Hoops, They've Done It Again!
Not content with winning the Airtricity League for the second year in a row, Shamrock Rovers made history in 2011 by becoming the first Irish team to qualify for the group stages of a European competition. Star man Rohan Ricketts talks to Stuart Clark about their moments of magic.
Stuart Clark, 05 Jan 2012
Trap’s men winning 4-0 in Tallinn may have sparked wild scenes of national celebration, but in terms of pure sporting romance nothing in 2011 compared to Shamrock Rovers turning over Partizan Belgrade and thus becoming the first Irish team to make it through to the group stages of a major European competition. Sorry, Ed Power, but Cork City’s 1997 Intertoto Cup heroics don’t count!
The David vs. Goliath nature of the win is underlined by the fact that Partisan are expected to sell their teenage striking sensation Lazar Markovic during the January transfer million for a cool €10 million – a sum which would probably pay every Airtricity League wage-bill for the next five years.
Needing to beef up their squad ahead of those home and aways against PAOK Salonika, Rubin Kazan and – most mouthwateringly – Spurs, Rovers brought in Rohan Ricketts, a 28-year-old Londoner who started out as an Arsenal youth player, controversially made the move across North London to White Harte Lane where he notched up 30 Premiership appearances and after spells at Coventry, Wolves, QPR and Barnsley has subsequently plied his midfield trade in Canada, Hungary, Moldova and Germany.
“To go to Belgrade and beat a big club like Partisan 3-1 is Roy Of The Rovers stuff,” Ricketts reflects over a cup of tea in the Tallaght Stadium Café. “I’d trained pre-season with Stevenage, Chesterfield and Southend – I scored a hat-trick for them in a friendly – but either it wasn’t the right club for me or we couldn’t agree terms. Then on transfer deadline day Shamrock Rovers came in with the offer of Europa League football and the extra sweetner of having Spurs in their group. I knew the club’s name but not its history. The fact that Rovers nearly went out of business, but was saved by the fans, who still run it, is amazing. The welcome I got from everybody when I arrived in Tallaght is something I’ll never forget.”
Playing regular first team football – and being paid for it – again was a blessed relief for Rohan after his largely disastrous European odyssey.
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