This evening is the biggest night of Damien Duff’s life. If he can lead his Shelbourne squad to victory over Derry City at Brandywell, he will clinch the club their first League of Ireland title since 2006. They might not even need three points, depending on how second-placed Shamrock Rovers fare against Waterford. It’s an irresistible story. The millionaire footballer who got his mammy to look after his finances when he was making Premier League full-backs wilt back in the country of his birth to perform a miracle.
But when a gigantic fish like this is dropped into a ‘smaller pond’, their presence can be all-consuming. Zoom out from the ex-Chelsea megastar, and there’s far more to get your teeth stuck into when it comes to Shels’ unlikely title charge. A vibrant fan base with two ultra groups. New heroes emerging after some unbelievably bleak times. A scrappy but distinguished club that refused to be kicked out of their home challenging Ireland’s new footballing establishment. No one knows this better than Barry Crossan the editor of Reds Independent—Ireland’s longest-running football, or soccer, fanzine. We simply had to speak to him before the big game. This is what Shels being on the brink of history means to him.
I still remember my first game at Tolka Park in 1993. A 1–0 defeat to Cork City. It's a special place. A real old-school ground in the middle of a row of red brick terrace houses in Drumcondra—an unusual sort of suburb, slightly outside the city centre that you pass when you’re coming into Dublin from the airport. When you come out of the pubs and cut around the houses, and then you see the floodlights kind of emerging—it's a very, very special feeling. The four stands are all different sizes, like the very best grounds. There's a corrugated iron roof over the main stand.
Red Independent
There's two ends behind each goal, which don't match. And the jewel in the crown is The Riverside, this magnificent kind of monolithic stand on the far side that used to be for away fans, but has been basically repurposed as the home end in the last maybe five or six years. That’s where the two ultras groups: Briogáid Dearg—who celebrated their 20th anniversary last year and are, in my biased opinion, the terrace leaders—and Boys 1895, who are younger lads.
We’ve been at Tolka Park permanently since 1989. Before that, it was a nomadic existence: we were kind of going from ‘home to home’, which was actually the name of an original Shels fanzine.
When I first started going, I fell in love with Tony Sheridan. You should watch his best bits on YouTube. He was so good in 1994 that he was tipped to make Jack Charlton's team to go to USA 94, right? He was a throwback to George Best or Rodney Marsh with his Beatles haircut, collar up, shirt untucked, and socks rolled down. He was just the most fabulous footballer you've ever seen. The way he controlled the ball … like just take it out of the air. He scored one of the best final goals I've ever seen in my life, where he just sort of curled it into the top corner. And when he was interviewed about it afterwards, live on RTE, he said: “Yeah, I just bleedin’ hit it,” in this thick Dublin accent. It was absolutely fantastic.
