It is never less than a foolhardy endeavour betting on which team will be crowned champions of the League of Ireland Premier Division.
In 2012, supporter-owned Sligo Rovers attained their first title for 35 years, benefitting from a busy pre-season that saw 13 new recruits head to The Showgrounds.
Five years prior to that Drogheda United topped the pile for the first time after 88 years of existence.
Then there’s Cork City, breaking their league duck in 1993, four decades after rising as a phoenix club, and Derry City claiming a famous title success in 1989.
In 1985, the Candystripes were admitted into the League of Ireland and remain the only Northern Ireland-based side to compete in it.
Granted, across a century’s worth of history this is a league that has nourished an elite band of clubs, who have grown in prominence over the years and become major players, both in Ireland and abroad.
Biggest Clubs In Irish Football:
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Shamrock Rovers
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Dundalk
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Shelbourne
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Bohemians
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St Patrick’s Athletic
The biggest five of these are celebrated below.
Yet it is also a highly competitive league, one that rewards a well-put-together squad – regardless of stature, wealth or history – with silverware and glory.
That is not often the case elsewhere, around the world.
5) St Patrick’s Athletic
Formed in 1929, the Saints moved to Richmond Park ten years later, their home to this day.
Originally competing in the Leinster Senior League, the club were admitted into the League of Ireland in 1951 and it’s fair to say they made their presence felt immediately, winning a title at the first time of asking.
Two further titles followed in what was a highly successful era for the club, St Pats being furnished with a phenomenal forward-line that included the likes of Shay Gibbons, prolific and quick, and the gifted Ronnie Whelan Snr, father of the Liverpool star who went on to be capped 53 times for his country.
Let’s not forget either, Harry Boland whose nickname offers an insight into the breadth of his talents - the forward was simply known as ‘The Legend’.
After introducing themselves to the Irish top-flight in some style, the Saints then endured a sustained lean spell that lasted for a generation.
That all changed in 1984 when Brian Kerr was appointed as manager, the Inchicore side going on to secure several more league titles in the modern era, even amidst a serious financial crisis that nearly put the club out of business.
4) Bohemians
One of the League of Ireland’s founding members, ‘Bohs’ bossed proceedings from the off, finishing top in five of the opening 15 seasons and quickly establishing themselves as the biggest and best side in Irish football.
Only then came a prolonged drought, a trophyless run that lasted for nearly 40 years and it was not uncommon for the Dublin side to finish bottom of the league, thankfully in an era when there was no relegation.
The chief reason for this long-lasting fallow period was Bohemian’s strict maintaining of their amateur status, a principle that cost them dear for a third of their entire existence.
When this mandate was lifted in 1969, success soon returned to the north of the capital.
In total, ‘Bohs’ have won the league 11 times and the FAI Cup on seven occasions, while in Europe they boast a pedigree that stretches for half a century.
Rangers and Kaiserslautern have been bested in continental competition while Dalymount Park has hosted such diverse teams as Bordeaux and Rhyl.
Fan-owned and with a proudly independent spirit, the club has picked up an array of celebrity fans down the years, not least Samuel L Jackson and Irvine Welsh.
3) Shelbourne
Situated just a mile down the road from Bohemians, the Reds of Tolka Park are presently enjoying a welcomed revival of fortunes, competing at the very top again after a troublesome period spent in the second tier.
Their demotion largely resulted from a financial implosion that nearly sent this marquee club to the wall.
Season after season in the 2000s Champions League football was attained – or at least the qualifying rounds – and there was a memorable draw achieved against Deportivo La Coruna around this time, a result that will always be savoured by the 25,000 who witnessed it at Lansdowne Road.
But at what cost were these memories? Arguably, this small club from the Northside of Dublin were guilty of flying too close to the sun.
A takeover in 2023 appears to have put them on a more even keel, and with the new owners investing in them properly and sensibly the future looks bright, especially with ex-Chelsea winger Damien Duff impressing in the dug-out.
It may not be long before the Reds add to their proud collection of 13 league titles.
2) Dundalk
The Lilywhites are another club on the up after benefiting from a recent takeover that has seen US businessman Brian Ainscough take on the reins and vow to put an end to a seemingly endless pattern of bad investments and financial hardship.
Not that such off-field problems affected Dundalk where it mattered most.
Indeed, this past decade has seen the club evoke their glory days of the Seventies, when a fabulous side routinely topped the pile domestically and took on the continent’s elite, even reaching the last 16 of the European Cup in 1980.
Reimagined, first under the stewardship of Stephen Kenny, then later Vinny Perth, the East Coast outfit won five league titles between 2014 and 2020, their modern-day resurgence making waves far and wide.
Ironically, it was this that first attracted the interest of super-rich American investors.
1) Shamrock Rovers
Think of Irish football and Shamrock Rovers comes easily to mind.
They are the club that have won 20% of the titles up for grabs since the league’s inception. It is they who have supplied the Republic of Ireland with the most players of any club.
It is they who have the finest continental heritage, boasting 104 European contests and winning 24 of them. Real Madrid have been to the southside of Dublin, as too have Juventus and Celtic.
It was the Hoops who won six league titles in a row in the 1960s, with a side that lives long in the memory.
They may have been homeless for 23 years, and – sadly a common theme here – they may have nearly gone out of business, but Rovers are the biggest club to ever grace Ireland’s fair isle, bar none.
Revived and restored in recent years, and now under fan-ownership, the Hoops have won the last four league championships and are showing little signs of slowing down.
Is it any wonder they are priced up as favourites every August in the football betting?
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
