page_title: History of Shamrock Rovers F.C.
section_title: The homeless years
hierarchical_section_title: History of Shamrock Rovers F.C. / The homeless years
context_page_description: Shamrock Rovers Football Club is a football club from Dublin, Republic of Ireland. Founded in Ringsend, a southside, inner suburb of Dublin, the club's date of foundation is uncertain and disputed. Between 1926 and 1987 the club played at Glenmalure Park, Milltown. Shamrock Rovers F.C. is Ireland's most successful football club having won the League of Ireland a record 17 times, including four times in a row in the 1980s, along with the FAI Cup a record 24 times, including six times in a row in the 1960s. It was also the first Irish club to participate in a European competition, playing in the European Cup in 1957. Shamrock Rovers was also one of the European club teams that spent the 1967 season in the United States to found the United Soccer Association, representing Boston as the Boston Rovers.
  Shamrock Rovers F.C. has supplied more players to the Republic of Ireland national football team than any other club. Famous players that have played for the club include: Paddy Moore, Jimmy Dunne, Paddy Coad, Jackie Jameson, Frank O'Neill, John Giles, Mick Leech, Pat Dunne, Noel Synnott, Jim Beglin, Paddy Mulligan, Johnny Fullam, Mick Smyth, Liam O'Brien, and Eamon Dunphy.
context_section_description: Shortly after winning the 14th League title, Louis Kilcoyne announced that the Kilcoynes were selling Glenmalure Park, which they had recently purchased from the Jesuits. The team played the entire 1987–88 season in an almost empty Tolka Park as a result of a boycott called for by the Shamrock Rovers Supporters Club and KRAM (Keep Rovers at Milltown), which was observed by the vast majority of Hoops fans. Following the completion of the boycott season in Tolka, the Kilcoynes sold the football club to Dublin businessman, John McNamara, who put forward a controversial proposal to move in with Bohemians at Dalymount Park. KRAM congregated to vote on whether to lift the boycott and on the proposal to move to Dalymount. Both motions were passed and the club spent the next two seasons at the Phibsboro venue, with an unrecognisable side playing in front of small attendances.
  As the 1989–90 season concluded, the club announced that they were moving to the RDS Arena in Ballsbridge, located halfway between Ringsend and Milltown on the Southside of Dublin. On 30 September 1990, the RDS played host to Shamrock Rovers against St. Patrick's Athletic, in front of 22,000 people. The fixture started a six-year period at the venue that included a League title winning season in 1993–94. Ray Treacy managed the League winning side that included Paul Osam, Gino Brazil, John Toal, Alan Byrne and Stephen Geoghegan, who ended the season as top goalscorer. The next season, a number of key players were released as Treacy and McNamara enforced a tight budget and opted to rebuild the side with young players. The team began the season with a heavy defeat to Górnik Zabrze in the 1994–95 UEFA Cup and struggled their way to a midtable standing. They started the 1995–96 season badly and by late that season, after almost two years of growing supporter discontent at the running of the club, Treacy resigned, with McNamara following him shortly afterward. One of McNamara's final acts was to appoint Alan O'Neill and Terry Eviston, who had both returned to the club in 1993, as joint managers of the side. They succeeded in removing the threat of relegation and almost guided the team to European qualification.
caption: Tolka Park
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