St Francis
Clubs in the League of Ireland come and go, and
some try to come back again. This is the case of our next club, who recently
attempted to apply for a place in the League of Ireland First Division for the
2021 season. Unfortunately, their application was rejected by the FAI for
whatever reason. We aren’t going to get into that though as we are about
looking into the past glories of these former League of Ireland clubs. They may
come back at some point so we better tell their story before they do. Their
original League of Ireland adventure took place in the 90’s so would be in most
people’s recent memory and they still operate in the Leinster League,
accommodating many schoolboy and women’s teams. It is a well-run club and one
of few that left the league and still continued to serve the community. They
also provide us with Irish football’s ultimate underdog story and one that
surprised many. It is, of course, St Francis FC.
St francis was formed in 1958 by a man named John
Hyland and a group of friends. The club itself was originally set-up as a
schoolboy club but ten years after being founded it introduced its first senior
side in 1968. The joined the Athletic Union League (AUL) winning the Division
2A title in their first season. Their second season proved to produce even more
silverware as the won the most prestigious juior trophy in Ireland, the FAI
Junior Cup. Over the years the club established itself as being one of the top
intermediate sides in the country, winning the Leinster Senior title on four
occasions, dominating the league in the early 90’s. (1998-90, 1991-92, 1992-93,
1995-96).
The club also became the first junior side to reach
the FAI Cup senior final in over 50 years, (Drumcondra being the first) losing
to Bray Wanderers in the final 3-0. The final itself was historic for a number
of reasons. It was the first FAI Cup final to be played at Lansdowne Road. It
was the first time a First Division club had won the trophy and the man who
scored all three goals in the final, John Ryan, was only the second man to
score a hat-trick in the showpiece event. Despite St Francis being a non-league
side and Bray being a First Division side, the attendance for the game was
reported to be 33,000, which not many expected, so much so there was talk of
moving the venue from Lansdowne Road. In fact, the game was delayed by 20
minutes due to the size of crows and trying to get every fan into the ground
before kick-off.
The journey to the final was even more eventful and has been recalled by
then manager Pete Mahon as an unbelievable achievement at the time. In an
interview with RTE he recalled how they had to start off in the Intermediate
Cup. First up was a tie against non-league side Pegasus, .a side who Mahon said
were an unusual side and one that had the advantage of being able to use
surplus UCD players at the time.
They beat Pegasus on the second attempt, which sent
them through for a tie against league side Cobh Ramblers. The interesting part
of this story was that a certain Roy Keane played one of his final games for
the club against St Francis in this tie, even scoring against them. Of course,
he was only 19 at the time and even the mighty Roy Keane couldn’t stop the non
league outfit from advancing to the semi finals to set up a mouth watering tie
against Dublin side Bohemians FC, a game that would be played at Tolka Park.
Nobody gave the Hoops a chance, making Bohs
overwhelming favourites but the non-league club took no notice and didn’t
follow the script. With memorable performances from goalkeeper Gary Matthews
and centre-back Martin Kerr they won 1-0, with John Murphy scoring the most
important goal in the club’s history and becoming the first non-league club to
reach final in over 50 years.
(A side story to the final itself is that Republic
of Ireland manager at the time, Jack Charlton, visited each teams changing room
before the game to congratulate them both for making it to the final. This was
done only a month before he would bring the Irish national team to their first
World Cup finals.)
With success in the early 90’s it was only a matter
of time before the club would be making the step up to the League of Ireland,
and in 1996 fellow Dublin club St James Gate were expelled from the First
Division, thus providing The Hoops an opportunity to test themselves against
the best clubs in the country. And a test it proved to be starting off with a
4-0 defeat in their debut match to Waterford United on the 11th October 1996.
The club finished second last in their debut
season, (Only Limerick finished below them) 9th out of 10, winning only 7
games, drawing 7 and losing 13. They scored a total of 29 goals, conceding 33.
It was a season that saw former League of Ireland side, Kilkenny City win the
league, beating Drogheda United to the title by a n impressive 11 points.
The 1997-98 season proved to be a little better
with the club showing a slight improvement, coming 8th out 10, finishing ahead
of Monaghan United (9th) and Longford Town (10th), winning 7 games, drawing 8
and losing 12. They scored 29 goals, conceding 40. Waterford United were the
title winners that season, with Bray grabbing the second promotion plac
Their third season however was a bit of a disaster
with the club finishing rock bottom (10th) winning only 2 games all season,
drawing 12 and losing 22, scoring 25 but conceding a massive 68 goals.
Determined to not let this derail their long-term
plans, the club took part in the 1999-00 season, but under the new name of
Fingal-St Francis. The club themselves had difficulty attracting support. Their
traditional Liberties home and their adopted home of Clondalkin were already
strongholds of St Patricks Athletic. The adding of Fingal to their name was to
attract fans from that area of Dublin, however it proved to be a diffcult task
with the club playing their home games in the Southside of Dubin. There was
also another club in the league with the name Fingal incorporated in it, newly
merged Home Farm Fingal FC, who played their home games much closer to the
Fingal area at Morton Stadium. However, the club did improve their league
position from the previous year, climbing up to 8th, winning 6, drawing 14 and
losing 16, scoring 27 but conceding 54.
The 2000-01 season saw the club back finishing
bottom of the pile, 10th. They only managed 3 wins all season, drawing 11,
losing 22, scoring 29 and conceding 64. The club were the only side operating
with the name FIngal in it at this point as Home Farm Fingal FC had changed
their name to Dublin City FC. However, it seemed as though the club had finally
felt it was time to call it a day. In a final attempt by St Francis director
Alan Duncan to keep the club involved in the League of Ireland, the club
approached St Patricks Athletic with a proposed merger idea. Pat Dolan was the
managing director at the time and it seemed as though something may have been
done between the two clubs, with the name Dublin Saints being banded about the
media. But as the season started, nothing ever materialized from the idea and
so St Francis FC dropped out of the league after only five seasons. The club
did not fold and continued to operate at Leinster Senior League level, as well
as continuing to have various school boy teams, and back in 1997 the club St
Francis merged with another schoolboy club Clondalkin Celtic and renamed St
Francis Clondalkin. The St Francis Ladies team were FAI Champions back in 2008.
When we cover these clubs , we always seem to find
some really interesting story within the story og the club, and St Francis is
no difference. There cup run back in 1990 is defiantly the high point for the
club in their history, but they could also say their 5 years, while not that
successful, was an achievement in itself as the club had to battle against the
big boys that surrounded them, St Patricks Athletic and Shamrock Rovers. They
may have had to step back from the League of Ireland and they have been
rejected recently from trying again, but we are certain the underdogs, St
Francis will be back one day.