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League of Ireland Horse Racing TV Listings GAA Fixtures The Video Review Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture Rugby Weekly Extra Dive into all the news and analysis 3 times a week The Football Family Weekly insights from the week’s big talking points Advertisement More Stories Shamrock Rovers fans pictured ahead of their game in Athens during the week.©INPHO Shamrock Rovers 'We were probably putting as many hours a week into Rovers as we were into our own jobs' The 42 speaks to some of the hardcore fans and volunteers that have been a significant part of the fabric of Shamrock Rovers over the years. 8.01am, 9 Nov 2025 Share options Paul Fennessy FEW PEOPLE have as long and intimate a relationship with Shamrock Rovers as devoted fan Mick McCarthy. And at 76, he seems to have a better memory than some people half his age. Moreover, many of his standout memories are FAI Cup finals. He started following Rovers in 1957 — the year they were beaten 2-0 by Drumcondra in the season’s showpiece event. The first game McCarthy attended was in 1964 — the year that kick-started their remarkable haul of winning six finals in a row. 61 years on, McCarthy can still recall key details from the game, such as their opponents (Cork Celtic), the man who scored both goals for Rovers (Eddie Bailham, one from a penalty) and the fact that it was a replay after the initial match ended 1-1. McCarthy was 14 years old that day, and it was the beginning of one of the most fruitful and long-lasting relationships in his life. Since 1964, he has been to every cup final involving Rovers except 2020, which they lost 4-2 to Dundalk with no supporters in attendance during the pandemic. “One of my memories of going to my first game, my brother Sean brought me down the handlebars of the bike from Walkinstown, and when we got down there, there must have been 1000 bicycles. “All your man did was give you a ticket and put your name on it with a piece of chalk on the mudguard. And I said to Sean: ‘What happens if it rains?’ He said: ‘You just have to know your own bike.’” Details from other finals do not escape him either. “The game against Waterford [in 1968] was a great game,” he tells The 42. “Mick Leach got two, and Mick Lawlor got the other one. “That was the famous one. You’ve probably seen the video — Mick Lawlor rubbing Peter Thomas on the head after scoring a goal. “I remember Mick Leach telling me he went to mass in Mourne Road. He walked over to Fairview Road from Gaffney Road in Drimnagh and got on the bus with the supporters with his bag, going to play a cup final. There was a big queue, and they were all saying: ‘You’re playing, you get off first.’ “You’d [often] be on the bus with [players like] Paddy Ambrose, John Keogh or somebody coming from the northside.” McCarthy can still remember the immense sadness he felt when a late Brendan Place header during the 1969-70 season meant Shelbourne knocked the Hoops out of the cup and ensured they would not be winning the cup for a seventh consecutive season. “We weren’t used to losing,” he recalls. “Myself and my brother, Tony, cried coming home from the match. “After winning six, we thought we were invincible.” The Hoops would not win the cup again until 1978, when a team that included Johnny Fullam, Eamon Dunphy, John Giles and Mark Meagan beat Sligo Rovers 1-0 thanks to a penalty from Ray Treacy, one of several Ireland internationals in the starting XI. “It was great craic that night,” says McCarthy. “We went back up to Milltown and three o’clock in the morning with a few drinks, mucky pitch, we were all out kicking around a ball made of paper. It wouldn’t happen now.” The great Rovers side of the mid-80s won three consecutive cup finals. Then, remarkably, the club went over 30 years without lifting the trophy before beating Dundalk 4-2 on penalties in 2019, in what was the first major milestone of the Stephen Bradley era. Looking back, the match feels like the beginning of a changing of the guard of sorts. Dundalk, having just won their 14th league title, were the dominant team in the country at the time, but Rovers have since taken that mantle. McCarthy began helping Rovers behind the scenes in 2002, the year the 400 Club was established, with the club trying to raise money to fund Tallaght Stadium, which eventually opened in 2009, after original plans for the ground were announced in 1996. “I used to bring in money,” says McCarthy. “I used to run the Golf Classic, and I’d get a load of sponsors. And we had that going for a few years. And you know that time we didn’t have a pot to piss in. Advertisement “I was on the gate, taking the money in, and in the background, doing bits and bobs and everything. We helped out to keep the club going, I had a small painting business, and I used to throw in a few bob every week to pay the wages and that.” retroloi / YouTube 2002 also happened to be another cup final year, as Rovers were beaten 1-0 by Derry City. “We went back to Citywest Hotel, and Jack Wilson was made president of the club that night. “2002 was a great night because the Wilson family was such a part of Rovers. “Then the new lads took over, and they had different ideas, and they’ve done well. “The new board — I’ve had my differences with them, and they know that. But deep down, they’re all volunteers, and they’re doing good work there.” In addition to his substantial efforts behind the scenes, you would be hard-pressed to find a more dedicated fan than McCarthy. “I’ve been going to [games in] Europe since 1978 or whenever Ryanair came in. “We had a good run last year, we went all over Europe with them, and they became great trips. But I haven’t done them this year. I just said: ‘It’s hard to keep up with the young fellas.’ I can’t drink 10 hours a day now [laughs]. “But we never miss a [domestic] game, home or away. The only one we don’t go to is Derry. We’ve just protested about them for the last three years. “We’d watch a good lot of the matches in The Pines [a Terenure-based bar and restaurant] as well. And we normally get the team back there after they win the league or cup, and we have an afternoon with them. “I could walk down O’Connell Street and meet a lad and talk to him for an hour and walk away. I wouldn’t know his name. You could talk for an hour because you would know him from Milltown.” Bill Gleeson pictured with his son and fellow Shamrock Rovers supporter, Pierce. Bill Gleeson has been following Rovers since the 1980s. He had to support the team from a distance for a period as he lived in the UK, but returned to Ireland in 2014 and recommenced his match-going. Nowadays, he is one of the countless volunteers who have helped the club become Ireland’s dominant team. “My kids had been involved. There was a Junior Hoops fan club, and they’d been to one or two games while we were still in the UK and visiting home. “By the time I came back, it had withered on the vine a wee bit. “[I was asked:] ‘What skills do you have? What can you do to help the club?’ And that came to mind. “Around the same time, I put my hand up to do a bit of tech work. Whoever had been looking after the website wasn’t able to do it anymore. “The Junior Hoops grew from a few dozen kids, and there are probably 400 in it now. “The tech stuff kind of grew as well, so now there’s thankfully a bit of a tech team. So it’s not just me anymore. “There have been times where it can have an impact, you’d miss the start of matches because you bring the kids on the pitch at the start of it, to welcome the players, and you have to try and get them back to their seats and their parents and so on. But it’s very fulfilling.” He continues: “I’ve three lads and they’re all into it. They go to all matches. I was up in Derry the other week with my youngest. “My wife’s from Derry, so she’s not a Rovers fan. But she does enjoy it. She’ll be going to the cup final, supporting us.” Taking on a volunteer role, Gleeson adds, has given him a greater appreciation for the club. “It’s all about community. When you start getting involved with volunteering and stuff like that, you’ve been on the outside, you’ve been a supporter, a paying customer. “But then you realise, when you volunteer, that there are all these people just doing small bits or big bits, all working away. “You meet some fantastic people. It really improves the enjoyment of going to a match, even going to the cup final is going to be different, because you just know more people there to say hello to, to have a chat with, people who have helped you over the years. So it’s extremely fulfilling. The club means a lot more [to me] now. “The people behind the scenes are generally of the same mindset. They want to give something back.” Shamrock Rovers' Ian Bermingham and Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid during a 2009 pre-season friendly at Tallaght Stadium.James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO Dave Carpenter has been following Rovers since the 1960s. He was heavily involved in the 400 Club, while serving as a director for seven years and remembers particularly vividly the dark period when Rovers went into examinership, which led to the Hoops becoming a supporter-owned team. “I’ve seen a lot of change, seeing us getting kicked out of Milltown, being nomads for 20-odd years, and eventually getting into Tallaght and establishing ourselves, or reinventing ourselves as a members-only club.” Of the people who helped resurrect the club from the brink of disaster, he explains: “We were a bit of a disparate group. I mean, we all had our own sort of individual talents, people with different backgrounds. “My background was corporate finance, and James Nolan was in the banking sector. Jonathan [Roche] was in sales and marketing, Mark Lynch was marketing director, and the likes of John Byrne were involved in media with RTE. “So there’s a good cross-section of skills there. And I suppose everything was when we got involved in the early days and basically forced the board to put the club into examinership. “We could see that the level of debt that the club was carrying at the time wasn’t sustainable, and the struggles they had from week to week in terms of trying to raise cash to pay wages and everything, it was killing the club. “So it needed a whole rebirth. And it needed everything to be put on a more normalised cost structure, if you like, and getting us back to living within our means as best we could. “In our darkest days at the time of the examinership, the 400 Club, we were struggling to get 1200 to 1500 people at a match. So it was really the old hardcore that stood by the club, and thankfully, they’re all still around. And I think that built a great sense of community.” It’s worth noting also that people like Carpenter helped Rovers through the examinership period while holding down full-time jobs elsewhere. “We were probably putting as many hours a week into Rovers as we were into our own jobs,” he says. “So it was tough trying to make sure that you were doing your own job and that was obviously paying the bills, while at the same time trying to put the right structure in place [at the club]. “And it would have been hard not only in terms of work ethic, but also the impact on your family life as well. “Because I can’t remember how many late-night meetings we would have had, week after week, month after month, particularly in the early years.” Consequently, the small group of people who helped the club emerge stronger from this taxing period paved the way for the team that are thriving today. “Obviously, Tallaght has been a great success. The stadium is the best in the league. We have long-term tenancy in it, and down the line, we invested in the academy. You’ve seen the benefits of some of the structures put in place in the academy in terms of kids progressing into the first team. And also, some of the high-profile transfers that we’ve had in recent years. “And I suppose that all helps translate into success on the field, and where we’ve gone to in Europe.” Nowadays, aged 66, Carpenter considers himself primarily a fan. “If there’s anything I can do to help any of the guys on the board, I’m happy to do it. I just retired 18 months ago. So I’ve been enjoying myself with all the European trips. “Rovers have always been a part of my life. It’s always been in my blood. I always say to people, I’ve green blood running through my veins. Rovers is family. All my family were Rovers fans. I have my wife probably driven nuts over my affections for Rovers because it’s an integral part of my life.” Related Reads Superiority abounds but only one of Cork City and Shamrock Rovers can reign supreme Often down, but never out: The mad and irresistible appeal of Cork soccer Shamrock Rovers defender Dan Cleary on fight for his autistic son - 'That's the boy I love' Shamrock Rovers players celebrate with the FAI Cup in 2019.Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO Andrew ‘Giggsy’ Hand is part of a newer generation of fans who have no memories of Milltown and the great four-in-a-row league-winning side of the 1980s. He started going to matches in 1998, aged 10, when Dublin GAA legend Jason Sherlock was part of the Rovers squad. A regular match-goer, Hand has also been volunteering with the club since he was a teenager. He has had several jobs — including ball boy and half-time raffle ticket seller. “Bobby Best, the old club photographer who passed away a couple of years ago, I used to go to the games with him. And so we’d hand out photographs to kids before the days of smartphones, and that was a kid’s only way of getting pictures of the players. “And then, as I grew up a little bit, when I was a 15-16-year-old, the club kitman at the time was Tommy Conroy. He worked for Umbro. So we used to work in the club shop out of the back of his van, basically. And it was literally a table set up out of the back of a HiAce van. And people used to come up, and there was no fixed shop, like there is in Tallaght.” In addition to his normal day job as an electrician, these days, Hand works in the Tallaght Stadium suite, serving club members their drinks before the game and at half-time. The only downside is that he sometimes misses goals that are scored just before or after half-time, though he can still usually tell they have occurred from the audible cheers of the home or away fans. Over the years, he has come to regard Rovers as a kind of family. “You tend to have a lot more love and understanding when you see what goes on on the other side of the operation — not just going to the game to watch or whatever. “Not every fan is in a position to volunteer. I became available with my time a couple of years back.” Hand has even gotten to know the players and coaching staff on a personal level due to these commitments. “I was very fortunate the other weekend, I was actually working at the Dublin Marathon for the elite team, looking after all the elite athletes. And I was working with Stephen [Bradley] and Glenn [Cronin] as well for that. “So myself and Brendan Dawson, who is a club director, we got the two of them over the finish line, got them in, got them dressed, got them food, they did their interviews, I was sat behind the cameras and that was happening with RTE and Brendan actually went in the helicopter with them to Derry and I would have packed up all their stuff and got it safe. “Glenn threw me a text even on the way home from Derry just to say, thanks very much for everything.” Hand’s kids — three-year-old twins (a boy and a girl), and a boy who is nearly eight — have been sent birthday videos from the likes of Roberto Lopes and Ronan Finn. On supporting the club, he concludes, “It means an awful lot. I have my family, my kids, my wife and Shamrock Rovers. They would be right up there. I have a Shamrock Rovers tattoo. My three kids have all been in the stadium. We’re all season ticket holders. We have our seats with our names on them in the stadium. Our names are on the brick in the wall. “The little girl is a girly girl. She’s not really into football, but the little boy, Mason, is totally hooked. “We’re literally singing Shamrock Rovers songs in the car on the way over to the games. And my bigger boy, Brooklyn, he’s Shamrock Rovers mad as well. “I’ve probably driven it into them a little bit, but it’s something that I’m passionate about, and I know that they will thank me when they’re older.” Paul Fennessy Viewcomments Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “'We were probably putting as many hours a week into Rovers as we were into our own jobs'”. Recipient's Email Feedback on “'We were probably putting as many hours a week into Rovers as we were into our own jobs'”. Your Feedback Your Email (optional) Report a Comment Please select the reason for reporting this comment. 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