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• Saturday August 30th, 2025 @ 22:32

Richmond Park: 100 Years Of Top-Flight Football

By: Dermot Looney

Richmond Park's first ever League of Ireland game was 100 years ago this month, when it played host to Brideville v Shelbourne on Sunday, August 30th, 1925.

The ground had hosted football since at least the 1890s, when it was used by local clubs as well as soldiers from the adjacent Richmond Barracks. Gaelic football was also played at the venue by St Patrick's GAA club from 1890, with various junior and intermediate soccer clubs and GAA clubs using the ground into the 1920s, including Inchicore United, Queen's Park and Dublin United.

Brideville were a prominent Dublin club by the time of their admission to the single-tier, ten-team League of Ireland in 1925, following a short but successful spell in the Leinster Senior League.

Originally from the Liberties area of the city, some sources date the founding of Brideville to 1919, but they had actually been competing in the Junior Metropolitan League as far back as the 1917/18 season. Their home venue in the early years echoed the starting point for Richmond Park's more famous tenants, St Patrick's Athletic - the 15 Acres in the Phoenix Park.

Having won the Metropolitan League, Brideville advanced to the Central League for two seasons, and then took part in the Leinster Minor League for 1920/21. Still based at the Phoenix Park, they competed in the Dublin Junior Alliance League for the 1921/22 and 1922/23 seasons, although by the final season they had taken on a B and C team and were clearly progressing through the footballing ranks.

Brideville advanced to Division II of the Leinster Senior League in 1923/24 with their home ground at Monkstown Farm, near Dún Laoghaire. They moved closer to their Liberties base with a relocation to Richmond Park for the 1924/25 Leinster Senior League Division I season. By this stage they were an established force in Dublin football, having finished runners-up in the 1923/24 Leinster Senior Cup, a trophy they would go on to win in 1924/25. They also won the first-ever FAI Junior Cup in 1924, beating Cobh Ramblers in the final at Cork's Victoria Cross. Brideville initially shared Richmond Park with fellow LSL Division I side Inchicore United before becoming the main tenants.

At this point in League of Ireland history, seven of the ten sides were from Dublin, with Bray Unknowns playing adjacent to the capital, and only Athlone Town and Fordsons of Cork providing provincial opposition.

The opening top-flight game at Richer saw a five-goal thriller. "Brideville bustled through their game," reported Nat in the Evening Herald, noting that the homesters had led 2-0 at the break. The first League of Ireland goal scored at the ground was a penalty from Percy McCarthy following a Shels handball, with Joseph ‘Lye' Golden heading home from a corner for the second.
Back came Shelbourne, inspired by the veteran Val Harris. The 41 year-old had a fascinating career behind him, having won a senior All-Ireland for Dublin's Gaelic footballers in 1901, helped Shelbourne to become the first Dublin side to lift the Irish Cup in 1906, made almost 200 senior appearances for Everton, and won 20 full international caps with Ireland. "By precept and example," wrote Nat, "Harris led his side out of the morass and on to success."

Second-half goals from Mick Hanlon, Chick Houston and Mick Keegan gave Shelbourne a 3-2 win, setting them on their way to their first ever League of Ireland title. The Irish Independent match report noted the pitch was a "narrow ground," a point emphasised later in the season in the Herald with a reference to a "rather cribbed and confined pitch."

Brideville finished the season in a creditable sixth place and continued to use "the peculiar pitch" at Richmond Park as their home for the following three seasons. They finished bottom of the League in 1926/27 but did make the FAI Cup final, losing after a replay to Drumcondra. The first ever FAI Cup game to take place at Richmond Park was on January 9th 1927, a 2-1 Brideville win over Cobh Ramblers. They were re-elected to the League for 1927/28 despite the last-place finish, and improved to sixth place the following season, before dropping to eighth in 1928/29.

For the 1929/30 season, Brideville started out at Richmond Park but played their last home game in Inchicore on Sunday November 17th, a 1-2 loss to Drumcondra. Their next home game two weeks later took place at the Harold's Cross Greyhound Stadium, which had opened the year previous, and became Brideville's new home ground. They finished the season in fifth place in the League and again reached the FAI Cup Final, this time being defeated by Shamrock Rovers. Brideville continued at Harold's Cross until the end of the 1931/32 season, when they failed to be re-elected with the League of Ireland reducing in size from 12 to 10 teams.

They dropped down to the Leinster Senior League, winning Division I in 1932/33, and briefly moved back to Richmond Park before a return to Harold's Cross. The team was involved in a tragedy on New Year's Day 1934 when their bus skidded off the road en route to a LSL match against Sligo Rovers in the Showgrounds. Club secretary Timothy Finn died, with other players, officials and the driver suffering severe injuries.

Brideville were readmitted to the League of Ireland for the 1935/36 season, still playing out of Harold's Cross, moving later to a ground at Green Lanes, Terenure. They achieved their best League placing, fourth, in 1937/38, but they again failed to be re-elected at the end of the 1942/43 season. They returned for one season, 1944/45, their final one in a League of Ireland which was by now reduced to just eight teams.

Two Brideville players, Charlie Reid and Joe O'Reilly, were capped for Ireland when at the club, while some of their more famous players included Irish internationals Paddy Moore, Paddy Bermingham and Willie Fallon. The club's colours were green and black. They continued in the junior ranks for a short time after their LOI days, even making an unsuccessful application to rejoin the League of Ireland as late as 1953.

By then, another force had emerged in the south-west of Dublin city, a club who shared many parallels with Brideville. Richmond Park had seen numerous clubs playing in the 1930s after Brideville's move to Harold's Cross, such as GSR FC, Bellville, Municipal Athletic, Rossville, Inchicore Celtic, Mountpleasant, Broadstone, Valleymount and Greenmount, as well as a short-lived tenancy of the Inchicore Harriers Athletics Club. In 1939, the owners of the ground, the McDowell family of the adjacent Richmond House pub, signed a long-term lease with St Patrick's Athletic, who briefly shared the tenancy with St Paul's before making the ground their own.

Like Brideville, St Pat's had also begun life as a junior club playing in the Phoenix Park, with spells after in Bluebell and Chapelizod before the move to Richer. Pat's too won the FAI Junior Cup and Leinster Senior Cup as they climbed the ranks. And, like Brideville, the Saints were eventually to bring League of Ireland football back to Richmond Park, although it was not straightforward; by the time of their elevation to the League in 1951, the ground was deemed unsuitable for LOI football and major renovations and construction were required.

The Saints played home games at Milltown, Chapelizod Stadium and Dalymount Park during their first few years of League of Ireland football, although they continued to use ‘Richer' as a base for training and reserve and youth games. They were permitted to hold Richmond's first LOI game in almost a quarter of a century on April 13th 1953, a dead rubber end-of-season loss by 2 goals to 1 at the hands of Transport.

Richmond Park also hosted for an LOI Shield game in October 1957 but the partly-renovated ground with a new Main Stand was not used regularly until the 1959/60 season. Minor additions were made in the following years but the ground was dilapidated by the late 1980s, with a slope in the pitch, commented upon during Brideville's time at the ground and before, seeming to worsen over the years.

St Pat's exited Richmond in 1989, becoming the final major footballing tenants of Brideville's old stomping ground at Harold's Cross. Renovations took longer than anticipated and almost drove the club to bankruptcy, before their return to a redeveloped Richmond in 1993, and great days and nights ahead at the old ground.