THE GRAND OL DUKE OF DALYMOUNT...

Déjà vu is something us Bohs fans are very familiar with these past few seasons.
A great performance leaving us on Cloud nine for a few days, before a lame duck performance in the next match, bring us back down to earth at breakneck speed.

Due to issues logging in (I gave up when I realised the clock had struck 19.46) so I ended up listening into the excellent radio coverage on BBC Foyle.
And from what I heard on the radio, backed up by post match observations from people who were at it, I was glad my eyes were spared having to see fluffed chances in front of goal and a team seemingly strolling along in third gear,


If you are a neutral, what a captivating start to the season, from the record attendance in The Aviva last week, to Galway ripping the predictions book by beating many pundits favourite to win the league, St. Patrick’s Athletic.

When the dust settled and I began to look at the game in The Brandywell in a somewhat rational guise, I took stock of the fact that we have a number of new players on the first XI.
While they individually are very talented players, it might take a bit of time for the whole team to properly gel.
(Keeping my fingers crossed they don’t end up like the Wales international team of the 1980’s; They had a team with individual players of fantastic talent, Neville Southall, Ian Rush, Mark Hughes, Barry Horne.
But they never seemed to properly click and astonishingly never qualified for a Europan Championships or World Cup)

Next up, we travel to a ground that holds a hoodoo over us, Turners Cross.
I’ve lost count of the many times we have lost on the Rebel City and anytime we did win it was usually by one gall, oi my memory served me right.
Cork’s game against the Hoops in Tallaght was called off.
So while their players will be better rested than our troops and have more in the tank come 80 minutes, might they be overly rusty and there for the taking?
Personally I would like to see Bucko start and for the club to play two up front, with Moussey and Whelan leading the line.
We’ve all lost count of how many times a winger whipped in  great cross, only for the ball to bounce aimlessly across the box, as we gnash our teeth with hands on head,  that no one was there to simply poke it home.

I am still having to remind myself I am not dreaming and that we really did sign Lys
 Mousset.
Here's hoping he gives us 10 million reasons to worship him come the end of the season, with us top of the tabl

WHAT A DIFFERENCE 2 WEEKS MAKES!

 

Last year was a hard slog for Bohs fans in general – and even moreso for me, owing to me being born, reared and still living a stones throw from Tallaght Stadium.
I first started supporting Bohs since 1996 and at that point the 1992 FAI Cup Final was the only
notable success in a period stretching back over a decade.

Having got to know many  long term fans in that period, the pain felt by those who as nippers witnessed the 1978 League title was truly evident.
So when we finally won the league in 2001, it was they I was most happy for.

The club has in many ways come on leaps and bounds since that time.
To think that in the 2001 season we were top of the league, but still struggled to get 1000 into Dalymount to see Bohs play UCD.
The only Full Houses we had were the games against Shamrock Rovers and Shelbourne.

In tandem with full houses week in week out in Dalymount and a burgeoning youth setup, the expectations of fans are now higher than ever.
Last season was agonising beyond compare, as match after match, we dominated games, only to be singularly incapable of getting the ball into the opposition box, while letting is goals at the other end, softer than an Ice Cream served in 40c heat.
How we gnashed our teeth over and over as a ball flashed across the 6 yard box, begging to simply tapped in; followed by “Georgie Kelly/ Afolabi would have scored that!”
Last season over 36 games, we avoided the possibility of relegation by a mere 8 points.
I would remark to others “ we are awful, but lucky for us Dundalk and Drogheda are worse”
We’d dropped a hell of a lot from the heady days of 2008 where we win the league by a whopping 19 points.

With two weeks to Kick Off I was in conversation with a number of fellow friends I am good friends  Leinster Senior Cup and the wailing despair in our collective voices, was raised to a Peig Sayers-like crescendo.
The glacial pace of our transfer dealings had us predicting a mauling by Shamrock Rovers in our first game and another battle against relegation
As I and small band of away supports watched the Gypsies beat UCD action in Belfield, thee match was a mere blur in large part, as I war cabineted with others.
  We sounded the alarm as we mulled over the deficiencies in the squad  and fretted over further likely long trips back from Sligo made even longer, by another dispiriting performance.
The 1-0 loss in this competition against North End United only heightened this concern,

Well what a difference 3 weeks can make!

From that game in Wexford Town on January 18^th to now, Bohs fans were behaving like an audience member on the Oprah Show who just found out they were getting a week long Caribbean Cruise and $5000 spending money.
The club very much kept the best to last;
Like the person who knows what dress they will buy for the wedding, but who waits til everyone else in their circle buys their frock, before buying theirs.
It's like the club had the various players we signed firmly on the radar, but waited until our rivals had exhausted their transfer budgets, before finally swooping, guarentted no one would be snatched from under our noses.
We now had players of guaranteed polished quality in areas that previously were emptier than Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard.
When rumours began circulating that we were in the frame to possibly sign Lys Mousset, we immediately rubbished it.
Bohs might sign him (albeit aged 38 and close to retirement) on the computer game Football Manager, but certainly not in the Real World.
Every Close season someone would come onto the Bohs fans Facebook page swearing blind that
“Me Aunties Hairdressers’s next door neighbour is Alan Reynolds Sister and she swears we’re going to be signing “x” ( a  Republic of Ireland capped player) on Friday”
It never comes to anything and from outset people know it’s nonsense.

Once we did  a quick Google Search of Lys Mousset we instantly placed him firmly in that category and rubbished the rumours outright.
“Sure there are a myriad of top flight clubs in Central Europe or the English Championship, mired in a relegation battle who would sing him in a heartbeat” we thought.

So when it was announced we had a signed a player who was once so highly rated, (he scored 5 times in 8 appearance for France Under 21’s) we had to keep telling ourselves it’s not a dream as we scoured Google to find as many media article about his supposed signings, to convince ourselves it truly was true – it’s like a Hurricane instantly  giving way to sunny very calm waters.

John Mountey, Colm Whelan and Connor Parsons are also fantastic signings,

I personally stick my hands fully up and admit that I thought we would lose in The Aviva.
I thought we would give them a game of it, but thought that our team having the number of brand new singings still to properly find their feet, would find a Rovers team that had played loads of games up to now and should be well gelled and in sync -too much of a hill to climb.

Listening to the cockiness of the Rovers fans aboard the 77A bus we got from Tallaght to Ringsend Road and the stuff they said about us, had me burning to reply, but I saw better and bit my lip hard.

So I walked up South Lotts Road very much in deflated hope, albeit nowhere near as deflated as it was that day on the Tuesday, in the UCD Bowl.
While Rovers having a crisis up front, with some strikers injured, they still had a few players who could smack the back of the net from 20  yards out.

The first five minutes, Shamrock Rovers were all over us and I had a heavy lump in my throat.
However when the clock on the big screen arrived at 15 minutes, it was clear our boys had collectively had their shoelaces tightly tied and were purring like a well oiled machine,
Unlike the 3 little pigs, our house was made of very string stuff.
They kept seeking to knock at out door, but breach James Talbots goal, they could not.

To say I arrived in Dreamland on 25 minutes, would be the understatement of the century.
Within 90 seconds I was so hoarse I sounded like Louis Armstrong, so much screaming and dancing on the spot did I.
I had to keep looking at the scoreboard to remind myself we were actually winning,

In the Second Half it seemed as though we were playing for the 1-0 win and I oft found myself roaring in anger, as Rovers launched another salvo at our box.
“COME ON BOHS, GIVE US  A SECOND, GIVE US AN INSURANCE POLICY” I’d roar.

A few times the Hoops came close to scoring, watching the highlights when I got home, and seeing the reactions of their fans behind our goal, gave me a true appreciation of the Spartan warrior defence mounted by Cornwall, Mountney and Co.

The crazy celebrations that erupted on 96 minutes was a mixture of joy and disbelief.
We were  not entirely sure how we won the match, but we rejoiced in the fact that we did.

I’m 29 years supporting Da Boez and games against Shamrock Rovers will always leave me feeling like I did when I did The Leaving, on the days before it.
We had a great victory in The Aviva and by 22.00 next Friday, we will know if we can still try dare to dream, or are brought once more back to reality with a hard bump.

Here's hoping 17 months from now we will be hurriedly booking a Wizz Air flight from Budapest to Yerevan, as we hope we’ll get off the Ryanair flight from Dublin to Budapest in time to make the second flight as a cry of “ No one  likes us we don’t care” Ringing round Ferenc