Friday Night Lights: How Dalymount Park became the hub of Irish football’s revival

All of that is to say that the man who attempted to sell ponchos to a rain-soaked crowd 30 minutes into Bohemians’ recent FAI Cup tie with Shelbourne will not be held in the same esteem as those legends.

It was a wet Friday night in Phibsborough when Bohemians beat their Dublin counterparts 1-0, but this is not a story of the match itself.

For the purposes of this piece, the match itself is almost incidental, as we sought a consensus among fans at the match as to why they keep coming back week after week.

Attendances at Irish domestic football games are at their best in over 20 years, with nearly 4,200 souls packed into Dalymount Park for the first round of this season’s FAI Cup.

Even an hour before kick-off, the atmosphere is simmering.

The Cure’s Just Like Heaven plays over the PA system as we enjoy a piri-piri chicken burger served in a brioche bun, a hearty serving of chips, and a drink for the decent price of €13.50.

At about the same time we curse being in the uncovered, rain-soaked Des Kelly stand, Bohemians take to the pitch for their warm-up, with one fan with a Henry Rollins-style guttural roar voicing his encouragement to the players for their warm-up.

Curiously, a man with a Peaky Blinders style hat and a pair of binoculars more suited to horse racing is intently studying the players 30 feet in front of him doing shuttle runs, as if he is going to absorb their training techniques through osmosis.

The atmosphere is building nicely now that the fans’ heroes are on the pitch, and a group of six young men from Alicante in Spain are unwinding after a week’s work by taking in their first Dublin derby.

Mario, an office worker, said he had previously been to Dalymount for a game and took the trip to Tolka Park to see Bohs play, but he specifically wanted to be at this game as he knew there was a historic rivalry between Bohs and Shelbourne.

“I’m a big football guy, I’m from a region in Spain that loves football, so I’m happy that Ireland has football in July when the rest of Europe is off!”

Mario said he lived in Cabra and fell into becoming a Bohs supporter as they were the closest team to him, and has fallen in love with Dublin’s Originals.

“The team play some good stuff, and there is always a chance that there’s a new superstar playing; striker Evan Ferguson started out at Bohemians,” he noted.

News of Bohs’ exploits has made it as far as São Paulo, with three natives of the Brazilian city, Romario, Felipe, and Alex, taking in the action at Dalymount Park.

The trio live in Dublin, but were convinced by work colleagues to sample some Irish football action.

“I’ve lived here for five years now, but I have been hearing at work, ‘man, you’ve got to go to a football game here’, so I did my research and decided to support Bohs,”  Alex said. “Bohemians have the same colour as my team, São Paulo,” he says, clutching his São Paulo jersey, and notes that the club’s strong support for refugees strongly aligns with his own personal values.

“This is my first time at a game here in Ireland and I love it, I love the passion here!” he beamed.

The local contingent makes up the core of the fanbase, with a young man called Eoin remarking that the Covid-19 pandemic has driven the strong interest in Irish football.

“At the height of lockdown, I would have watched two people fight outside, I was that starved for sports!” he joked, and said that while he attended games at Dalymount Park in his youth, having the thrill of a live football game taken away during the pandemic brought the hunger back for him.

“I used to go to games here when I was a kid, but I’ve started going more regularly again in the last year or two, I think the pandemic helped in that way. There’s a real buzz about supporting Bohs again.”

Danielle attended the game with her son Jamie, who wants to be a goalkeeper, and is currently in the underage squad for the team.

Danielle said that goalkeeper James Talbot was his idol, and because he hails from the same area as her son, she sees him as a “real inspiration.”

When asked why the locals have turned out in such force for their team, she said, “the players are so caring to the fans, there is a real togetherness, and in any sport, the fans get behind a good team.”

As the two teams emerge from their warm-up and are fully kitted out, both sets of fans set off flares, bringing the already cracking atmosphere to fever pitch.

Shelbourne fans throw some flares onto the pitch, but Bohemians’ groundsmen run like Thierry Henry in his prime to stamp them out and take them off the field of play.

Meanwhile, in the Bohs’ end, one fan can’t quite get the hang of their flare in time, with the flare stopping and starting, which created an image that was less Mad Max and more This Is Spinal Tap.

By the time the smoke clears, the Dalymount Park faithful and the travelling Shelbourne fans are ready for 20 minutes of good football and 70 minutes in which not much happens.

The build-up, anticipation, and atmosphere at Dalymount Park seems to be a key ingredient in keeping fans coming back – the football itself isn’t exactly Barcelona 2011 standard, but that doesn’t matter.

The Shelbourne delegation are packed like sardines into the Mono Stand, but give their players their undivided passion and fire for 90 minutes, working through their songbook of chants, with Monaco’s What Do You Want From Me getting its traditional airing from the Shelbourne faithful.

In the days following the game, a contentious penalty decision not going Shelbourne’s way dominated coverage of the game, and having seen the incident in question from behind the goal, there is little doubt that a penalty should have been awarded on the night.

There was a collective sense that Bohs got out of jail in regard to that particular incident, and Shelbourne fans turned the air purple with a furious volley of profanity that would make Roy Chubby Brown blush.

Dalymount Park is a stadium unlike anywhere else in world football, with the imposing Phibsboro Shopping Centre looming large over the pitch, nettles overrunning the stand behind one of the goals and the very real possibility of a stray shot breaking a neighbouring window.

Taking a trip to Dalymount Park reveals that the venue has an undeniable, almost unquantifiable aura to it.

 As Irish football continues its revival, Dalymount Park will have a crucial part to play as the soulful and trendy heart of football in Dublin.