Are you Receiving me?
Credit:
BRIAN de SALVO gets a wrong number and a lot of misinformation.
The Bank of Scotland is chasing my credit card debt. When I point out that previous messages asked me to call a number that is not available from the Republic I am informed that the number is only invalid “from abroad”. My inquisitor seems unable to comprehend that the Republic is not part of “the British Isles”. This from a Bank that, having invaded the Irish market when the going was good, pulled out immediately when it got hard. My financial difficulties have something in common with those making the headlines for Mick Wallace. But mine are in the thousands, his in the millions.
Wallace : I face ruin. The headline on the front page of Wednesday’s Irish Independent implies a personal interview with the Wexford TD. The give away is the lack of quotation marks. In fact the Wexford Youths boss hasn’t spoken directly to the Indo. Their comprehensive coverage, which spreads to page 16, has been cobbled together from “sources” and includes several inaccuracies. On Wednesday, for example, the claim is that “ACC’s haul of Wallace properties includes much of the Italian Quarter in Dublin’s city centre.” By the following morning this has been reduced to “two apartments”.
And, despite what you may have read, the fate of the Ferrycarrig soccer complex is not in the hands of the receiver since the project was not financed by ACC but by another bank who have, as yet, not called in the receiver. The club leases Ferrycarrig from M & J Wallace and Mick thinks it is protected by this lease whilst the rent continues to be paid.
Nevertheless Youths could still share the fate of Gretna, the village club that made a meteoric passage across Scottish soccer before imploding three years ago when backer Brooks Mileson’s fortune evaporated. Mileson made and lost much of his money in the construction industry but there the comparison with Wallace ends.
Unlike most men who finance soccer clubs, Mick Wallace invested in the facility not the squad. Hence the bricks and mortar remain but whether the club can also afford the considerable expense attached to membership of the Airtricity League without the financial input that its benefactor can no longer provide remains to be seen.
The bottom line may be how much interest there is in a county steeped in GAA to host a senior soccer club. Current gates of little more than a hundred for home games puts the question more eloquently than I can. It will be interesting to see whether the Wexford public turn up for Friday’s FAI Cup tie with Derry City, a rematch of the EA Sports Cup Final that brought thousands to Ferrycarrig just three years ago. The gate money would be useful. But of more long term advantage could be the expression of interest a bumper crowd would provide. Use it or lose it.
The Bank of Scotland is chasing my credit card debt. When I point out that previous messages asked me to call a number that is not available from the Republic I am informed that the number is only invalid “from abroad”. My inquisitor seems unable to comprehend that the Republic is not part of “the British Isles”. This from a Bank that, having invaded the Irish market when the going was good, pulled out immediately when it got hard. My financial difficulties have something in common with those making the headlines for Mick Wallace. But mine are in the thousands, his in the millions.
Wallace : I face ruin. The headline on the front page of Wednesday’s Irish Independent implies a personal interview with the Wexford TD. The give away is the lack of quotation marks. In fact the Wexford Youths boss hasn’t spoken directly to the Indo. Their comprehensive coverage, which spreads to page 16, has been cobbled together from “sources” and includes several inaccuracies. On Wednesday, for example, the claim is that “ACC’s haul of Wallace properties includes much of the Italian Quarter in Dublin’s city centre.” By the following morning this has been reduced to “two apartments”.
And, despite what you may have read, the fate of the Ferrycarrig soccer complex is not in the hands of the receiver since the project was not financed by ACC but by another bank who have, as yet, not called in the receiver. The club leases Ferrycarrig from M & J Wallace and Mick thinks it is protected by this lease whilst the rent continues to be paid.
Nevertheless Youths could still share the fate of Gretna, the village club that made a meteoric passage across Scottish soccer before imploding three years ago when backer Brooks Mileson’s fortune evaporated. Mileson made and lost much of his money in the construction industry but there the comparison with Wallace ends.
Unlike most men who finance soccer clubs, Mick Wallace invested in the facility not the squad. Hence the bricks and mortar remain but whether the club can also afford the considerable expense attached to membership of the Airtricity League without the financial input that its benefactor can no longer provide remains to be seen.
The bottom line may be how much interest there is in a county steeped in GAA to host a senior soccer club. Current gates of little more than a hundred for home games puts the question more eloquently than I can. It will be interesting to see whether the Wexford public turn up for Friday’s FAI Cup tie with Derry City, a rematch of the EA Sports Cup Final that brought thousands to Ferrycarrig just three years ago. The gate money would be useful. But of more long term advantage could be the expression of interest a bumper crowd would provide. Use it or lose it.
