Ireland and Leeds legend John Giles managed Shamrock Rovers from 1977 to 1983 and shares his memories of the difficulties and strains of that time.
It was way before our time. What I was trying to do was keep young players here and people said to me before, that I wanted to get into Europe and fight. I never, ever said that. That was just stupid.
I thought if we keep enough young Irish players here, give them good facilities and full-time training, then we would progress rather than the lads going to England.
We tried to look after the players and got an education for them. They were under contract so that if they went away they got 20 per cent of the fee which had never happened before.
But we had nobody coming along with us. There was an awful lot of resentment. We had a youth team - it was the first time we were getting a youth team and we wanted to go into the Premier and they said "no, you'd be too strong for that". So they put us in the Third Division.
There was nobody coming along with us. The state of the grounds - I know people got a pain in the backside listening to me - we got Milltown in very good conditions. But we went to Limerick one day and looking at the pitch, and I said "what's happened here?"
The road sign from Rovers old stadium in Milltown now on the wall of the new stadium in Tallaght ©INPHO/Donall Farmer
One half of the pitch was rolled and the other half was not rolled. They said the roller had broke down. I said "you've had two weeks to do it". Then I became a pain in the backside because I was always complaining about the grounds.
They used to say "ah, it's as good for one as it is for the other" and all that. So nobody actually came along with us. It was resentment all the way.
I was here for about four or five years, but I knew after two or three years that it wasn't going to succeed. The Rovers fans did want us to succeed, but the rest of the other fans didn't because we were a rival to them. But we had nobody coming with us.
It was a big task. People said to me "you failed doing that at Rovers" but nobody had tried that before. It was like trying to climb Mount Everest when you could climb a small hill. So what we were trying to do was very, very big and very unusual.
I left a successful job in England with West Brom to do it. We were seventh in the First Division when I left because I didn't like the conditions there. But what we tried to do at Rovers was huge and I don't think there was any chance of succeeding looking back on it now.
If you get resentment and objections all the way, then that's what happens.
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