’ and ‘I hope you’re not smok­ing’. Of course, not ma, I was only mess­ing.

Look­ing back, it seems strange now how it was my dad who brought me to my first ever game. It was the final of the old Dublin Cities cup, played out in ear­ly sea­son to help teams get in shape for the league. This par­tic­u­lar final was in either Daly­mount or Tol­ka and my dad was dri­ving a friend of his to the game. I was sent along as ‘an anchor’ to make sure ‘the boys’ came home in a time­ly fash­ion. I was sev­en at the time and this was my first ever time at a league of Ire­land match. Sham­rock Rovers ver­sus Dun­dalk-even back then brought out the crowds.

I knew very lit­tle of what was actu­al­ly going on. Before kick off my dad inno­cent­ly asked ‘Who did I fan­cy to win’ with 6D (less that 2C in today’s Euro cur­ren­cy) as prize mon­ey if I choose cor­rect­ly. I said I fan­cied those guys in the green and white hoops-who sub­se­quent­ly turned over DFC 3–0 on the night. So 6D in hand I began ‘fol­low­ing’ Sham­rock Rovers………this usu­al­ly entailed cut­ting out pic­tures from the Indo, Press or Evening Papers and putting them into a scrap­book. I still have those scrap­books up in my attic today-near­ly a full 60 years lat­er. The team was all con­quer­ing-espe­cial­ly in the Cup win­ning six in a row over the last six years of the 60’s decade. When I changed schools to the sec­ondary, CBS Dun­dalk, I soon copped on absolute­ly that there was only room for one team ‘in the town’.    I’ve nev­er regret­ted that change of sup­port, and can safe­ly say watch­ing DFC over the last fifty plus years has been a con­sis­tent­ly engag­ing and some­times enjoy­able expe­ri­ence. Some of my per­son­al favourites mem­o­ries are…………..

And yet, for me, there’s anoth­er side to sup­port­ing ‘the Town’. It brought togeth­er my myself and my great friend from Der­ry, the late Dessie McDaid. Its June 1988 and we were hol­i­day­ing in Kelly’s of Ross­lare. On the Mon­day morn­ing soon after break­fast I passed by the snook­er room. There was a guy inside just knock­ing a few balls around the green baize. I asked him would he like a game? We played a num­ber of frames and Dessie clear­ly enjoyed aveng­ing Derry’s Cup defeat to Dun­dalk. We had just beat­en them in the Cup final cour­tesy of a John Cleary peno after a soft foul on our Lar­ry Wyse.

Dessie and I hit it off instant­ly and we spent a lot of time in each-oth­ers com­pa­ny on that first (of many) joint fam­i­ly hol­i­days. This was the start of a lit­er­al­ly life-long friend­ship. We host­ed each oth­er when Der­ry came to Oriel or we vis­it­ed Der­ry. On the first such trip to the Brandy­well, I dis­cov­ered why Dessie had the edge in snook­er. He had a full-sized table in the upstairs ‘sports room’ of their pala­tial Tal­bot park home. A shrewd busi­ness­man and a bak­er by trade, I envied his ear­ly start to work and thus ear­ly fin­ish which pro­vid­ed loads of time to make some toys for the girls, play golf with his local soci­ety or hone his snook­er skills in advance of DFC’s next vis­it to the Brandy­well or while away a few hours in the ‘Alley­mans’ on the Strand Road-prob­a­bly the small­est bar in Ire­land but always heav­ing it seemed.

Dessie sad­ly passed all too sud­den­ly and all too young (50’s) in 2007. I got to spend some pre­cious hours with him on a Sat­ur­day not long before he passed. Dessie actu­al­ly lost the abil­i­ty to speak on that Sat­ur­day evening.  I was heart­bro­ken when we embraced our farewells the fol­low­ing after­noon-we both bawled like ban­shees. As I drove off due south, I couldn’t talk so put the radio on to fill the silence……imagine my reac­tion when the first song we heard was Ronan Keat­ings ‘When you say noth­ing at all’ That song stirs mem­o­ries in me to this day. I still con­sid­er Der­ry my favourite city in Ire­land. We have become good friends with Dessie’s great bud­dies Char­lie (and the late Mar­i­an, RIP) and Ger­ard and Gabrielle McMonigle.

So, I start­ed this blog with the idea that foot­ball / DFC is in the blood you know and I firm­ly believe that. But for me, foot­ball has pro­vid­ed me with amaz­ing highs and shat­ter­ing lows, and intro­duced great life­time friends for which I am very grate­ful and feel tru­ly blessed. Each morn­ing while walk­ing our Bea­gle I thank my late mam for intro­duc­ing me to Dun­dalk FC and for light­ing a fuse that still burns bright­ly to this day! Come on the town!

Vin­cent Byrne, 09/01/2025