History of UCD AFC

1895-1970

In 1895, the Catholic University Medical School Cecilia Street Football Club was founded, entering a team in the inaugural Leinster Junior League. Silly names were the style of the times back then, as any self-respecting Newton Heath fan will tell you, and CUMSCS were determined to be up there with the best. At 56 letters long, it was one of the longest names in football, and indeed nothing has changed in 109 years as University College Dublin, National University of Ireland, Dublin Association Football Club (81 letters) is the longest team name in Europe, with the common abbreviation UCD (3 letters, for the Pat’s fans) being one of the shortest too.

The team’s first match was against Bohemians B in October of 1895. A 2-0 win sadly failed to set a trend, as we have a woeful record against Bohs, but the Evening Herald was suitably impressed. ’By the way,’ it said in an article the next month, ’the Catholic University has apparently come to stay and is likely to contribute something notable to the dribbling game in Dublin.’ Who said the Herald wasn’t a respectable paper?! This was of course written in the days when football involved dribbling past as many players as possible before either (a) scoring a goal or (b) being viciously hacked out of it. The game tends to involve slightly more passing of late, but anyone who saw us play Cobh in 2004 will be aware that part (b) is certainly alive and well.

November 1895 also saw the first match against Trinity - technically not a Colours match (Colours matches refer to specified annual challenge matches, not any occasion we beat... I mean play Trinity). The Shites were beaten 2-0 as well. All we needed now was every team to play in red and black and we’d be sure to succeed! This didn’t quite happen. However, by 1896, we had a second string team, and two years later, we qualified for the Leinster Senior Cup for the first time - back when it was a respectable (indeed, even current!) competition - and we reached the semi-final. It was to be 95 years before we bettered that achievement!

In 1908, the Catholic University merged with University College Dublin, and the team changed name with the merger. Things weren’t quite settled yet, though, as we went through a series of grounds - in Sandymount, Cowper Road, Croydon Park, Fairview and Terenure before moving to Belfield Park in 1935, where we still reside.

In the meantime, though, success had been regular. In 1914, we won the inaugural Collingwood Cup - the Irish collegiate championships. The next year, we won the IFA Intermediate Cup, beating Portadown 2-1 in a replay in Dalymount Park. The first match had seen us draw in Windsor Park on St Patrick’s Day! The competition was the ’IFA’ Cup, of course, because in those days before independence, the IFA governed football over the whole island, and the competition involved teams from the whole island. The Intermediate Cup was one step below the Senior Cup in importance, so it was certainly of some significance. And we were to be involved in the first even FAI Senior Cup in 1921, when we took on a non-league side called Shamrock Rovers in Windy Arbour, losing 6-2.

Not a great result, but the FAI were suitably impressed and in 1922, in their wisdom, they invited us to join the senior ranks, along with Rovers, who were admitted the same year. We gladly accepted, only to pull out before the season started as the FAI’s shortsighted influence got an early grip - most of our team was still on holidays from college, and we couldn’t field a team. Rathmines Athletic took our place instead.

In 1935, we were back in the FAI Cup, with another away tie - this time against Waterford (no United in those days). We twice took the lead only for Waterford to eventually run out 4-2 winners. In 1938, victories over Botanic and St James’ Gate saw us into another Leinster Senior Cup semi, where Shamrock Rovers were waiting. They progressed, but only after a replay. Four years later, we were back again, only to lose out to Distillery. But another trophy was to wing its way to Belfield in 1945 - the FAI Intermediate Cup, courtesy of a 4-2 win over Cobh Ramblers, again in Dalymount Park. In the 1950s, we qualified for the FAI Cup twice more - losing 3-2 after a replay to Sligo Rovers in 1953 and 4-2 to Cork Athletic in 1957.

1970-1978

For a long time, nothing of note happened. We won a few matches, lost a few, probably hammered Trinity a few times, but nothing to write home about. Then, in 1970, we were elected to the League of Ireland B - which doesn’t exist any more, but is obviously just one step down from senior football. It was around this time that one Dr Tony O’Neill came to the club too, and he wasted no time making his presence felt! In the 1970s and 1980s, the club toured Canada, China, India, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, the Phillippines, Singapore, Macao, Tonga, Sudan, Malaysia, Australia and Jordan, where we took on the national team in a challenge match. So the student phenomenon of touring Asia isn’t as recent as you think!

In 1974, Dublin won the All-Ireland football championship, beating Kerry in the final. How times have changed! Playing in the Dubs’ team was one Kevin Moran, later to play 70 times for Ireland and win the FA Cup with Manchester United and the Premiership with Blackburn Rovers. At the time, he was playing soccer for UCD - playing GAA on the Saturday and soccer on the Sunday. In 1976, he helped us to another Collingwood Cup, before signing for Pegasus (Graduates weren’t allowed to play for the team then, so Pegasus was founded as a team for the graduates). In 1977, Pegasus outdid UCD by qualifying for the FAI Cup. Such was Moran’s contribution that he was promptly snapped up by Manchester United. In the 1978/79 season, our top scorer was Hugo McNeill with 46 goals. McNeill left UCD that season to do postgraduate studies in Trinity, of all places, where he concentrated more on his rugby, and was part of the 1985 Triple Crown-winning side and the 1987 World Cup team.

1979-1989

If Manchester United signing a Pegasus player was a shock, though, the 22nd of July, 1979, provided another. While preparing for another season at LoI B level, the word came that yet another Cork team had gone bankrupt, and that UCD had been elected in their place. The surprise on the players’ faces as they are interviewed by RTE after hearing the decision is evident to this day - what on earth were RTE doing talking about Irish football?! Tony O’Neill was manager, Theo Dunne was coach and Keith Dignam was the first scholarship player. This was Doc O’Neill’s biggest contribution to the club and UCD’s unique contribution to Irish football. Players offered a scholarship could sit for a degree while playing top-level football in Ireland. Practically everyone who has gone through the system has spoken highly of it, especially those who subsequently moved on to England. Kevin Moran, though technically never a scholarship recipient, has often said that delaying his move to England until after he completed his Commerce degree meant both that he was more mature when heading over, and also less worried about his future, as he had his degree. Ken O’Doherty has been rather scathing about the mental maturity of those youngsters who had come through the ranks of Crystal Palace, for whom he signed in 1985. Alex Ferguson (no knighthood then) had no hesitation in sending one of his own Manchester United players - European U-16 winner Kevin Grogan - through the scheme after being advised of it by the aforementioned Moran. Such is its uniqueness that it is still a bit of a curiosity in England to-day - when Clive Delaney had a trial with Sunderland, the local newspaper commented on his M Acc qualification, as did the West Ham website when the same player had a six-month spell there.

The first season in the league, though, was tough going. In fact, we finished second last - ahead of Shels - and had to apply for re-election. This is a curious concept in LoI circles, and is thought to go something like this -

Kilkenny City - ’Can we play again next year?’
FAI - ’Duh... okay.’

A link-up with Vancouver Whitecaps (of the North American Soccer League) soon followed, which saw Dave Norman line out over 50 times for us over three seasons - he would go on to play for Canada in the 1986 World Cup. Vancouver were then managed by one John Giles, who sent his players to Ireland to maintain match fitness during the Canadian close season, and in 1981, he brought the team over for a friendly match to celebrate the opening of the dressing room area.

By the end of the 1982 season, though, it was apparent that the current system wasn’t working as defeats like 7-0 to Limerick and 6-0 to Dundalk were all too frequent. So we decided to abandon our student-only policy, allowing anyone to play for the College. This has been refined somewhat to-day - we generally only have students or graduates (an important distinction) in our team, with the occasional aged maestro such as Derek Swan to help our youngsters along. And of course, with the scholarship scheme, we can sign players from England and give them a college education, meaning that we aren’t restricted to what comes through the CAO in early September. Scouts also check out the top schoolboy talent in the country and offer them scholarships on the condition that they obtain the relevant points requirement in the Leaving Cert. This rule, believe it or not, is applied, and legend has it that one target who missed out on his scholarship due to not being intelligent enough to get sufficient points was the one and (thankfully!) only Paul Doolin.

In 1983, those changes were rung rather dramatically. Former Scottish international Peter Lorimer signed, but played only three games before signing for Aston Villa. Another former international was Paddy Dunning, a centre-back with two senior Irish caps. Alan O’Neill is to be our most instrumental signing, while Dermot Keely is appointed manager and lasts a long time (by his standards anyway!) - after eight games, he leaves for Shamrock Rovers. The policy works, as at the end of the season, we finished sixth in the league - by far our highest position in our short league history - and won the FAI Cup, beating Dermot Keely, one of our earliest Judases who certainly got what was coming to him! The Cup run had started with a remarkable 5-0 replay win over then holders Sligo Rovers and had culminated in a goal from Ken O’Doherty in the sixth minute of injury time in a replayed final!

The 1984/85 season started off even better - we drew Everton in the European Cup Winners’ Cup (coach Theo Dunne and nobody-knows-what-he-does-really George Casey being lifelong fans). A hammering was expected - the previous season, Drogheda United had played Spurs in the UEFA Cup and lost 14-0 on aggregate - but in front of a sell-out Tolka Park, we held the star-studded Toffees scoreless. Everton went on to win the home leg 1-0, but it could have been different as Ken O’Doherty skimmed the bar late on. To put that result in perspective, Everton’s team contained the likes of Neville Southall, Irish international Kevin Sheedy, Andy Gray, Peter Reid, Derek Mountfield, Trevor Steven, Gary Stevens, Paul Bracewell and others. They went on to win the entire competition, as well as the league title (the First Division, as it was known in those days - no Rupert Murdoch then!) and finish as runners-up in the FA Cup Final to Liverpool for good measure! Derek Mountfield and manager Howard Kendall were to look back at the UCD tie afterwards and reflect that it had been the toughest challenge along the way.

By Christmas of 1984, we were incredibly second in the league, but we ended up in fourth spot in the end. Unfortunately, financial problems hit, and we were forced to release all our semi-pro players. We did manage to get £30,000 off Manchester United as they came back to Belfield to pick up Joe Hanrahan, then one of the most skilful players in the league. But with the side decimated, we picked up a mere eight points the next season - the lowest total of any team in the Premier since the competition began - and were relegated at the end of the 1985/86 season. Our first team squad’s average age was a mere 19 years! However, good news did befall the club as Doc O’Neill was appointed as General Secretary of the FAI - he went on to hold many posts in football circles, travelling as an official to Italia ’90 and being on the organising committee of Euro 2000 in the years leading up to the competition. It would certainly be fair to say, however, that UCD were always his first priority.

In 1987, we added a rather unusual trophy to our cabinet - it’s still to be seen in the Sports Centre to this day, a big copper-rust coloured trophy with a keeper diving athletically to catch a ball. It is the World Collegiate trophy, which we won in New Mexico in April of that year, fending off opposition from American and Mexican colleges. And when you consider how seriously American colleges in particular take their sport (though maybe not soccer as much, admittedly), that is some achievement. It did persuade a beer company that this was a perfect way to break into the Irish market, and shortly afterwards, Budweiser became our main sponsors, remaining so to this day. They took over from Kaliber, ending the remarkable combination of a student team being sponsored by a non-alcoholic beer!

In 1988, we won promotion to the Premier, being relegated again the next year. The 1988 season was notable for us beating Shamrock Rovers in the FAI Cup Second Round - Rovers’ first defeat in the competition since that 1984 replay! Our Hungarian contingent arrives, with winger Zoltan Istvan lasting longest at a couple of seasons.

1990-1999

The 90s started with us back in the First Division. Over the next four years, we missed out on promotion after being in a strong position heading into the closing stages before getting distracted by winning the Collingwood Cup. In 1993, we miss out on the last day. Liam Brady brings his Celtic team to Belfield Park, coming away with a 1-0 win. In 1995, though, all comes spectacularly right as we smash the league points (57) and goalscoring record (64), go 18 games unbeaten including ten consecutive wins to walk the title by eight clear points. In his second season, Mick O’Byrne beats the UCD goalscoring record, beating Darren O’Brien’s 1993/94 mark by one goal, with 14. At the end of the season, we are in Lansdowne Road twice - once to pick up the First Division trophy (the FAI had screwed up and hadn’t the Premier Division trophy when Dundalk came from third in the league to win on the last day, so they made up by awarding them the trophy at half-time in an Ireland game, inviting us along as well), and once to play Liverpool in a centenary celebration. Terry Palmer does equalise for us, but we end up losing 3-1 in front of 23,000 fans.

He equals that total the next season, playing alongside a new starlet by the name of Jason Sherlock. Sherlock emulates Kevin Moran’s feat twenty years earlier in winning the All-Ireland for Dublin while playing soccer for UCD, attracting attention and trials from cross-channel. Trials with Bolton and Liverpool aren’t followed with offers, though, and Sherlock left UCD in 1998 to sign for Shamrock Rovers. In the 1997/98 season, we end up tenth and face Limerick in a play-off. Three players are sent off and one player suffers a broken leg as we win the ’Battle of Belfield’ (the home leg) 3-1 to seal a 5-2 victory.

On the 3rd of October 1999, the club was rocked by the death after a short illness of the Doc. UCD’s next two games are cancelled, and we return to action in front of a packed Belfield Park where, after an impeccably observed minute’s silence, we destroy the Hoops on a 3-0 scoreline. Emotionally drained, we lose the next two games, but bounce back under new manager - former player Martin Moran - to end the season fourth, qualifying for the InterToto Cup by virtue of Shels and Bohs (first and second in the league and therefore already in Europe) meeting in the Cup Final. With three games to go in the season, qualification is looking unlikely, but two consecutive weeks see us win and the rest of the league draw, leaving us needing a 5-0 win away to Drogheda on the last day and Pat’s to draw in Galway to qualify. We score twice in the last five minutes before Galway score in injury time for an incredible end to the season.

2000-present

The InterToto Cup saw us take on Velbazhd Kyustendil of Bulgaria, with some Bulgarian internationals (right-back Ilian Stoianov played in Euro 2004 and in Bulgaria’s recent friendly with Ireland) and already after started their season. UCD had been training for a week and yet, in blisteringly hot conditions, play their part in a brilliant game, twice coming from behind to earn a 3-3 draw. In Bulgaria, a 0-0 draw is highly commendable, but sees us go out on away goals. ’Students do ever so Vel’ is the pick of the appalling headlines in the papers the next day. A month later, we win the Super Cup (the warm-up tournament for the European qualifiers) on penalties from Bohs. But the season is to go downhill from there and, despite a first-ever League Cup final appearance, which we lose 5-3 on aggregate to St Pat’s, we end up needing a late burst of form to avoid automatic relegation. A play-off follows, and after another dramatic 3-3 draw (this time on aggregate after a 2-1 defeat in Athlone and a 2-1 win in Belfield), we stay up on penalties. A massive pitch invasion follows, to the surprise of neutrals at the game who didn’t know where all the UCD fans came from!

The close season before the 2000/01 season saw Paul Doolin arrive as a player, being primed to take over the manager’s role. Three games into the season, we lost 6-0 in Dalymount and Martin Moran quits. We ended the season in seventh place - only five points off Europe - with Robbie Martin named PFAI Young Player of the Year and away wins over Shels, Rovers, Longford, Cork and Pat’s under our belt in a brilliant campaign. That is as good as the Doolin reign is to get, though, as the next season sees us languishing at the bottom of the league for most of the season with arguably the best UCD team ever (Barry Ryan, Clive Delaney, Robbie Martin, Tony McDonnell, John Martin, Alan Mahon, Sean Finn, Eoin Keating and others), playing dour football and finding goals hard to come by. A run of six consecutive clean sheets from Barry Ryan lift us to sixth, but Baz leaves for Rovers, Clive goes to West Ham and other departures see us lose the first eight games of the 2002/03 season. Doolin’s team is playing even worse football than the previous season, has no confidence, attendances are falling from an encouraging start and his nous in the transfer market is highly questionable. After a 1-1 draw with Cork leaves us eight points adrift just past the half-way point of the season, Drogheda take a bizarre gamble and snap him up as manager. It takes his new team five games to record a league goal, and they win three times in their first sixteen games under him! Meanwhile, UCD act quickly in appointing Pete Mahon - father of full-back Alan - as new manager. Had the league started when he took over, we would have finished fourth. As it was, we closed the gap on Derry to a single point by the last game. UCD stroll to a 2-0 win over Longford, recently crowned Cup champions, but Derry beat Waterford - their second away win of the season - to enter the play-off and end UCD’s nine-year top flight status.

Mahon took it in his stride, though, and the 2004 season started with an easy 2-0 win away to Bray, expected to be our main promotion rivals. The scholarship scheme, neglected by Doolin, gets a new lease of life, and Eddie Wallace and Mahon uncover such gems as Conor Kenna, Willie Doyle (who breaks the goalscoring record in his first season), Darren Quigley, Neil Gallagher and others to give much hope for the future!