Ramblers' Downfall
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My father-in-law Georgie Mellerick was the last manager at Cobh Ramblers to get them promoted back in the early 90s. I had played in his team that finished 2nd to UCD and Georgie has rightly enjoyed local hero status ever since because it was a tremendous achievement. The following season in my opinion was an even greater achievement for Georgie as we managed to stay in the Premier Division beating Finn Harps in a playoff after finishing 11th.
I loved playing for Cobh Ramblers because it was a real family club steeped in great tradition with their cup exploits against Sligo Rovers in the 80s still spoken off fondly and proudly by young and old to his day. The ground is small and has a fantastic atmosphere and the club house was always buzzing after games with great characters and great people who simply loved their football and loved their club. Ramblers’ potential as a club first came to my notice when I was a 19-year-old playing for Eric Barbers’, Hammond Lane.
We were drawn away to Ramblers in the quarter-finals of the FAI Intermediate Cup. As we left the pitch from our warm up there was no more than 150 people in the ground which was a fairly decent crowd. When we came back out for kick off the crowd had swelled to nearly 3500 people all dressed in their Ramblers colours. We beat them 1-0 but the experience of playing down there would stay with me right up to the day I was privileged enough to become their manager.
Billy Young, the former Bohemians manager, is a man I have the greatest respect for. It was he who talked me into doing my coaching badges while I was playing in Northern Ireland. Billy ran a FAS soccer course in Santry with Tom O’Connor as the head coach. It was great as I could train full time, play my football up north and gather coaching experience.
After Tom left, Billy asked me to take the role of head coach for the course and there the idea first formed in my head about management some day. I enjoyed organising the training and the craic with the lads was great but only if they were working hard and we got what we needed to get out of each session.
Wesley Hoolahan, Gary O’Neill and Johnny Prizeman were just some of the players we had, and improved on the course. They were great lads who were willing to work, listen and learn. Learning how to deal with players is something no coaching manual will teach you. Knowing when they are right or upset takes experience of people, and being there in a constructive or compassionate manner will ultimately make or break you as a manager in my opinion. I learned quickly if you treat your players with respect they will reciprocate. If they don’t, move them on.
Winning the First Division with Cobh has been a highlight but I would hope more success is on the horizon. Georgie would give me stick about his exploits with Cobh so when we won the First Division we had a good laugh about it but Georgie quickly put me back in my box by stating now ‘can you keep them in the Premier?’ It was a huge challenge. The league was now almost completely full-time; some teams would come down where 2 or 3 of their players’ wages was our combined playing and staff budget.
We gave it a good go it has to be said, the fact that 3 teams would be relegated made it an even more daunting task. We finished 11th. This in years past would have given us a play-off place at least but with the reduction to a 10 team league our faith was sealed and my time at Cobh came to a sad end with great memories.
I don’t know how Ramblers got into the situation the club finds itself in now. Rumours, rumours and more rumours are circulated on a daily basis on what happened but I hope the truth comes out someday so the club can retain its rightful and deserved place on LOI football.
There is no doubt that the FAI have improved the league greatly and the licence criteria is one of the positive aspects of their takeover, but like in most organisations there are flaws. Relegating teams to the A Championship does not make sense in my opinion. Cobh Ramblers owe a substantial amount of money to various creditors, but putting them in the A Championship significantly reduces the clubs potential income and so reduces their capabilities of paying back what they owe.
Currently around 25 people are paying a fiver to watch Ramblers play sometimes every three weeks, possibly four. €125 a month is not going to pay anybody fast and the situation just gets worse. In my opinion enforcing teams that have defaulted on financial issues to amateur status until they have paid what they owe is a more viable business option.
If Ramblers were still in the First Division as an amateur team they would have gates in excess of 200 people paying €10 a head every second week. All of a sudden they are going from €125 a month to €4000 a month which would be collected by an FAI delegate who would in turn start paying of creditors for the club. When all debts are paid, Rams could return to semi pro status with no debts and a lot wiser from what they learned.
I loved playing for Cobh Ramblers because it was a real family club steeped in great tradition with their cup exploits against Sligo Rovers in the 80s still spoken off fondly and proudly by young and old to his day. The ground is small and has a fantastic atmosphere and the club house was always buzzing after games with great characters and great people who simply loved their football and loved their club. Ramblers’ potential as a club first came to my notice when I was a 19-year-old playing for Eric Barbers’, Hammond Lane.
We were drawn away to Ramblers in the quarter-finals of the FAI Intermediate Cup. As we left the pitch from our warm up there was no more than 150 people in the ground which was a fairly decent crowd. When we came back out for kick off the crowd had swelled to nearly 3500 people all dressed in their Ramblers colours. We beat them 1-0 but the experience of playing down there would stay with me right up to the day I was privileged enough to become their manager.
Billy Young, the former Bohemians manager, is a man I have the greatest respect for. It was he who talked me into doing my coaching badges while I was playing in Northern Ireland. Billy ran a FAS soccer course in Santry with Tom O’Connor as the head coach. It was great as I could train full time, play my football up north and gather coaching experience.
After Tom left, Billy asked me to take the role of head coach for the course and there the idea first formed in my head about management some day. I enjoyed organising the training and the craic with the lads was great but only if they were working hard and we got what we needed to get out of each session.
Wesley Hoolahan, Gary O’Neill and Johnny Prizeman were just some of the players we had, and improved on the course. They were great lads who were willing to work, listen and learn. Learning how to deal with players is something no coaching manual will teach you. Knowing when they are right or upset takes experience of people, and being there in a constructive or compassionate manner will ultimately make or break you as a manager in my opinion. I learned quickly if you treat your players with respect they will reciprocate. If they don’t, move them on.
Winning the First Division with Cobh has been a highlight but I would hope more success is on the horizon. Georgie would give me stick about his exploits with Cobh so when we won the First Division we had a good laugh about it but Georgie quickly put me back in my box by stating now ‘can you keep them in the Premier?’ It was a huge challenge. The league was now almost completely full-time; some teams would come down where 2 or 3 of their players’ wages was our combined playing and staff budget.
We gave it a good go it has to be said, the fact that 3 teams would be relegated made it an even more daunting task. We finished 11th. This in years past would have given us a play-off place at least but with the reduction to a 10 team league our faith was sealed and my time at Cobh came to a sad end with great memories.
I don’t know how Ramblers got into the situation the club finds itself in now. Rumours, rumours and more rumours are circulated on a daily basis on what happened but I hope the truth comes out someday so the club can retain its rightful and deserved place on LOI football.
There is no doubt that the FAI have improved the league greatly and the licence criteria is one of the positive aspects of their takeover, but like in most organisations there are flaws. Relegating teams to the A Championship does not make sense in my opinion. Cobh Ramblers owe a substantial amount of money to various creditors, but putting them in the A Championship significantly reduces the clubs potential income and so reduces their capabilities of paying back what they owe.
Currently around 25 people are paying a fiver to watch Ramblers play sometimes every three weeks, possibly four. €125 a month is not going to pay anybody fast and the situation just gets worse. In my opinion enforcing teams that have defaulted on financial issues to amateur status until they have paid what they owe is a more viable business option.
If Ramblers were still in the First Division as an amateur team they would have gates in excess of 200 people paying €10 a head every second week. All of a sudden they are going from €125 a month to €4000 a month which would be collected by an FAI delegate who would in turn start paying of creditors for the club. When all debts are paid, Rams could return to semi pro status with no debts and a lot wiser from what they learned.
