extratime.ie LOI book review of the year

Amongst the options of books being bought as Christmas presents this year there are a few League of Ireland publications that will keep the domestic football fan entertained before the season gets up and running in February.

There are two books that tell the tale between them of the clubs who won all the major trophies in 2019 - although for some reason nobody from 'Leinster champions' St. Patrick's Athletic penned a book on their win in the #magicoftheleinsterseniorcup

First up is Gavin McLaughlin latest book which summarises Dundalk’s superb season when Vinny Perth stepped into the hot seat at Oriel Park after the departure of Stephen Kenny and he helped deliver yet another trophy laden year for the Lilywhites.  

Perth was on hand to launch earlier this month McLaughlin’s book ‘We See Things They’ll Never See’ which tells the story of a season when Dundalk retained their SSE Airtricity League title and also claimed the EA Sports Cup to go with the trophy wins that bookended 2019 - the President’s Cup back in February and the Unite the Union Cup in November. 

McLaughlin tells the story of the Lilywhites claiming four domestic trophies and, while they missed out on the FAI Cup Final on penalties to Shamrock Rovers, the book details how they overcame a slow start to the season to overhaul a 13-point deficit over the Hoops to win the club’s fifth League title in a remarkable six years.

The 304 pages of match reports, quotes and a range of photos is a certain stocking filler for all Dundalk supporter.

‘We See Things They’ll Never See’ is McLaughlin’s fifth book on Dundalk and similarly Robert Goggins this year has penned book number five on Shamrock Rovers.

‘She Wore a Green Ribbon’ is Robert’s latest book and one he has been waiting over two decades to finish. The Hoops won their 24th FAI Cup back in 1987 and it was during the 1990s that Goggins began working on a book on Rovers’ FAI Cup success.

The plan was always to publish once the Hoops won their 25th FAI Cup crown but the author never thought it would take quite so many years for that landmark cup success!

Goggins tells the long and storied history of the Hoops in the cup from making it to the very first final in 1922 as a Leinster Senior League club. He details the match that year against a Tipperary Wanderers team that consisted of several members of the British Army and more specifically the ‘Black & Tans’.



He documents the five cup crowns in a row from 1929 to 1933 – a record beaten only by a remarkable Rovers six-in-a-row side in the 1960s. 

The 224 page book, with all of profits going directly to the SRFC Academy, was launched at Tallaght Stadium at the start of the month with the launch attended by players who had helped with Rovers some of their 25 cup wins including Gerry Mackey (1950s), Mick Leech (1960s), Mick and Pat Byrne (1980s) and Joey O’Byrne (2019). 

Another multi-book author with a new paperback available is Neal Horgan. The former Cork City player latest book ‘The Cross Roads: Rise of the Rebel Army and Crisis at the FAI’ is the third chapter in Horgan’s League of Ireland series.

Before he returned to UEFA, Noel Mooney was happy to launch the book in Abbotstown – despite the book’s sub-heading – with this book charting the return of Cork City to the top table of League of Ireland football under the fan ownership model that had saved the club from extinction and it documents the current troubles at the FAI.

‘One Night in Dudelange' is Kevin Burke’s book describing the story of UCD's surprising 2015 adventure in the Europa League.

After the First Division team’s ‘fair play’ record earned them a place in Europe, their team of Arts students, Actuary Master’s and Theoretical Physics grads went from playing intervarsity competitions to taking on World Cup players.



You can read Tom O’Connor’s review of Burke’s book on extratime.ie here.

Finally, there is a section on his time as CEO at St. Patrick’s Athletic in Richard Sadlier’s award winning autobiography ‘Recovering’ (written with Dion Fanning). 

In the extratime.ie Advent Calendar 2019 Day 17 podcast there is a discussion on LOI Books For Christmas including all the books mentioned above. Declan Marron, Dave Donnelly and Macdara Ferris also give their recommendations from the books that they read this year. They include:

Soccermatics: Mathematical Adventures in the Beautiful Game (David Sumpter)

Astroball: The new way to win it all (Ben Reiter)

CONIFA – Football for the Forgotten (James Hendicott) - reviewed on extratime.ie here

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (Geoffrey C. Ward)

Matt Jansen: The Autobiography: What Was, What Is and What Might Have Been

Family: Life, Death and Football - A Year on the Frontline with a Proper Club (Michael Calvin)

The Wall (John Lanchester)

    About Macdara Ferris

    Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile