The Commentary Box: A ray of hope flickers at Oriel Park

Last Friday the sun shone brightly on a very cold beginning on the first day of winter. But it was a sun that had rays of glowing hope as I entered Oriel Park, the home of football, to meet the new owner of Dundalk FC, Brian Ainscough.

Oriel looked so well in December in the glowing glaze so much so that one could sense that a new chapter in the history of Dundalk FC was about to begin. And it is a new chapter.

The media both local and national were there to meet the club's new owner Brian Ainscough. Brian's takeover deal had only gone through in the middle of last week. There was a great feeling of anticipation at this conference taking place.

It was the first time I was going to be talking to an owner of Dundalk FC since I spent two hours on a phone call with previous owner Bill Hullsizer. That call was to Florida.

Despite me trying to get Bill to talk about the club, he would speak about many other topics other than the one I wanted to talk about. Despite that he agreed to talk football when I called him again. I decided to give it a miss.
Friday's press conference gave me the chance to see face to face who the new owner was. He came across as a very decent, polite and honest person.

Brian Ainscough on first impressions is a man who will be very prudent with his money. But he will provide very adequate finance that will allow the club to challenge at the very top.

There will be no crazy spending as there was in the last years of Peake 5. One gets the impression that the club now has the stability it needs going forward. Of course it faces the same challenges as before. But the new owner is realistic and knows it will take a step by step approach to face these.

This was really the first time I had spoken to the owner or a Chairman of Dundalk FC since 2012. That was outgoing owner Gerry Mathews. Paul Browne and Andy Connolly, while doing so much for the club, seemed to be very media shy.

When Peake 6 took over at the end of 2017, it was very difficult to have a face to face interview with anyone in power. That continued with Andy Connolly and Stats Sports when they took over in 2022.

Andy Connolly is a very nice person. He has done so much for Dundalk. That should not be forgotten about. But when the new takeover happened in the middle of last week one could sense that there would be a big change in the way the club dealt with the media and the fans.

Brian Ainscough intends to meet with fans in early January. He realises they are the real life blood of Dundalk FC. He seems to have got it that the club has not been communicating with fans as they should be. To me he certainly seems to be very keen on correcting this deficit.

When I asked the new owner about what needs to be done to Oriel, he said most facilities at the club are on life support. Brian Ainscough says Oriel Park needs a lot of love and attention.

The new owner says the club has put in for sports grants that will look after paying for a new pitch amd for some work being done towards bringing the floodlights up to standard.

Ainscough says a main issue will be to get the pitch playable for the players. Brian says there is no magic wand, but that they will be working on as much of the immediate infrastructural changes as they can.

Brian says that the most important issue for the club was that they get back playing in Europe. He says that this is the goal of any fan of Dundalk or anybody associated with the club.

He says fans will not be happy if they do not make Europe. He says that it was great to see the fans ambition when they considered last season being a bad year, having missed out by just two points.

He says it is the ambition to get back to Europe. Such ambition was one of the reasons that drew him to Dundalk. He says the club is one of the biggest in the country.

This, he says, is why he is here. He says beyond this his aim is to try and ensure that Dundalk sustain their place as one of the top clubs in Ireland. He says with that goes infrastructure and academy and attracting the best young players to come to Dundalk.

He says he was not even aware that there were up to four locals playing in the senior squad. He says it's vital to get this to six.

I asked the new owner about Pat Hoban. He told me that right now he is a Dundalk player. He says that he does not know anything else that he is not going to be a Dundalk player. Brian says he is hoping that Pat will be at Dundalk in February. But Brian did say that the matter was between Pat and the coaches at the club.

He says he expects the next conversation will be between Pat and Stephen O'Donnell. Brian said that he did not know if there was a problem between Stephen O'Donnell and Pat Hoban. He says he has not had time yet to go into this with Stephen O'Donnell. It's clear there is no financial reason as to why Pat Hoban would be let go to ease the wage bill. The chairman was very adamant about this.

Thus the manager must sit down with Pat Hoban and try to sort out whatever problem there is. Having made it clear it was not a financial reason why Pat was told to find another club, a way must be found to ensure he is kept at Oriel. Dundalk can not afford to lose such a striker as Hoban.

Brian Ainscough has Europe as his main target next season. Whatever the problem is, the owner may have to intervene should the manager not be able to sort it out. And the quicker it's sorted out the better.

Pat Hoban is box office for the Dundalk supporters. Many will be alienated were he allowed to leave. It would be utter madness by the club to allow him walk into the arms of arch rivals Derry city. They are the favourites to get the Galway man's signature.

Dundalk as a club must ensure that their record goalscorer is not allowed walk out of the gates of Oriel into the arms of any of the club's arch rivals. The club has allowed too many of its star players leave in the past. This has to be stopped if it hopes to reach the top of Irish football again.

Dundalk Chief Operating officer Martin Connolly says that in his nine years in administrative charge at Oriel that nobody has ever told him that the fact the ground is leased, nobody has ever told him the club will ever not get a grant for any improvement works on the ground.

Martin was asked could the lease stop any grants for improvements other than the pitch. His positive answer is good news.
However I have been told emphatically by local representatives that the lease is a problem for public funding in certain circumstances. I was told the ground needs to be owned by the club if they want to benefit for the full facility of grants. Martin Connolly would know a lot more about this than me. Thus it is great to get that mater cleared up.

The owner says everything is in place for Stephen O'Donnell and Brian Gartland to re-sign any members of the current squad and also bring in any new players needed. The good news is that the funding is now in place for O'Donnell and Gartland to move on the players needed. He also emphasised it was going to be up to the two to decide who was coming in and who was going out. He is not going to micromanage this.

The new owner once again emphasised how important it was to have community engagement. He says some supporters may not have been happy with this over the past few years.

He says they will be working on this. Ainscough is also keen to bring in new investors. It would be important to show that not all money is being spent on the first team. Money must be spent on the Academy sides throughout the club. It must also be spent on other key areas.

Martin Connolly says he would be the first to admit that the club has lost out a bit on community involvement. He said that it had a lot to do with the fact that when the outgoing owners came in, Liam Burns moved from community coach to first team coach.

He said Liam had not been replaced. He says the club were the first club in the country to appoint a full time coach in 2013. He says that it is something the club needs to get back to. The owner says he knows they have to engage better and that must be through the schools and other methods.

Martin Connolly says the drop in attendances of two per cent was disappointing last season. But he says it was not going to move the bar a huge amount. He says the attendances are always linked to performances. Martin Connolly says that once they get back to doing things right on the pitch that the attendances will increase.

That is correct in some ways. But the club and owner must realise quickly that the club are losing people because of the poor facilities for such basic things like proper toilets. I have said this over and over again. And the club must improve facilities for away supporters as soon as possible. They are absolutely awful.

Martin Connolly said he agreed that fundraising for a project such as infrastructure is a good idea. He did not think it was such a good idea to fundraise to pay peoples wages. When I asked the question about fundraising I had infrastructure in mind. It never crossed my mind to engage in fundraising to pay wages. I agree with Martin on that.

But I have to point out that the club has not engaged in any fundraising activities over the past twelve years. The club has lost out on the chance to raise a lot of money by not engaging in any fundraising bar the club lotto. And the lotto needs a relaunch at this stage.

Martin Connolly says he is all for it to have fundraising for infrastructure once the club can get a strategic plan together. This is good news.

The owner says that portable standing can be put in behind the back of goals as part of cosmetic development. Martin Connolly says that long term development of the ground would take time. This was because of planning regulations and other such issues.

The owner says the portable stands behind the back of the goals could have different colours apart from the grey seats that adorn the ground. He says the new stands would not be in place for the forthcoming season, but would be for the following season.

Brian says he will be involved in the day to day running of the club initially. That would be for the next few months. He says he will have a day to day CEO running affairs in the months going forward. He says he needs someone to be here on a daily basis.

The owner will not be living in Dundalk. He will be based in America. I asked the owner why he had invested in Dundalk as there is no rate of return in the League of Ireland. He believes there will be a rate of return. If there was not you would not attract investors. He believes the rate of return will happen as the standard in the league continues to improve.

The owner says he will be in Dundalk ten days a month despite living in America full time. Martin Connolly says Brian had only been in Dundalk three days.He says Brian is very much a man who will be on top of things.

The Dundalk Chief Operating Officer (COO) then said it was very disappointing that clubs were not allowed to have their say on proposals for the League of Ireland put forward by ex League of Ireland player Kieran Foley. He headed up a US consortium that went to the FAI declaring it had the finance to establish a top tier for football on the island which would eventually involve teams from both sides of the border.

The FAI opted out of the negotiations. The story appeared in the Irish Independent. It said the group claimed it had 90 million euro up front to get the venture going with clubs splitting 10 million euro a year.

Martin Connolly confirmed he did meet Kieran Foley. He says clubs should have been involved formally involved in any consultation which they were not. The Dundalk COO says he found it incredible that the association could not bring the clubs together to discuss Kieran Foley's proposals.

Meanwhile it also emerged that Dundalk were not one of the league clubs that activated the Immigration Investment Programme. Louth GAA were able to source 14.4 million euro through the scheme towards the development of their new stadium.

Applications for the scheme closed 13 months ago. This is the scheme that has really allowed Louth GAA go ahead with their plans for new county grounds. I do not know if Dundalk would have qualified for the scheme. But it's hard to see why not.

Dundalk are close to announcing a new major sponsor in place of Bet Regal. Next seasons squad jerseys will be well ready before Christmas and will be available in the club shop as usual. The new owner says he will probably be the new club chairman. There will be a small board of directors with perhaps an advisory board appointed as well.

It was a very good start for the new owner. His sincerity and willingness to engage and listen is vital at this stage in the history of Dundalk FC. I believe Brian will be a huge asset to the club.

Meanwhile Stephen O'Donnell must now sit down and talk to the club's leading scorer and try to sort out whatever difficulties there are with Pat Hoban and ensure he stays at Oriel next season.

The spotlight on this issue is now firmly focussd. I am sure Ruaidhri Higgins is monitoring this situation and will be ready to pounce if Hoban does move on. if he does, it would be a grave mistake on Dundalk's part.

Have a great week. Please remember to look after each other. And be carful out there.