09-07-2025
All-Ireland derby puts friendships to the test with so much on the line in Champions League
AT BANG ON 4.45pm yesterday afternoon three young Shelbourne fans walked into Tolka Park from the Ballybough end.
They headed straight for the Riverside on the far side and began taking in the quietness before tonight's Champions League first round qualifier with Linfield.
That calm was broken by the sound of a Garda shouting across the pitch just beside the home dugout where Joey O'Brien – not Damien Duff – will be patrolling come 7.45pm.
'Lads, what are you doing,' he roared in an accent that was more Ballymaloe than Ballybough.
'We're just checking on our seats for tomorrow,' one of the teenagers said, quick as a flash.
'Well get out and wait until the tomorrow then,' came the instruction from the Garda.
'Right,' the lad replied.
The three of them skipped down the stairs and headed left towards the tunnel area where Shels chief executive Tomás 'Mossy' Quinn was in conversation with one of the Uefa delegates. One of the instructions given beforehand was the need for the pitch to be brought in by one metre on each side.
At the other goal, some club officials had also just finished a run through of how the VAR system in operation for the first time at Tolka Park will work.
The three lads continued to walk as the Garda continued to keep an eye. Dressed in black and grey t-shirts and shorts – with hoodies draped around their shoulders – they opted against stopping into the club shop that was open for business.
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Some staff were sceptical about ordering half and half scarves to commemorate this All Ireland clash in the first round of Champions League qualifying.
They shouldn't have been, especially as strong bonds have been formed between some supporters of these clubs from north Dublin and south Belfast.
The fact this tie falls on the 20th anniversary of Linfield beating Shels 2-0 here in the final of the inaugural Setanta Sports Cup – the all-island competition that ran its course in 2014 – is apt.
In the early 2000s, Fintan Cassidy was the chairman of the official Shelbourne Supporters' Club and editor of then club website ShelsWeb.
In the build up to that game two decades ago he was contacted by Linfield fan Roy Matthews and asked if there was somewhere he and a group of others could watch the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Manchester United earlier in the afternoon.
'I was able to arrange it and a group of us Shels fans along with the Linfield lads watched the game in our club bar [under the main stand] and enjoyed a few drinks together. We had made firm friends and have stayed in touch to this day,' Cassidy wrote in an email to The 42 ahead of this tie.
Shels fan Fintan Cassidy (left) with Linfield supporter Roy Matthews in 2006.
The following summer, Linfield fans invited Cassidy to their Irish Cup final meeting with Glentoran in Windsor Park. 'I was sat in the main stand among all the Linfield hardcore cheering on the Blues. After the game they brought me on a pub crawl of all the favourite Linfield watering holes including a few strongly loyalist drinking dens.
'When I was introduced as a Shelbourne football fan from the south, they surprisingly welcomed me as a fellow football fan and said, 'fair play to you for travelling up'. The following month a number of the same Linfield supporters group returned to Dublin to support Shels versus FK Vetra in the Inter Toto Cup. Along with a group of Stockport County fans who were also over the match, they were entertained at a BBQ in our back garden by Finian McGrath TD with his guitar singing Bad Bad Leroy Brown, which he had recently performed on Celebrity You're A Star on the RTE reality show.'
The pair hope to meet up before kick-off tonight and it is impossible to ignore the derby element to this European contest, one that could be worth €2 million to Shels should they win and would also guarantee as a minimum a place in the play-off round of the UEFA Conference League.
Yesterday, Shels captain Mark Coyle spoke of the squad feeling 'a recharge' in the aftermath of Duff's departure.
Linfield boss David Healy. Brian Little / INPHO Brian Little / INPHO / INPHO
For Linfield, they returned to pre-season just under a month ago and have played two friendlies prior to this tie. Before Duff's sudden departure in the same week the clubs were drawn together, it was set to be billed as two icons of the game north and south leading the champions of both leagues into battle.
Chris Shields, the Dubliner who featured in two Europa League group stage campaigns for Dundalk in 2016 and 2020, was signed by manager David Healy in 2021 and has begun to realise how much his boss means to Northern Ireland fans. He's their record scorer with 36 goals, hit a hat-trick against Spain and scored a winner against England, all of which led to him being awarded an MBE in 2008.
Shields, who is suspended for the first leg, lives nearby Healy (who is a regular at League of Ireland games and can't remember the last FAI Cup final he didn't attend) and has seen up close the adoration, as well as the criticism that comes his way.
'He's obviously a strong figurehead in the club, but he's in no way finding himself more important than anyone else. He doesn't lean on the back of what he's done for Northern Ireland. He's very much bases himself on what he's done as Linfield manager, which is a hell of a lot now, really.'
He's a decade in the Linfield job, a new contract has also been signed, and last season's league title was the first for three seasons, the sixth overall during his tenure. Former player, and general manager, Pat Fenlon said last weekend that the Blues were the biggest club on the island because of the demands and expectations, a comment that garnered attention given his strong ties to clubs like St Patrick's Athletic, Bohemians, Shamrock Rovers and, of course, Shels.
'It's probably the most demanding job, it is. But along with the sacrifices that you make, the excitement, the joy. I love this football club. I put so much into the job. I care so deeply about not only the image of the football club, the players, the relationship that we have between myself and the players and the players and the supporters. And I think over the last number of years we've certainly built on that,' Healy said, and with club chairman Roy McGivern sitting at the back of the room at the pre-match press conference he insisted that no player should be using the derby factor as extra motivation.
'Other people will talk about it because it's looking at you straight in the face, it's north v south, but it's not something we've talked about in the dressing room. It's not something I've spoken about to the players to try to gee them up because they shouldn't need to be geed up.'
O'Brien, likewise, was not playing it up, instead simplifying what is at stake.
'It's a 50-50 game. To get to this stage, a Champions League qualifier, and have a 50-50 game, is what you want. Ultimately we have that chance.'
Now it's up to one of these sides to show they can reach out and take it to prolong their European adventure.
