Noble cause but Galway United fans ignore reality

Date Published: {J}

GOD bless their innocence. Does the Galway United fans group which has applied to the FAI to enter its own team in the 2012 Airtricity League realise the magnitude of the task they would be taking on if their application is successful? It’s plain lunacy in my view and will only serve to compound the current woes of Galway soccer.

Never mind all the organisational work that has been to be done off-field, trying to assemble a half-decent squad under John Brennan already appears a hopeless task as the new club is unlikely to have a financial backer – there’s only so much money that table quizzes can raise – and with Mervue United and Salthill Devon already in the First Division, the odds are stacked against the Supporters Trust in more ways than one.

Furthermore, the suggested name for the club – Galway United Supporters Trust FC – is a mouthful and, to say the least, unappealing, while it’s probable that the terraces at Terryland Park next season would be relatively empty too for the team’s matches, given that the squad is most likely to comprise of largely youthful unknowns with the odd journeyman player thrown in.

Yes, I admire Ronan Coleman, Sean Dunleavy, Pat Burke , Mike Daly and John Flannery and the other members of the Supporters Trust for their tenacity and understandable anxiety not to let the name Galway United die – their publicly stated desire to return the club to its true community roots is a good pitch too – but what’s the point of it? Three city teams campaigning in the First Division next season is just off the wall.

Mervue, Salthill and the ‘supporters team’ will all be trying to pull from nearly the same (and diminishing) pool of true local football supporters who are prepared to leave their cash at the turnstiles, while the prospects of one of the clubs making a promotion charge are also automatically reduced due to the prospect of the best Galway talent being spread over three teams.

Though there is some UEFA backing for greater supporter involvement in the administration of clubs, I find it difficult to imagine that the FAI will grant the United Trust a licence to compete in the League of Ireland next season due to the current circumstances in the city. Coleman and his admittedly dedicated band of United fans may be “astounded by the messages of support by Galwegians from all over the world” and there was a reasonable crowd at a public meeting in the Claddagh Hall last Sunday, but their noble aspirations are out of touch with reality.

Though I am a hurling man from Tipperary, having reported on United matches for many years in the eighties and early nineties, I too feel a certain sense of sadness that the version of the club which has stood the test of time since first joining the League of Ireland in 1977 has folded, but trying to cobble together a poor imitation with little realistic hope of the team being successful is surely not in local soccer’s best interests.

I think back on all the sterling United servants over the years – the late Miko Nolan, Johnny Glynn, John Mannion, Derek Rogers, Stephen Lally, Gerry Daly, Denis Bonnar, Kevin Cassidy, Martin McDonell, Noel Mernagh, Tommy Lally, Paul McGee and Jimmy Nolan to name just a few – but the last couple of seasons have been a real struggle, on and off the field. Winning just one of their 40 competitive matches in 2011 tells its own story. Galway United, as we used to know it, is gone. And it’s time to accept it.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.