The phrase ‘charity begins at home’ has a two-fold meaning for the club currently. In recent times they have been forced to play their home fixtures at the Pike Rovers sports ground. Being a homeless club, they were overlooked for an ISC (Irish Sports Council) grant last year, as seems to be the case, no evidence of a stadium or drive to build one = no grant. Their peers, each of which have held onto their grounds in whatever dilapidated state they may be, garnered sizeable monetary aid which will help them ease their UEFA licensing troubles.
Whatever about Limerick maintaining their status this summer, the new enforcement of licensing laws from UEFA would currently kill off many of the provincial heroes of the First Division. Limerick man JP McManus is fulfilling a childhood fantasy in his dalliance with Manchester United and was prepared to fork out €60 million for our own national stadium – doesn’t it seem time ‘The Sun Dance Kid’ rode back into his home city? He was touted to be the mystery benefactor who ploughed €5 million recently into the Jim Kemmy Business centre at the University of Limerick. Whatever turmoil it’s currently in, all of Limerick City is praying he, well the twenty members of the supporters club, are praying that he can offload one of his offshore bank accounts down at the Pike.
Administrative and ground structure is where Irish football clubs have fallen down in the past, and with the ten-team Premier Division finally jumping into the summer soccer bed together, the lower league is being left to the sandman. Longford Town poached €225,000 from the Irish government last year for stadium developments. Dundalk gratefully accepted €1M; Monaghan United took €300,000 back to Century Homes Park and the Sligo Rovers Development Association netted €300,000 for the Connacht club.
The Limerick club’s players have agreed to a temporary rescinding of wages. Limerick have won the top league competition twice in their seventy year history, as Limerick in 1959/60 and as Limerick United in 1979/80.
In recent years they have been languishing in the First Division, and although they did manage to win the 2002 League Cup with victory over Derry City in the final, success has been thin on the ground in recent years. The club parted company with manager Noel O’Connor, who was appointed Cork City assistant, in the close-season, but Mike Kerley took over and, after a slow start, led the club to fifth in the table, just two points off the play-off places.
Departed chairman O’Sullivan was quoted as saying, ‘We have been struggling to get more than 200 people at our games and if the city wants senior football then it must turn up in greater numbers than that. We need a response from the business community as well.’
Mike Kerley, the manager, has conceded that ‘getting sponsorship has always been a problem. Charlotte Quay pharmacies have been our sponsor for the past few years and have been brilliant but we need more money. The FAI were meant to give the club money but we’re still waiting.’
They could try something similar to Galway United, a fellow First Division outfit. They currently have a project going called the 100 club, familiar to many clubs worldwide, whereby the organisation attemptes to lure 100 local businesses into offloading €100 per month for the duration of three years to aid their local team financially. It has taken Galway seven months to get seventy companies on board, and thats where the cookie is crumbling for Limerick. Time is ticking and JP better have his mobile switched on...