A club built on hard work and dreams
WICKLOW ROVERS captured their fifth Wicklow Cup in 1991 and they did it in serious style, going unbeaten all through the campaign and not conceding a single goal. In fact, they didn’t concede a single goal in any of their five finals which testifies strongly to the strength of their defence.
The Rovers have a rich and productive history in Wicklow League soccer. Formed in 1975 by a group of men including John ‘Spud’ Murphy, Teddy Dunne, Jimmy Culbert, Noel McVeigh, Jimmy Byrne, Billy Dunne and Jimmy Crofton, the Whitegates outfit has gone from strength to strength over the years and now boast a strong Wciklow League side and a competitive Leinster League side while their underage section is thriving thanks to the excellent work of a host of coaches and a strong sense of community.
The first match the club ever played was against Bray Rangers away. The result was a draw, 1-1, with Jack Byrne becoming the first player to score for the new entity.
A mid-table finish followed that season and a youths team was born the in the second with Dave Earls as manager. Dave and his team would bring the first cup to the club, the Morris Cup, and through dedication and desire this team would go on to add plenty more silverware and provide capable players for a promising adult side.
Players to pass through this unit included the likes of Eugene O’Neill (one of the scorers and the winner of the MOTM award in 1991), John Dunne, Jimmy Duffy, Malcolm Earls, Tommy Kelly, Liam Devlin, Gavin Carroll, Billy O’Rourke, John Kilbride, Gerry Philips, Paul Malone, Richard Murphy, John Smith, Dave Phillips, Bosco Marah, Alan Rice and John Jameson.
The Giff Cup and Bishop Cup were soon harvested by talented adult squads; the Bishop Cup coming with victory over Rathnew Celtic in the final by the panel of: Jack Byrne, Bren Doyle, Malcolm Earls, John Dunne, Pat ‘Sting’ Kavanagh, Eugene O’Neill, Liam Devlin, Tommy Kelly, Denis O’Brien, Noel O’Brien, Noel Redmond, Pat Byrne, Joe Quinn, Paul Dunne, Mick Byrne.
Onwards and upwards went this progressive and ambitious club. The work at juvenile level started to really take shape with constant improvements and more and more teams being entered at various levels including under-16 and under-12 – an eye always on the future.
The arrival of Offaly native Pat Spollen was a major boost with the garda proving an excellent all-rounder as was his colleague Eugene Sheelan.
The first Wicklow Cup arrived in 1981/82 when Wicklow Rovers defeated Arklow Town 1-0 in the Carlise Ground to claim the flagship crown of the Wicklow League.
The man to capture the headlines that season was Pat ‘Sting’ Kavanagh who is reported to have had his best day for Wicklow Rovers when destroying the Arklow Town defence that day.
‘Arklow Town destroyed by the Sting,’ read the headlines the following week in the Wicklow People. Sting’s creativity and intelligence are what set him apart from the majority of players. With a wand of a left foot he enjoyed a magnificent soccer career and is quite rightly lauded as one of the best ever produced at local level.
They also won the Solus Shield that year under the management team of John ‘Spud’ Murphy, Michael Loughlin and Paddy Byrne.
Wicklow Rovers would retain the Wicklow Cup the following year, beating Aughrim Rangers in the decider while also reaching the last eight of the FAI Junior Cup. A Johnny Dunne goal from the penalty spot was enough to see off the Aughrim side.
‘Myself and Jimmy Culbert came together to form the Rovers,’ says John ‘Spud’ Murphy when we chat about the history of the club. ‘I was playing for Wicklow Town at the time and I had broken my leg and Jimmy came up to my house on Summerhill and he wanted to start a team and call it Wicklow Rovers so I said, ‘fair enough’.
‘He had the money, he put the money into the Wicklow League at the time,’ added ‘Spud’.
The likes of John Murphy and Teddy Dunne are synonomous with Wicklow Rovers. For so many years they were the lifeblood of the club and its exploits and adventures are captured forever in print thanks to the dedication of Teddy Dunne who has published one book and is working on another.
Tapping into and developing the talented young players at their disposal was key to rovers’ development over the years.
‘I played all those young lads, dropped senior lads, played them. That’s the way I looked at football. That’s the way St Pat’s worked with the Gaelic. You just can’t have 15 or 20 lads all of the same age, you have to bring lads in,’ says ‘Spud’.
‘We were the bottom rung, 4B at the time. We were getting hammered here, there and everywhere. There was a team called Orchard United and they bet us 7 or 8-0. That’s the way it was. At the end of the season we bet them 7 or 8-0. I think Tommy Kelly scored three or four goals that game.
‘A year or so after, maybe two years we won the Giff Cup, and them young lads were playing. Johnny Dunne, Malcome Earls, Eugene O’Neill, Liam Devlin, John Kilbride. The likes of ‘Sting’ Kavanagh, he was playing for Rathnew at the time, or Wicklow Town, he was the best player in Wicklow at the time. He could have gone anywhere. He signed for us then. He seen the potential with the young lads and he came and we got another couple of young lads. He was brilliant. He played left side of midfield. Great brain.
‘It took us a good few years to win the league. Rathnew Celtic had a good team at the time. A lad called Tommy Carroll was over them and they were winning nearly everything at the time. We were always runners up to them. They won the Leinster Junior Cup. They were good but we were coming. We were building team.
‘They (Rathnew Celtic) had won the League, the Leinster Junior Cup and the Wicklow Cup, they could have won the Shield as well, but we went to play them in the Carlisle in the Bishop Cup final in the Carlisle Grounds. They thought they were going to hammer us. The game was on a Tuesday night. One of their lads, Frankie Murphy, said to me before the game, ‘what’s the score tonight, Spud’. We’ll beat them 3-0,’ I said, and he started laughing at me. We scored three goals that night and the referee disallowed two of them. Tommy Kelly got the winner. We won 1-0. We started coming from then,’ said ‘Spud’.
Wicklow Rovers would go on to beat Glenview, Gorey Rangers, Little Bray and Arklow Town again on the road to their five Wicklow Cups that cemented their place in Wicklow League history and laid the foundations for what would become one of the leading clubs in the county.