No soccer in famous summer of 1966 due to lack of pitches
SHOULD all go according to plan, junior and schoolboy football could resume from July 20th.
However, should things not work out it won’t be the first time that Dundalk was left without junior football.
In the most momentous year in soccer in the British Isles local junior footballers were idle, having to be content to watch on television the Old Enemy England win the World Cup in that summer of 1966.
The Summer League couldn’t be staged for the simple reason that there was nowhere to play games as, unlike nowadays, most of the clubs were without their own grounds.
The Schoolboys League just managed to stay afloat after a desperate plea to the owners of St Joseph’s Park (next door to Oriel Park) yielded a lease for three months for the playing of games.
‘It meant the Summer League had nowhere to go, so the Summer League died in 1966,’ recalled Gerry Gover, who with Matt McArdle saved schoolboys soccer that summer. Gerry played a leading part in the revival and expansion of the Summer League in subsequent seasons, taking over as chairman in 1968 after it was reorganised the previous year.
Matt, a lifetime soccer enthusiast and follower of Dundalk, was then chairman of Dundalk FC Supporters Club. Gerry was also a member of the Supporters Club along with other well-known soccer figures in town, including Benny Walsh, Jackie Henry RIP, Sean McGarrity RIP and Harry Lee.
Matt was the one that Gerry turned to, to plead the case for the Schoolboys League when the legendary and great Joe McEntee told him he was packing in the Schoolboys League of which he was chairman, and was finished with ‘Joe’s Park’ which was the home of underage and junior football for a long time.
The great man organised a youth club which was based in Anne Street and a pipe band for the town’s young folk, as well as being the key man in running the Schoolboys League. He also was one with great vision and way ahead of his time, as Gerry later discovered. For Joe, in his time on the town council, proposed building a swimming pool for the town, but didn’t receive support. It was a long time afterwards that Dundalk eventually gained its cherished pool.
Gerry remembers going to his house in Dublin Street. ‘All he ever called me was young Grover. I asked what was going to happen. He says, young Grover you better run it yourself.’
‘I says I’m not experienced. He says: ‘I’m finished. There was only one man to go to and that was Matt McArdle,’ continued Gerry, whose reasons for remembering 1966 are threefold.
‘How I remember it, they turned the pitch round in Oriel Park. Rangers (his club) were in Liverpool in July. England won the World cup on the Saturday and we sailed for Liverpool on the Monday, taking three or four teams on the trip.’
Gerry went to see Matt and explained the situation. The latter agreed to accompany him to speak with the people he believed were then new owners of St Joseph’s Park – the Conroy family. They spoke with a member of the family. ‘Matt got round him and he gave us the pitch for three months for £60,’ said Gerry.
Oriel Park at the time was undergoing redevelopment, with the pitch being switched round from running with a slope from the Carrick Road towards the Ardee Road to the present direction. Work began as soon as the 1965/66 season finished, with the last game on the old surface on March 20th resulting in a 6-3 defeat for the Lilywhites to Cork Hibernians.
That excluded the Summer League from even looking for the use of the pitch on which junior and schoolboys matches were played.
The Rangers club, with no Summer League, entered the AUL Division 2 league in Dublin in the 1965/66 season, and with a very strong panel were looking like potential winners but didn’t finish the season.
Meanwhile, a new Schoolboys League Committee was formed, with Matt McArdle as chairman, and comprising Gerry Gover and Larry Gorham as secretary. Others who joined were Paddy Bellew and Mickey Callan, both RIP. Paddy subsequently became chairman, and Mickey played a very important role in the league for years. The clubs also had a representative on the committee.
In that inaugural season under the new committee five teams entered - St Joseph’s, Lisnawilly, Bank United, Rangers and Fulham, but Fulham didn’t stay the course. The competition provided was for players under-15, with new age groups added over the years - under-17 and under-13.
Then a revolutionary move was made to cater for under-8s and competitions were run for every age up to 17 until more enlightened thinking deemed that smaller-sided competition was best for players’ development and full 11-a-side games now commence after the age of 12.
The new committee succeeded in putting the league on a solid footing, with underage as well as junior games staged in St Joseph’s Park for many years until the 1980s, packing in the crowds.
‘I always, from a crowd point of view, used to love playing there as you always would get the 15 shillings for the referee,’ recalled Gerry Gover.
An eventful summer concluded with Dundalk playing Nottingham Forest, managed by the legendary Johnny Carey who famously captained Manchester United to FA Cup success in 1948. The game on August 7th marked the reopening of the new Oriel Park and heralded a golden era period for Dundalk soccer, known simply as the Alan Fox era.