View From Above

"The Real Hot Seat"

By The Worldwidesaint

"A very warm welcome to our visitors from Cobh Ramblers to the RSC for tonight’s game. Cobh are going through great changes, both on and off the pitch at present, and on behalf of the Director’s, management and fans of WUFC I would like to take this opportunity to wish them all the best for the long hard season ahead….. after tonight’s game of course!"

Do you know if I had a pound for every time I’ve read the above "Chairman’s Message" or a variation of the same in the match programmes of National League clubs I’d have just about broken even on purchasing the damn things over the years!

Aside from repeating the same tired old lines and corny jokes in every intro section of their clubs’ programmes, have you ever wondered what National League chairmen actually DO with the rest of their time? Well, to be honest its not something that occupied my mind a great deal either……until recently that is.

Having made the trip out to Dublin's Northside last Sunday to watch my team, Saint Patrick's Athletic, record their first league win of the season against Santry Rovers Athletics Club, I was struck by the sight of a ragged looking Joe Colwell, Chairman of the Hooped Forces of Darkness, propping up the entrance to the second best Athletics Stadium in the Eircom League. Joe was standing beside the turnstiles collecting the £7 admission price in an effort to speed up the entry of latecomers like myself to the game. Not for Joe the comfy backstage 'hospitality area' cigars much loved by the Dermot Desmond's of this world, who 'support' Irish football by whooping it up in the corporate boxes of Parkhead, Glasgow. This is football chairmanship Eircom League style! It's roll up your sleeves, hang on to your hats and arses out the window time as you count the cash at the gate and hope to God you've just enough coming in to cover the latest threat to the existence of your club.

Forget the pressure on team managers, they can always do 'a Pat Byrne' and just walk away when the going gets tough, but for the likes of Joe Colwell and the St. Pat's chairman, Tim O'Flaherty, there are no easy escape routes. Both these Chairmen, successful businessmen in their own right, have committed vast amounts of their own valuable time and money to ensure the survival of the clubs they love. They’ve put so much of themselves on the line, in fact, that if their clubs take a hit then these guys risk getting pulled under too. We’re talking real pressure here.

Take Tim O'Flaherty for example, at a recent meeting for Pat's fans in a Dublin Hotel he announced that he was going to spend £300,000 from his own pocket to ensure that the Saints’ ground developments would proceed as promised. Instead of taking the plaudits from the grateful fans Tim spent most of the meeting taking some of the flak over the team manager's recent poor performance. Unhappy fans demanded to know what the chairman would do if Pat's were still bottom of the table at Christmas time. Would he sack the manager? Hardly the easiest question to answer at the best of times but it was made even more difficult by the fact that the team manager in question was sitting right beside him. Not surprisingly Tim crumbled under the strain, went on the defensive and performed poorly for the remainder of the meeting. See what I mean by real pressure? Club chairmen are forced to bear the weight of their fans, sometimes, unrealistic expectations and when you're in the chairman's hot seat they expect YOU to somehow miraculously deliver on ALL fronts. "So you've pledged £300,000 of your own money to the club, but what have you done about that dripping tap in the toilets, hey?" You see, we fans are never satisfied.

As if the expectations of your own fans wasn't hassle enough to cope with both Tim and Joe, probably more so than any other club chairmen in this league have had to submit their make or break plans for decision by our planning authorities. St Patrick's will learn the fate of their proposed new stand at the Inchicore end in the last week of October. Appeals can then be made to An Bord Pleanala within four weeks of the decision, and mark my words where there's a stadium plan there's an objector lurking somewhere! Yup, no guarantees of an easy ride with planning decisions and Joe Colwell will tell you how the Hoops' original stadium plans for Tallaght were modified by, and some would say, mangled by, various planning conditions laid down by South Dublin County Council. At least Rovers got the final approval, Tim O'Flaherty and the Saints have a nervous wait on their hands before they can breathe as easy.

Given that both, Tim and Joe are encountering similar problems at the moment in relation to rebuilding their teams and their grounds, it was fitting somewhat to see both of them together, standing beside the long jump sand in Santry watching the game like ordinary punters. At the end of the day they regard themselves as just plain old fans like you and me. There is one slight difference though, I wonder how many of us fans would put up with the hassle these guys take upon themselves for the love of their club? Not many I think.

By the way just in case you start getting all sympathetic with the plight of poor old Joe Colwell I'm happy to report from the Hoops match programme that he won £50 in the Glenmalure No.1 Supporters’ Club Draw! Now why didn't he mention that in the "Chairman's Message"?