St Patrick's Athletic

Origins of the club

Football in Inchicore dates back to at least 1898. There had been several previous local clubs called St Patrick's and St Patrick's Athletic, as well as clubs associated with the Inchicore railway works, the Great Southern Railways (also known as the GSR). The more recent of these, GSR FC, started around 1927. They played in the Athletic Union League at first, with their home ground at Bluebell, although most of their games from then on were played in the Inchicore Works or "Pond Field" with others at Richmond Park and Chapelizod.

GSR fielded two teams in 1929–30; an "A" team in the Leinster League Division Two, and a "B" team in the AUL Division One. GSR's B team seems to have been dropped for the following season, 1930–31. It is possible that the demands of senior football were such that they did not want to take on a second team, or perhaps belt-tightening at the recently consolidated company was taking hold.

Around this time, GSR were approached by a group of young footballers asking them to take on a second team. These included Pat Dunphy, who gave a first-hand account of the formation of the club in an interview in 1989.

Along with six of his fellow teenage friends who worked at the GSR, Pat states that they asked the company to take on a second team of younger players. "We were looking for them to take us over and they refused us on a couple of occasions. They (GSR) wouldn't have anything to do with it. They were a big team, we wanted to go in with a smaller team. They were playing in the Leinster League. The GSR team had players around 20 at this time. I was about 16."

After the GSR had refused to take the new team on, the teenage friends held what would prove to be a historic meeting, which resulted in the founding of the club. "The following week we had a meeting down in McDowell's (a pub located on Emmett Road alongside Richmond Park). Mr McDowell was a very decent man and was always very good to us. We decided to go into the bottom league, which was the Intermediate League. I was asked to go down to Parnell Square and look up the people who were running these Leagues. I went down and paid the entrance fee and they sent us word the following week that we'd be in the Intermediate League. The fee was only small - around a guinea (one pound and one shilling) - and we all bunched in to pay."

The club spent 1929 finding its feet by playing friendly fixtures, with the first ever team photo taken in June 1929, before they began playing competitive games in September 1930, at the 15 acres in the nearby Phoenix Park.

Leinster Senior League years

During the late 1940s and 1950s, St Pats played in the Leinster Senior League. During this period they won the league title on six occasions. This included four successive titles between 1947 and 1948 and 1950–51. In 1947–48 St Pats completed a treble after also winning both the FAI Intermediate Cup and Leinster Senior Cup. The 1948–49 season would see St Pats win a Leinster Senior League / FAI Intermediate Cup double. In 1950–51 a young Shay Gibbons helped St Pats win the Leinster Senior League title for the fourth time. After St Pats first team joined the League of Ireland in 1951–52, their reserve team won two further Leinster Senior League titles in 1955–56 and 1956–57.

Entering the League of Ireland

In 1951–52 the club was admitted, along with Cork side Evergreen United, to the League of Ireland. St Pats made an immediate impact, winning the league championship at their first attempt. Two more league championship successes followed in 1954–55 and 1955–56. The club had to wait until 1959 before their first FAI Cup success, repeating the feat in 1961. Despite several appearances in the final since 1961, it took the Saints till 2014 to win their third

Ginger O'Rourke, Harry Boland ('The Legend', 1926–2000), Jimmy 'Timber' Cummins (a cousin of one of the founders—Bart Cummins) Jimmy 'Growler' Cummins (a brother of Bart Cummins), Irish international Shay Gibbons, Ronnie Whelan Snr. and Willie Peyton are notable players of this era.

1960–1980

St Pats struggled throughout the late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s with only the odd cup final or young star emerging to brighten things for long-suffering Pats fans. Among those players to emerge was Noel Campbell. Campbell spent a number of years with St Pats (gaining the first of his Irish caps) before moving to SC Fortuna Köln where he would play 8 seasons. Perhaps the brightest star to play for St Pats was Paul McGrath. McGrath was signed by Saints manager Charlie Walker from junior side Dalkey United. Within a year he had won the PFAI Player of the Year award and earned himself a move to Manchester United. FIFA World Cup-winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks also played one match for St Pats, making him by far the brightest star to turn out for the club in 1977.

1980–1990

The appointment of Brian Kerr as manager in 1986 was a major turning point in the fortunes of the club. Kerr worked on limited resources to create a team capable of challenging the best. At the end of the 1988–89 season, St Pats left Richmond Park for what the board of directors called "a short time" while redevelopment work was done. 1989 saw a joint St Patrick's Athletic & Bohemians side play a friendly against the Libya national football team in Tripoli, drawing 1–1 in what was a highly controversial friendly during Muammar Gaddafi's reign as leader of Libya. The year 1990 saw the Saints draw 0–0 with the Tunisia national football team in Tunis and another 0–0 draw with the Iran national football team in Tehran, while in April of the following year they beat Finland 2–1 at Dalymount Park, leaving the club with an undefeated record against international sides and without conceding a goal.