RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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"People would be laughing now but it's something that would have worked, no doubt about it."
This weekend, and across each one to follow through the Premier League season, thousands will make the journey from all over the island of Ireland to take in a game from England's top flight.
Indeed, despite increased interest in the league from all four corners of the globe, those making the short trip from across the Irish Sea still account for the greatest number of travelling supporters each season.
Such is the fixation with all things Premier League that the 75,000 fans who packed a sold-out Croke Park for last week's friendly between Manchester United and Leeds represented a record crowd for any football match in the Republic of Ireland.
Earlier in the month, Arsenal also drew a huge crowd to the Aviva Stadium for their own friendly with Real Betis.
But what if such occasions were a fortnightly norm rather than summer one-offs? Well, three decades ago an outlandish plan asked that very question.
It started with an innocuous report in a Sunday broadsheet. The newspaper told of Wimbledon chairman Sam Hammam's fractious relationship with Merton Council and the ongoing struggle to come to an arrangement over a permanent home for the club.
Hammam had bought the club in 1981 but, with plans for an all-seater stadium in Merton having come to nothing, they had been ground-sharing with Crystal Palace since 1991, a situation that suited neither landlord nor tenant.
"We'd always get dog's abuse off Palace fans calling us squatters," recalled Kenny Cunningham, the Dublin-born full-back who joined the club from Millwall in 1994.
"There wasn't a huge amount of respect there, I don't think. A bit tongue in cheek maybe, but I think they meant it."
While there were still grumbles over their direct style, the side were undoubtedly effective, finishing sixth in the 1993-94 campaign.
"We were a small team in what was becoming the greatest league in the world. It was a great feeling to be stood in the tunnel, ready to go up against world class players and knowing we had a chance," added Cunningham.
"But there was always the issue with the ground, always the talk about what would happen in the medium to long term. Would they go back to Plough Lane? Would they groundshare?"
Upon reading of Hammam's impasse with the council in the paper, Tommy Higgins landed on a more radical solution.
Through his role with Ticketmaster Ireland Higgins knew that property developer Owen O'Callaghan had planning permission to build a 40,000-seater stadium on the outskirts of Dublin. All the project needed was an anchor tenant. A stadium in need of a club, a club in need of a stadium.
While a first meeting, attended only by Hammam's brother, went nowhere, a chance encounter on the streets of Dublin brought together a heavyweight Irish consortium.
When Higgins and businessman Maurice Cassidy ran into former Republic of Ireland player turned television pundit and journalist Eamon Dunphy along with Paul McGuinness, manager of Irish rock band U2, a decision was made to resurrect the plan.
All knew it was a long shot, but could they pull it off?
The mid-1990s found English football caught between two generations. Edging slowly from the long shadow of the Bradford City stadium fire, Heysel and the Hillsborough disaster, Roman Abramovich's acquisition of Chelsea heralding an era of foreign ownership was still years away.
While the league was once largely a British and Irish concern, players such as Jurgen Klinsmann, Dennis Bergkamp and Juninho had sealed incoming transfers to England that would have been unthinkable just a few short years before.
Come 17 August 1996, the opening day of the new season, Gianfranco Zola and Fabrizio Ravanelli were the latest imported stars ready to make unlikely debuts, but it was a considerably more local talent who stole the headlines.
Few goals in Premier League history have been more replayed than David Beckham's audacious lob from the halfway line against Wimbledon at Selhurst Park.
"If you roll it back very slowly to the point of contact where Beckham goes to shoot, you can me see in the far left of the picture," said Cunningham.
"You can blame me for a lot of the goals we conceded when I was at the club, but I don't think I've to hold my hands up on that one.
"But that goal, the way he stepped up on to the scene, there was a lot of commotion about it. That was the Premier League on its way in a lot of ways. It was exciting times."
Among the crowd at Selhurst Park were the Irish consortium, preparing a bid of £6m for 74% of the notional home side.
Following such a public appearance from the key figures involved, it was no surprise when news of the plans soon broke in the media.
"When the story broke at the time people thought it was crazy stuff, a team in Dublin. They couldn't entertain it," said Cunningham.
"Sam Hammam was before his time in terms of thinking about how he could get his club on the back pages. The football took care of Saturday, but from Sunday to Friday, he'd be very astute in that way.
"I remember thinking then was it just another Sam way to generate that bit more publicity around the club and saying to the gaffer 'is there any value in this?' Joe was saying that they were serious."
Cunningham was keenly aware of the interest back home, even if some team-mates were less sure.
"I don't mean it as a criticism, but the English boys were a bit insular maybe," he added. "The lads were talking as if Dublin was the other side of the world, then asking if it was a good night out?
"A good night out in Dublin...are you serious? I was telling them they were going to love it."
Hammam believed that his fellow owners and the league's broadcasters would be no harder to convince than sceptical players. Fans on the other hand...
"I hated it. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous," said Ivor Heller, who had been a Wimbledon supporter since their non-league days in t...
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