And Of Course, Celtic…
Alex Ferguson, Sean Fallon, and connecting the dots
A couple of weeks ago I received the kind invitation to contribute to a special programme for the Sligo Rovers v. Celtic FC friendly in the Showgrounds, a fixture organised to raise funds for the Sligo Rovers Development Fund. It got me thinking about the different threads that have linked the clubs over the years, and the ties between the people that keep both machines running. This is the result.
Sligo people love finding connections. It’s a vital part of our identity. I remember looking up in the basement of a tiny dive bar in Berlin and seeing a Bit O’ Red sticker slapped onto the roof, glittering in the lights alongside scraps of graffiti and the logos of third-tier German clubs. Someone left it there, for me to find.
I think about our place when I see the big Sligo flag at the Emirates, draped just below the hospitality boxes in the second tier. It often peeks up behind Paul Merson’s ear when they cut to the Sky Sports studio at half time.
When I’m watching a Manchester United game and they pan to Sir Alex Ferguson in the crowd, my mind always jumps to the Rovers. I remember my dad Tommie telling me how the Scot signed Rio Ferdinand on a visit to Sligo, stepping off the golf course at Rosses Point to seal the deal from the clubhouse phone. Seeing and remembering these things brings back what is important - when all is said and done, it starts with the Rovers.
Today’s match ties together threads that run back almost a century and a half. There are few League of Ireland fans, or indeed Irish football fans, who do not have a soft spot for Celtic. This is embodied in a famous viral clip of the St. Patrick’s Athletic fan who told us that while it should be “League of Ireland all the way” there was always space for “of course, Celtic.”
In a modern game awash with money, Celtic’s finest moment remains something that cannot be bought. The Lisbon Lions of 1967 were all born within 30 miles of Glasgow. That’s what I call a community club.
And while Shamrock Rovers have the most obvious ties to Celtic these days through their mutual backer, Dermot Desmond, Sligo’s connections are the most deeply rooted. Brother Walfrid, formerly Andrew Kerins of Ballymote, left these shores and founded the club in 1888. Sean Fallon, born in Sligo town, captained the club in the fifties and was part of the management team that conquered Inter Milan in the Estadio de Luz.
As the foremost scout in Scottish football, signing players like Kenny Daglish and Packie Bonner, Fallon combined an exceptional eye for talent with that inherent Sligo trait of finding and building personal connections.
In the mid-Sixties, he spotted another talent in the Beechwood restaurant in Glasgow where he and Jock Stein brought their wives Myra and Jean every Saturday. Alex Ferguson was in the autumn of his playing career and would sidle in at dinner time, hoping to learn some tidbits about management from one of the most formidable pairings in the game. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.
Ferguson visited Sligo three times, playing in the Sean Fallon Iron Man classic to honour his great friend’s 70th birthday in 2002, while also visiting Sligo General Hospital, Cregg House, and local youth soccer teams to sign autographs and share his wisdom. His brother Martin also had ties to Irish soccer, as a player-manager of Waterford in the late sixties. Once, en route from an away game, the headlights on the team bus failed, and they had to follow closely behind the lights of a lead car all the way home. Resources for regional clubs have clearly always been a struggle.
At a reception during that 2002 trip, Ferguson told the crowd that "There's nothing better than coming back to your own home town and Sean Fallon never forgot that." How Fallon would love to see Celtic coming back to his home town today, a reminder that in football, some connections just stand the test of time.
My father’s first contact with Sean Fallon was indirect. He was among a lucky group of Summerhill students that received an invite from Fallon to play at a tournament in Glasgow in 1974. He went in a non-playing capacity as the team’s assistant manager and bagman, but watched as his schoolmates faced Celtic and Norwich teams staffed by future full internationals.
Years later in the early 1990s, as the European correspondent based in Brussels that blagged his way into Champions League press boxes, my father found out about the Fallon-Ferguson link and mined it for all it was worth.
In a brief aside with Ferguson at a press conference in the 90s, he mentioned the mutual Sligo roots with himself and Sean Fallon. This gave him a bargaining chip - for years afterwards, Ferguson often stopped to deliver a few words into Tommie’s RTÉ mic after European games, even when the result had not gone his way.
Most football fans know that Alex Ferguson’s stint at United didn’t get off to the most auspicious start. Many say he was heading for the door before a Mark Robbins header in the 1990 FA Cup Semi-Final gave him his first chance at silverware in England, an opportunity he took and never looked back from.
What most do not know is that Ferguson’s mother Elizabeth passed away just three weeks after he was appointed to the biggest job in English football. In his grief, Ferguson was stunned, and touched, to see Sean Fallon turn up at the funeral. The Sligoman understood inherently that in these moments, you show up. Nearly thirty years later, Ferguson delivered the eulogy at Fallon’s funeral. Watching from the congregation, Tony Quinn represented Sligo Rovers in a club jacket. The journey ended in Glasgow, but it started in Sligo.
Fallon played eight games for the Republic of Ireland in the fifties but only received three caps. In the months before he passed, the necessary connections were made within the FAI and they presented the five missing caps to Sean’s only son, Sean Jr., at a ceremony in the Showgrounds. For the man that never forgot Sligo, this was a moment to show that Sligo never forgot him either.
Three days before Fallon died, my father spoke to him at his home surrounded by four of nineteen grandchildren, scrambling and jumping around a sofa, each wearing one of the missing caps. Asked about his career, his impact on Alex Ferguson, and what he had learned over the course of his ninety years, his words of wisdom that day were: “When you’re in a position to help people, you do that, all you possibly can.”
In a week where Rovers have announced a record-breaking Annual Draw, a successful Sports Facility Fund application, and today face one of the most famous names in the game, those words are worth remembering. So many have helped to sustain our club through hard work and the sheer desire to help, all that they possibly can.
Community clubs rely on the help, goodwill, and connections forged between individuals. Andrew Kerins knew that when he founded a community football club to help the Catholic poor living in the East End of Glasgow. We know it as supporters of the beating heart of soccer in Connacht. The ability to connect with others is the lifeblood of Rovers. And of course, Celtic.
If you’re interested in learning more about Fallon’s ties with Sligo, I couldn’t say enough to recommend this piece by Jim Gray. It also featured in the Celtic matchday programme and I loved it.
That’s all for this edition folks - let me know if you enjoyed the read (you can tap the ‘like’ button, reply to this mail or comment below) and if you know someone who would enjoy - just forward this mail.
Wonderful piece, Joe