Emmet Malone On Soccer: Given that few Irish clubs manage to generate even 20 per cent of their income from gate receipts, it's been tempting to view most of them as highly efficient fund-raising organisations that happen to field football teams.
The news last week, however, that Bohemians are set to sell their home of more than a century for some €65 million suggests that the most successful club of the next decade or so may simply be the one that best played the booming Dublin property market of the last few years.
The futures of Shelbourne and St Patrick's Athletic are also both closely tied up with the value of their respective homes in one way or another but the last of the capital's "big four", of course, have nothing to sell or redevelop given that Milltown was cashed in two decades ago. Many of those involved with Shamrock Rovers now were active opponents of the decision to move the club back then and how different, they must wonder, the last 19 years might have been if Keep Rovers At Milltown (KRAM) had been successful in its attempt to match a purchase price that is now estimated to have been a little short of €1.3 million.
The amount seems almost laughable these days, barely the price of a solitary semi-detached home in one of the city's more desirable areas - Milltown for instance - and few doubt that if sold now Glenmalure Park, though sitting on a smaller site than Dalymount, would achieve a similar sort of sum to its northside counterpart.
Whether even KRAM would have held out to see the value of the ground reach its current level is another matter. "Personally I doubt Rovers would still be playing there no matter who owned the club," says Mark Lynch, a present day director and long-time supporter. "I think the time would have been reached at some point where the people in charge would have reckoned that it was time to move on because the asset was simply too valuable to hold on to.
"It's impossible to say when that might have occurred but what is certain is that the club would have done better than it did out of the sale the way it actually did happen".
Not long after Rovers had their home sold from under them, Bohemians had a narrow escape when they received an offer of fractionally over €1 million for Dalymount but declined to sell. There have been some tough times since with the club struggling to maintain the ground, never mind update it. But the determination to stay on until now looks to have ensured a bright future.
Others have done relatively well out of the city's property boom by buying before it was too late - with Shelbourne a good example. Around the same time Rovers were selling up and Bohemians deciding to stay put, Ollie Byrne was eyeing up Tolka Park as a new home for his club. The lease on the ground wasn't an entirely straightforward affair but at around €410,000 the deal was still a good one and it is believed that the club's net share of the recent agreement to sell the ground on ahead of a planned move to Santry was around €17 million.
The purchase of Tolka was reportedly supported in a roundabout way by the FAI who, it seems, eased the move by supporting Home Farm in its development of Whitehall. But the association's precarious financial state combined with the day-to-day existence endured by most of the country's leading clubs meant pitifully little was invested in property or other infrastructure back then at a time when it was more affordable.
"When the AUL bought Clonshaugh," recalls Michael Hyland, the league's long-time president, "the FAI was broke. They were actually looking for a loan from the junior league so we went ahead and did it ourselves." Hyland bid for the 49.5 acres of then farmland close to Dublin airport at an auction in 1986 and subsequently bought it for around €69,000. Getting the ESB to move pylons so that the pitches could be laid out cost the league almost as much again while many times that has been spent since on developing the site.
A couple of years back it was valued at around €14 million, a figure that would presumably multiply if it were to be rezoned. It seems almost unthinkable that anything like it would or could be purchased for football so close to the city today.
The failure of eircom League sides to secure their long-term futures at grounds of their own choice wasn't confined to Dublin with grounds, most painfully Flower Lodge, lost to the game in places like Cork, Limerick and Waterford. In many cases there have since been successful partnerships developed with local leagues but the fact remains the clubs involved lack control over their own destiny because they couldn't buy when the opportunity arose.
The properties bought and developed by the GAA during the past two decades, in contrast, have played a critical part in the health (and wealth) of that organisation today.
Around Dublin, though, even relatively small football clubs showed what could have been achieved with a little foresight and a very modest amount of cash. After a three- year search for a home of its own, for instance, St Francis spent €45,000 on 6.25 acres close to Baldonnell aerodrome in 1987 and then a further €25,000 on three more acres five years later.
"Our secret," recalls then manager Pete Mahon, who was central to the deal, "was that we were like the GAA in that nobody was taking a penny out of the club at the time. After Malahide United, I think, we were the second club in the country to run a lottery and we did everything else we could think of too but everything went into the club and it enabled us to make enormous progress and do everything the right way."
Almost 20 years on, the land, John Hyland Park, is the subject of a bitter dispute between two factions thrown up by a split that occurred after Mahon's departure. "Buying the land was the best thing that ever happened the club but the fall-out over it was the worst," observes Mahon ruefully now.
The boys at Bohemians, meanwhile, may have done very well to realise the value of a home whose potential they could not afford to develop but for property owners in Dublin becoming rich, on paper at least, has been all too easy during the past couple of decades. Using that new-found wealth to secure a prosperous long-term future is an altogether tougher challenge and one that the club's committee is only starting to grapple with.
