Bohs' problems come at wrong time

During the week, the Airtricity League seemed to be generating the headlines people have become so accustomed to throughout the last three seasons in Ireland. It was reported that Bohs are in financial trouble and the rumour mill has it, that a substantial amount of money is needed between now and the end of the season for the club to survive (I know, not another big club to go!).

At the start of the year, I discussed what would be success for the league this year. Most commentators and fans of the league have said the quality of football needs to improve, and Irish teams need to progress in European competition to build on the success of previous seasons while stadiums also need improving. All are good points but not the most important issues for the league this year.

In my opinion, a season free of financial troubles for the 22 teams involved in the League of Ireland is vital to gain some much needed stability and credibility within the country.

At the end of last year, Derry were relegated as well as Cork being wound up and many people including myself speculated that it was a watershed moment for the league. Irish football had hit rock bottom and the only way from here, was up. Unfortunately, if the press is correct, this year Bohs could be the next big club to fall and again raise questions about the sustainability of Irish football.

Over the last number of years, players high wages have be highlighted as one of the main problems with the league. This season from speaking to players around the league and knowing the pay cuts which have been applied throughout the league, player’s high wages can no longer be blamed for the money problems clubs encounter. Instead, something is going to have to be done regarding how clubs are run around the country.

In the USA, they have centralised contracts and the players are contracted to the league not the individual clubs, whether this is a route to go down I am not sure, but something radical is needed. We can’t keep going from season to season with clubs struggling and not honouring contracts. The general public has already turned their backs on the domestic game, if we keep generating the wrong type of headline we have no chance of attracting them back to the league.

All I can say is, I hope the reports around Bohs financial troubles have been exaggerated and the club will be fine to carry on. (I better talk about some football rather than financial issues before I finish).

Any football fan who does a League of Ireland coupon at the weekends would have lost a fortune in the week just gone. Our own result versus Bray as well as Bohs being beaten by Galway were two results not many would have predicted.

From our own point of view, it was probably our worst performance of the season so far. From the goalkeeper through to the centre forwards, we struggled to get going all night. Credit has to be given to Bray and in particular their two front men. The two lads caused our back four problems all night and we never got to grips with them.

Even though we had a late rally and got the game back to 3-2, we didn’t deserve anything out of the match.

After the game we didn’t over analyse things. Some nights you turn up on the pitch and it just doesn’t happen for you and in our case on Friday it didn’t happen for the eleven lads who started. It hasn’t been very often that I have said that this season.

Since the defeat, training has been good all week and we can’t wait to make amends for the defeat. There is plenty of football to be played this season and I still think we will be in the shake up at the end of October.

Anytime we have had a disappointing result this year we have bounced back and Friday is a great opportunity against Sligo to do the same.