Naomh Padraig CSC
Founded in August 1987 where the world was a very different place, with no Sky TV, internet, or decent Celtic newspaper coverage. There was only the Dublin CSC, which had been established in the wake of Lisbon.
Most of the small band of Celtic supporters who lived in Dublin around that time would undoubtedly have been members at one time or another, and it was at their meetings at the now-defunct Celtic View Bar on Dorset Street that the founding members of Naomh Padraig CSC first met.
Dublin CSC at the time was populated by Scots-born Celts who had settled in Dublin. For these Celts, the meetings were no more than a time for nostalgia and an opportunity to reminisce about the good old days. Club trips were organised only once or twice a season. For the younger, energetic Dubs keen to travel to Celtic Park, this was nowhere near enough. With the committee unwilling to arrange more frequent trips, the younger members grew increasingly frustrated.
The spark that ignited the momentum to leave and strike out alone was the 1986 European Cup qualifier that saw Celtic travel to Dublin to play Shamrock Rovers. In the midst of a large travelling support from Scotland and Ireland, the young Dublin Celts got their first true Celtic experience, and things would never be the same again.
In the aftermath of the game, the four founding members of the new CSC in Dublin, Mark Burke, Paul Parsons, Tony Brady, and Victor Mahon, met to draw up plans to form a new club dedicated solely to travelling across to games as often as possible.
Without any money to advertise, the foursome decided to get leaflets printed and hand them out when Shamrock Rovers played Manchester United at Milltown in a friendly game just before Christmas 1986. The flyers simply said, ‘New Celtic Supporters Club. First meeting: January 14th, in the Beal Bocht Pub, Portobello.’
One of the founding members, Victor, was the head barman at the pub. With nervous anticipation, the four lads met early in the pub on that January evening to await the result of the leaflet campaign. The small upstairs lounge in the pub had been secured for the meeting, and the entrance to the lounge had to be accessed by an electronic buzzer. At a little after 7.30 p.m., it rang for the first time, and the first person to turn up was Gary Holmes, a veteran Dublin Celt still travelling regularly to see the Hoops to this day, accompanied by his friend Ernie Chalkley.
Half an hour later, the room was packed. That evening, the committee was inundated with membership fees and trip deposits, and they were so unprepared that night, that when the meeting was over and the crowd had gone home, their hastily appointed treasurer, Paul Parsons, stared at the wad of cash in his hand and uttered, ‘I don’t know who gave me all this!’
New members continued to flood in at the monthly meetings as they began to organise their plans to establish a regular bus trip to Celtic Park. They had started up too late in the season to get their first trip organised before the end of that season but having managed to get recognition from the ticket office at Celtic Park, they could look forward to the new season and their first trip.
That next season, 1987/88, was a very special year for the fledgling club as it was Celtic’s centenary celebration and their first year in existence could not have been more magical. The first Naomh Padraig CSC bus trip, now fondly referred to by them all as ‘The Chariot,’ was planned for the first Glasgow derby on 29 August, 1987.
A fifty-five-seater bus was hired from Bart Watt Coaches and set off on the Friday morning before the game for Belfast and the sailing to Stranraer. A two-night stay had been agreed upon as the best option, and a couple of cheap hotels were booked in the city centre. As a portent of things to come over the next quarter century, the fifty-five tickets ordered in the weeks prior turned into less than twenty when they went to the ticket office to collect them.
After a fiery and tumultuous ticket ballot in the now-razed Blarney Stone Pub in The Gorbals, which had become their base for the weekend, the bus set off for Celtic Park. Thankfully, everyone who had arrived ticketless managed to pick one up outside the stadium. They would become quite adept over the years at scraping up tickets where there appeared to be none.
They struggled to build on the excitement of their first year as Celtic entered what would later be considered to be the darkest decade of the club’s history. Their optimism, however, carried the CSC through these years. In December 1989, they experimented with a new idea to increase trip frequency with a coach trip that would be done in a day, leaving Dublin at 4 a.m. and returning in the early hours of the following day. There were only 18 people on that first-day return trip, but the idea struck a chord with the hardcore of members who remained with the club.
That season, 1989/90, they ran ten trips to Celtic Park. Despite the early starts, the numbers grew quickly, and the following season they filled a fifty-seat coach on at least ten occasions, with another ten trips done with smaller numbers. It is now the new generation that the torch is being passed on to. The younger members are chomping at the bit and filling the chariot every game.
Their club thankfully continues to be a focal point for those of a Celtic persuasion in Dublin.
An extract from Football Without Fans – The History of Celtic Supporters Clubs by David McIntyre ( Celtic Bars). Football Without Fans – The History of Celtic Supporters Clubs is out now and available in print and kindle versions HERE. Watch the video in the Celtic World tweet below for some amazing facts on the Celtic support around the world.
Yesterday The Celtic Star was at Celtic Park alongside David McIntyre as Celtic began a new approach, looking to engage with the club’s supporters and the various activities, events and undertakings that go on in and around the Celtic support on an ongoing basis.
Recognising the work done over two decades by Davy from Celtic Bars in assisting Celtic supporters reach out to fellow fans and get together all over the world to watch the team play, is a great place to start.
That’s why The Celtic Star was happy to advise and assist Davy to get Football Without Fans brought together and published, using our own book publishing experience to benefit the project which we’re delighted to report has been an overwhelming success so far.
Here’s the video on Celtic TV’s You Tube channel which has had 1500 views and rising. You can order a copy in print or kindle from Amazon regardless of where you are in the world. Order your copy HERE.
