Brideview lose in Munster Junior Shield

Bridview were the only team from West Waterford in action last Sunday when they hosted Southend at Leonard Fraser Park in the Munster Junior Shield, a fixture that was reversed from the previous week when the Southend venue failed a referee’s inspection. With Lismore also beaten and Clashmore having withdrawn from the league, there is no club from way up west remaining in the competition.

The weather was not helpful with many league fixtures having to be called off, also due to Waterford playing Cobh Ramblers at Turner’s Cross on Saturday. This coming Saturday it is back to league action with Lismore playing at home to the Villa in their division and Ballyduff Rovers also at home.

Saturday last saw Waterford defeat Cobh Ramblers in the 1st Division final and will now play at Tallaght Stadium this Friday evening in the promotion/relegation play-off.

In our Memories segment this week, we commence with the referees of 1993 and we move on to the 1983/84 season and then conclude with another look back to 1999. Hopefully, there are a few memories here for our readers.

WATERFORD LEAGUE RESULTS Brideview 1 Southend 5

Brideview had Southend as visitors to Leonard Fraser Park on Sunday afternoon in the Munster Junior Shield and lost to the city team.

This game should have been played at the Waterford venue last Sunday, but the pitch failed a referee’s inspection and the cup rule dictated the game be played at the opponents’ ground. The game as a contest was well and truly over at half-time with the visitors leading 4-0.

In the second half Southend scored again and late in the game, Ben Aherne pulled a goal back for Brideview, but at the final whistle the result was 1-5 to Southend.

Brideview have no fixture this coming weekend but will play away in the league on Sunday week, 19th November to De La Salle.

Lismore v The Villa

This Saturday, Lismore play at home to the Villa in Division 2A, with a 2pm kick-off.

Ballyduff Rovers v The Villa

Saturday will also see Ballyduff Rovers play at home in 3A against the Villa.

WATERFORD & CORK CITY IN PROMOTION/RELEGATION PLAYOFF

We start off with the news all Waterford fans had hoped and looked forward to, playing Cork City this Friday in the promotion/relegation playoff. This will be the third consecutive year the Blues will be playing to try and return to the Premier Division. For the past two years, Waterford have fallen at this particular hurdle, losing on both occasions to UCD, who themselves are relegated to play in the 1st Division next season to be replaced by Galway. Cork City finished ninth in the league and find themselves having to defeat the Blues to stay in the top division.

For Waterford, they had to play Athlone twice and then last Saturday played in Turner’s Cross against neighbours Cobh Ramblers. Now there is only ninety minutes of football between the Blues’ dream of playing Premier football in 2024 or having to slog it out once again in what so many call the “graveyard” of League of Ireland football. Come Friday, the Blues faithful supporters will once again prepare to travel, this time on the motorway to Dublin to one of the best grounds in the league, Tallaght Stadium, home of Shamrock Rvs and also home to the Irish women’s international team

Saturday last, before an attendance of just over 2,600, the Blues had to go to extra time to defeat the Ramblers 2-1. Unfortunately for ourselves we were not at the

Cross as duty had us in the Markets Field and we have to depend on reports we received during the game and at the final whistle. The reports are from our colleagues in both clubs and a neutral, who told us Waterford were the better team throughout the 120 minutes of football. We thank our colleagues for their reports.

Waterford went into the game as favourites having finished ten points clear of the Ramblers in the league, but Cobh had defeated Waterford in their last league game at the RSC.

The match was played on a soft pitch from all the rain during the week, and not forgetting that two league games were played on the ground last weekend. Both teams created chances in the opening half with goal scoring hero Ronan Coughlan missing a great opportunity, while at the other end Sam Sargeant had to be at his best to keep the Blues in the game, as he saved from Frahill. Coughlan was causing problems for the Ramblers’ defence and when he put Conor Parson’s through, the latter was unable to make the contact needed to test Steacy in the Cobh goal. Corner kicks were causing problems for the Cobh defence with team captain Giles Phillips’s height almost giving the Blues the opening goal from a header, only to see his effort saved on the line. 0-0 at half-time.

Within a minute of the restart, the Blues took the lead when Barry Baggley gained possession in his own half and played a beautiful pass forward to Coughlan who raced into the area and gave Lee Steacy no chance as the ball nestled in the net at the St Anne’s End in front of the Blues’ supporters. This was Coughlan’s 36th goal of the season. A deserved lead, but within a minute Cobh had a chance when James O’Leary forced Sargeant into a great save at the expense of a corner and Charlie Lyons’ header from the flag kick was cleared by Phillips.

With Waterford on top at this stage, it looked more likely the Blues would score again, but with only two minutes remaining Alec Byrne played a high ball back into the area with Doherty winning the header and a bicycle kick by McKevitt went into the net via the crossbar for the equaliser and a goal that stunned the large Waterford following. The full-time whistle sounded and it was then onto extra-time.

Cobh attacked from the start of the sixty minutes with Doherty shooting wide when well placed, while Steacy saved well from Dean McMenamy. Sargeant then had to be at his best to save from Alec Byrne. Then with five minutes to the break a Waterford corner kick from Shane Griffin was headed to the net by Phillips at the Shed end and the second half of extra time saw Waterford play out the fifteen minutes in command, although the former Blues player, Jack Doherty’s late free kick went the wrong side of a post. When David Dunne blew full time, the Blues were through to their third consecutive promotion/relegation play-off.

The reports we heard, tell us there were a total of fourteen cards issued during the 120mins of football and a bizarre decision that saw Barry Baggley issued with a red card, until the referee realised he had not issued a first yellow card to the player and the referee had to reverse his decision. Is there any need to write another piece on referees in the Airtricity League? When the season is completed, we shall “mention” the standard of refereeing that we see each week, especially in the 1st Division.

The Waterford management were happy at the final whistle to have overcome a Cobh Ramblers team they knew would battle to the very end. Favouritism meant nothing in a one-off game and Keith Long and Alan Reynolds were very aware of this Cobh team that has shown how structured they have become this season.

Shane Keegan and Franny Rockett have lifted this team from bottom of the league this time twelve months ago to be in a playoff for the Premier Division. Both must be credited with the signings they have made and hopefully this management will be leading the club in 2024.

Cork City completed their league programme on Friday away to Bohemians and the Dalymount Park team proved much too good for City, winning easily 4-0. For this game manager Richie Holland made a number of team changes from the team that drew with Shamrock Rovers = the previous Monday, with the playoff in mind and he wanted to ensure that his top players did not get injured or receive red cards.

There has been much talk since Monday’s game centering mostly on Cork City not giving the newly crowned league champions a guard of honour as the team exited the dressing rooms. It has become a tradition in the past number of years that the newly crowned champions are given a guard of honour by the opposition. Unfortunately, City manager Richie Holland did not agree with this on Monday and so Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley was very vocal in his criticism of the City manager and the club. We believe it was totally disrespectful to Rovers and this has created nothing but negativity around the club. The manager has to take full responsibility for this and more especially when the club needs all the support it can get at present.

What are the consequences if they lose the playoff to Waterford?

Getting back to the game on Monday, they did play well against an under strength Rovers, a Rovers team that saw a number of their academy players getting a chance in League of Ireland football, but City were unable to find the net with their leading goal scorer Ruairi Keating missing a number of opportunities. Bradley brought on a few of his top players late in the game in an effort to get a goal, but at the final whistle the points were shared 0-0.

On Friday, Cork City played their last Premier League game of the season when they travelled to Dalymount Park to play Bohemians and Richie Holland played an under strength team with next Friday’s game in mind. Bohs will be playing in the cup final this Sunday against St. Patrick’s Athletic and they attacked from the start and scored after 12mins when Grant’s effort on goal was deflected past keeper Ollie Byrne by Sam Bailey. The same player doubled the score in injury time in the first half.

Six minutes after the restart Bailey put through his own goal for goal number three for the Gypsies and Alofi completed the scoring with ten minutes remaining, to give the home team a comfortable victory.

We now turn our attention to Friday night at Tallaght Stadium when Cork City and Waterford meet in the promotion/ relegation play-off. It is disappointing that both teams now find themselves in this position, for regardless of the result here, there will still be only one Munster team playing Premier football next season, which is a disaster for the province and for the game in general.

The teams met on 21st August at Turner’s Cross in the Sports Direct FAI Cup with Cork City winning 3-0. We reported on the game for our notes and we were very critical of the performance of the team on the night. There were 440 Blues fans in the attendance of 2,400+ and speaking to a number of them after the game, they all felt the same as ourselves, embarrassed. That game was one of the worst displays by a Blues team we had seen, as the team seemed to lack ideas and made it a very easy evening for the City defence. In subsequent visits to Turner’s Cross, a few of our Cork colleagues maintain that if the two teams meet in a playoff, the result from that August night will be reversed. Cork City have had one of their worst ever seasons and were unable to adapt to playing in the higher division, with only eight wins and twenty-one defeats in their thirty-six league games.

Our regular Blues supporters that we spoke to on Sunday believe the Waterford team is good enough to win on Friday night and for once, break the play-off hoodoo that has hung over the club through the years. We all have unhappy memories of many of these defeats, so let us hope Friday night will not be another one.

This is now a one-off game with so much depending on the result, for both clubs, two clubs that are full-time professionals and as we all know, such teams need to be playing in the Premier Division. Cork City have been the standard bearers for many years, winning leagues and cups under John Caulfield, not forgetting their battles with Stephen Kenny and Dundalk and we remember Turner’s Cross being packed when Dundalk were visitors. Many say the atmosphere at the Cross on such occasions is not witnessed at any other ground in the country.

For Waterford, this is a must win game and the past season has shown the support for the club is as strong as it always was in the good old days, days we would all love to see replicated now.

Our verdict for Friday night is a win for Waterford, but this is a game that may have to go to 120mins and a worse case scenario, a penalty shootout that no team will want. Let us hope we will be writing next week of the Blues back playing Premier League football when the new season will kick-off next February.

U19 SUCCESS

We would like to congratulate the Waterford U19 team that won the FAI Shield final on Sunday last at Carriganore, defeating Treaty Utd 4-1. On the

Waterford team were Ronan Mansfield, Affane and Evan Geary, Ballyduff. Well done to both players and the Waterford team.

As we wrote at the start, we were in the Markets Field for Women’s National League game that saw Treaty Utd lose to Shamrock Rovers 1-4. Outside of the game there was a festival atmosphere with the game live on TG4 and the Limerick women’s team that won the league in 1973 and the FAI Cup in 1975 guests of the new owners of Treaty. We will return to this again.

MEMORIES

A number of weeks back we decided to take a look through the archives of activities that took place off the field and last week we wrote how the referees in the RHL were given an ultimatum to either stay refereeing or step down from the RHL committee. Two referees stepped down from the committee and at a delegate meeting held 4th October, 1999 Leonard Fraser informed the club delegates that following a meeting with the Waterford referees, the referees in the RHL were now associate members of the Waterford branch of the ISRS. He said in all probability the referees’ match fees would have to fall in line with the Waterford society’s guidelines. One of the new guidelines was that referees would receive payment from their homes to the ground of where the game was taking place.

The referees in the RHL-WW/EC League went on to form their own society and since the league has disbanded, referees are now refereeing in Cork and Waterford.

Staying with referees, a number of weeks back when researching the archives we saw under correspondence, from minutes of a delegate meeting in 1983/84, a letter to the committee from a club that said “the management or governing committee of any league should be totally independent from any member club or at least elected from a representative of all clubs involved to ensure impartiality and fair play. Referees should make suggestions and recommendations and not dictate policy”. This letter was from a club that had a player sent off in a league game and his behaviour reported by the referee to the disciplinary committee of the time. He received a suspension and his club were warned as to their future conduct. The reference to the referees making suggestions and recommendations is to the disciplinary committee who had two referees represented.

It is also worth pointing out that at that particular time, the officers of the league were the officers of the Lismore club, chairman, secretary and treasurer and while these were elected at the Lismore AGM, the chairman had decided that he should let the vice chairman of the Lismore club look after the club affairs and he stay as chairman of the league.

It is difficult when one looks back at this particular time, how this was managed, that a club run a league. But the clubs that played in the league accepted this and as we all know, it was only a matter of time before the Lismore club decided that the league should be independent and a committee was elected from the clubs.

At the AGM of Lismore AFC on 23rd May, 1987, the Lismore club chairman proposed that the organising of the RHL should be handled by an independent committee elected by the clubs instead of by the Lismore club, who have since the inception of the league organised what is now a very big and competitive league of two divisions incorporating 19 teams.

On 31st August, 1987 the AGM of the RHL took place at the Red House Lismore and the clubs were already informed before the meeting that Lismore AFC were no longer organising the league. An election took place from the club members present and the very first committee of the league was announced. We have written on this before, and the committee elected was: Chairman Paddy Pollard, Lismore; vice chairman Eddie

O’Shea, Affane; secretary Paddy Mason, Cappoquin; treasurer Leonard Fraser, Brideview; assistant treasurer Paddy O’Donnell, Modeligo; PRO Liam Fraser, Brideview.

Looking through the archives we came across an item from a delegate meeting on 6th December, 1999, when a delegation from the North Cork League were present for the end of the meeting. The delegation explained they would like to join up with the RHL as associate members. They gave a brief history of their league and were very impressed with what they read and heard of the RHL and feel this was a step in the right direction for them. League chairman Paddy Pollard suggested the North Cork League write to the MFA and send a copy to the RHL and he would speak at the next meeting of the MFA on the subject.

The letter from the North Cork League was read at the January meeting of the MFA and they were invited to meet with the MFA at a future date. However, the request from North Cork was eventually turned down following objections from other leagues. In due course, the North Cork League went out of existence.

We hope the above will bring back memories from those years and next week, we will once again delve into the league archives.