The League of Ireland just might be the best league in the world, you know. Friday night football under the lights, stadiums small enough that you can still see, hear and smell every crunching challenge on the pitch and every flare in the terraces, and teams that play each other so frequently, every meeting is drenched in narrative and reopens historic wounds.
The thing is, for a long time, a lot of people hadn’t realised this. Attendances were pretty meagre, facilities were crumbling, and teams lurched from one financial crisis to the next. No longer, though. The League of Ireland is currently in something of a boom period.
Since the pandemic, crowds have skyrocketed across the board, and those who can’t get into games—of which there are many—are more engaged than ever with their homegrown footballing product. It’s been heartening to witness from the outside, and a very special event on Sunday might just represent the cherry on top of the cake.
This weekend, two bitter Dublin rivals are taking over the Aviva Stadium for a league game. This isn’t a cup final, where attendances have been very healthy in recent times. This is your bog-standard opening weekend affair.
You will have heard of Bohemians, no doubt. Those Fontaines D.C., Thin Lizzy and now Guinness collaborations have made sure of that. They are Dublin Originals and the nominal home side for the ‘visit’ of bitter rivals Shamrock Rovers.
Rovers are the city’s most successful club, though they finished two points shy of title winners Shelbourne—managed by Damien Duff, by the way, you can read about that here—last season.
To be frank, the two starkly contrasting clubs do not like each other very much. And now, after a lifetime of having to settle for smaller stages, their long-running blood feud will finally take place at the amphitheatre they deserve. Ahead of the game, which is on track to eclipse the league’s record attendance, I spoke to three quite amazing people about just what that means to Bohs and the League of Ireland as a whole.
THE MOST INTERESTING MAN IN DUBLIN
Brian Teeling
Dan Lambert doesn’t think his life is very interesting, but his life is very interesting. Particularly recently. Not only is he COO at the Bohemian Football Club, he also manages one of the hottest bands in the world, Kneecap—a relationship that genuinely began when he ran into them in the pub—and has previously worked for the United Nations. He is the living embodiment of what Bohs stands for: innovation, a DIY ethos and a desire to make the world a better place.
