Looking Back: The Irish Soccer Magazine

All I could think of in the halcyon days of Summer 1988 was the upcoming European Championships to be held in West Germany. For the first time the Republic of Ireland would take its place at the top table of footballing nations at a major tournament.

One day during early in that glorious summer I chanced upon one of those Panini sticker albums on the shelf on a newsagent on Bray's Main Street. Unusually, it came bundled with another publication, showing the Irish team proudly on the cover. It was the first time I'd seen the Irish team on the cover of any magazine as it was usually an English team that made it onto the front of Shoot! and the like. But this wasn't a UK publication, rather it was a homegrown title, The Soccer Magazine.

It didn't take me long to whip it off the shelf and take possession after parting with my hard-won pocket money. Very quickly I found that the magazine held more interest than the sticker album. I devoured every article on the Boys in Green and Jack Charlton, as well as the in-depth profiles of all our potential opponents. But what really set it apart for me was its coverage of the domestic game. This was revolutionary in Ireland in the 1980s. And for a young lad in his formative years who didn't even know up to that point that there was a league in the country, it was an eye opener.

The next edition of the magazine to hit the shelves was a retrospective of the tournament, one which saw the country run the gamut of emotions – an era-defining win over England in our first match, when we feared a clobbering; a draw against the mighty Soviet Union in a game we felt we might also have won with a bit more luck, and a heart-breaking defeat to a late freakish goal against the Netherlands when a draw would have seen us into the semi-finals.

I continued buying the magazine for its coverage of the World Cup '90 qualifiers, but more and more I started to become more intrigued in the rest of the magazine's 30 pages of content. Clubs that I had absolutely no awareness of previously – like Bohemians, Shamrock Rovers, Cork City, Drogheda United – soon became as familiar to me as the big cross channel teams.

It finally dawned on me what was going on down at the Carlisle Grounds on the Quinsboro Road. Our town's very own Bray Wanderers rubbed shoulders with the elite of Irish soccer. Despite the distinct lack of glamour of the league, I found myself becoming invested in it.  Partly, it was an affinity for the underdog. But more than that, this was something that I could relate to. This was an authentic reflection of the Irish game, with all its eccentricities and imperfections on show.

I'm a hoarder and I kept a stash of the magazines and looking back today, the articles could have been written yesterday. Half the clubs were in financial distress, while a couple were dreaming of a brighter future, planning to upgrade facilities and hoping to make progress in Europe. By the early 1990s the national team already seemed to be living off former glories with some of the best players reaching the end of their careers. But a new crop of young exciting players was on the verge of exploding onto the scene. Plus ça change

The style of writing throughout was more serious than in the UK publications I was familiar with. This was mostly because it was aimed at a more mature audience. But also, perhaps because the writers and publishers weren't as commercially minded as their British counterparts. The back pages were given over to results and statistics for the previous month.

The writers, such as Robert Goggins, Alan Dalton, Richie Kelly and others were knowledgeable and passionate on all matters concerning the sport in the country and they were never afraid to confront the issues and ask difficult questions of those in charge of running the game.

You didn't publish a magazine on Irish soccer if you wanted to make lots of money, that's for sure. There must have been a certain amount of financial risk involved, not to mention the effort in persuading newsagents to stock it. Launching the title at a time when the economy was on a shaky footing was a brave undertaking. I think it was a labour of love.



The magazine published its first issue in 1984 and I think the last edition may have been in the Autumn of 1998. This was a golden period of the game in Ireland as far as the national team was concerned. No doubt that attracted a lot of readers. Those were dark times and interest in the local game was far less than it is today. You opened yourself up to outright mockery if you professed an affinity for the league, at my school anyway. When the fortunes of the Boys in Green waned, so did the magazine.

The Soccer Magazine was an important part of my youth and awakened me to the importance of the domestic game in Ireland. With information on the league scarce in those pre-internet days it was a lifeline for those of us with more than a passing interest in what was going on. It promoted the league at a time when no-one else did. And for that I'm thankful to everyone who was ever involved in getting it into the newsagents.