2 weeks Ago By Owen Cowzer
THE gate receipts from a bumper crowd of 10,000 were £4,000 and the official match programme cost 10p.Players cadged lifts to the game or struggled to find parking around Phibsborough.1975 FAI Cup-winning captain Jack Dempsey at a Home Farm media conference to recognise 50 years since their momentous achievementSportsfileThe team of amateurs pulled off a huge upset by beating Shelbourne in the deciderSportsfile1975 FAI Senior Cup winners, back row, from left, Tony Higgins, Mick Brophy, Noel King and Mick O’Grady, with, front row, Brian Daly, Jack Dempsey and Joe Smith during Monday’s media conferenceSportsfileAnd the winning captain brought the trophy to work with him the following morning — at 4.
30am.Home Farm’s 1975 FAI Cup success feels a world away now and almost unimaginable in the modern age.But even 50 years ago, the Whitehall club’s success was a shock.
Captain Jack Dempsey said: “The bookies had us at 66-1 before the season began. We were total outsiders from day one.“We were all amateurs, we were definitely the youngest team in it with a 16-year-old and two 17-year-olds.
“And we were all from the northside. Everyone lived within a four- or five-mile radius of Whitehall. It was a bit of a fairytale.
”Their amateur status that was the primary reason for the shock as Farm beat Shelbourne 1-0 in the final.As it happens, Home Farm finished ahead of Shels in the league that season.But still, an amateur team had not won the FAI Cup since Bohemians 40 years previously.
Yet it was a team of largely homegrown players who were accustomed to success. Striker Tony Higgins, one of the 17-year-olds in action that day, knew nothing but winning.He told SunSport: “Gaelic was my first game but a pal said to go for a trial at Home Farm at Under-12s and I was signed.
“I was in Noel King’s age group and we won everything. We’re in the Guinness Book of Records for 79 wins in a row.”But while Home Farm were the standard-bearers at schoolboy level, preparations in 1975 for the biggest game of the year were different to what they are now.
Higgins continued: “Coming down to Whitehall first, and then across to the Regency Hotel for pre-match.“Brian Daly had to get three buses, I only had to get the 16 from Beaumont.“Then we had to get lifts in cars and find parking around Dalymount! There were no team buses back then!“You’d only get there an hour before kick-off.
Then afterwards, find your own way home and then on to the Clare Manor Hotel and a night out.”‘CROWD WAS BIG’Captain Dempsey did drive himself to the ground and remembers parking was tricky because of the bigger crowd than normal as 10,000 turned out.But as the last amateur captain of Bohemians, he knew the area well.
Also, as the eldest member of the side at 30, and playing in his first Cup final, there were jitters.Dempsey said: “It was nervous, The crowd was big, it was a lot of our first finals, and I think everyone expected Shelbourne to win. “That we were younger was an advantage.
”Higgins added: “I was only 17, I didn’t know anyone I was facing, and I didn’t care. Neither did Martin Murray who was 16.“Guys like Dermot Keely were in their early 20s.
There was a fearlessness.“All the lads had a job to do. ‘Brian, take the winger, Jack, take the centre-forward, Joe Keely, take Mick Lawlor’.
“But myself and Frank Devlin, we were never told what to do because all we did was run wild up front. We’d no plans. Just get at them.
“We just went out and played with total abandon. The mature guys, they had their jobs to do and we had freedom.”DEVLIN BREAKS DEADLOCKThe goal from Devlin came early as he netted after just seven minutes.
Higgins continued: “It was the fourth corner-kick, Billy Byrne in goal, a good goalkeeper. I’d go far post and Frank would always go near. “So the ball came across, Joe Keely hit a beaut and I saw it in slow motion.
“The goalkeeper coming out and I was, ‘You’re not getting it’.“Frank in his usual spot with a downward header and it was game over.“I should have had a hat-trick myself that day because they went for us and the last 25 minutes we just destroyed them on the break.
“We hit the bar twice through Joe Smith and David Hughes and I had three one-on-ones — I said Willie was a good goalkeeper!“But after the game, I remember Jack getting the Cup but I don’t know where I was in that. I know I was there but I have no memory of that moment.”WORK IN THE MORNINGDempsey, though, remembers it vividly, as well as the function afterwards.
But it was an early night for him with work on Monday morning, when he brought along a nice shiny pot to his market stall.He said: “I was in the fruit business, working in Smithfield Market. I was in work at 4.
30 every morning, six days a week.“That day, I brought the Cup with me. Shelbourne captain Paddy Dunning was a good friend of mine, and I knew his father as he worked in the market too.
“And that night, I brought it to the Ardlea Inn in Artane.”FUNNY ACCOUNTHiggins’ turn with the Cup — every player got the trophy for a day — is one he believes would not be allowed now.He said: “I worked for PMPA Insurance, who are now AXA, on Wolfe Tone Street.
“They asked me to bring the Cup in. So I had to bring the Cup in, on the bus, in a black plastic sack! Can you imagine doing that now?“So I brought it in and was brought to the directors’ room and getting photographs taken.“I will never forget, a girl walked in, Carol from accounts, and Ernie Hughes, the main man, said, ‘Tony won this at the weekend, the FAI Cup, what do you think of that?’“And she was, ‘That’s very nice, did you all get one of those?’“Ernie kicked her out of the boardroom for that!“The actual medal we got wasn’t presented well.
It was just tucked into one of those blue pockets of plastic, you didn’t get a fancy case.”.
