Cork City

History - Continuity Cork Alberts

The history of senior football in Cork is long and funny. The league first team to represent the town were called Fordsons, who joined the league in 1924. They had already appeared in an FAI Cup Final, however, losing 1-0 to Athlone Town. This was dismissed down in Cork as a result of the blatant Westmeath bias inherent in the FAI. To prove how brilliant they were, they entered the league as their first step to taking over the world. Them were the olden days, when everything was right with the world and Athlone Town and Midland Athletic were the only non-Dublin teams in the league. Setting a trend, Fordsons never mounted a serious challenge to the bigger Dublin teams, and never finished higher than third in the league.

In 1926, a dangerous precedent was nipped in the bud in what is also the last recorded incident of the FAI doing anything useful for the league. After complaining indignantly that Bohs’ jerseys had been just the right shade of black and red to distract them from winning their tie, Fordsons were awarded the two points, which were docked from Bohs’ total. Fordsons subsequently lost the FAI Cup Final 7-3 to Shamrock Rovers, but hounded the referee so successfully that he disallowed five of Rovers’ goals to give Fordsons the Cup on a 3-2 scoreline. The FAI didn’t have another meeting organised for another four years, but when they did meet, they severely reprimanded Fordsons over their behaviour. Fordsons whined bitterly and, complaining that no referee would treat them fairly after their undeserved reputation which had been placed upon them by the biased FAI, they changed their name to Cork. Continuing the earlier precedent, Cork never mounted a serious challenge to the bigger Dublin teams, and never finished higher than second in the league.

After that second-placed finish in the league – in 1932 – things started going to the Corkonians’ heads and, convinced that this proved beyond doubt that their town was destined for great things, a second Cork team joined the league – Cork Bohemians. Two years later, they finished last and left the league, muttering darkly about the fact that teams didn’t alter their gameplan to allow them to win.

Cork Bohemians were replaced the following season at the bottom of the league by Cork and, after two second-last finishes in the following two seasons, they decided teams didn’t fully understand quite how big they were and weren’t according them the respect they deserved. So in 1938, they changed their name to Cork City. They finished second last again and, with the laughter of the rest of the league ringing in their ears, changed the “City” for “United” and spoke no more of it for many a year.

Success finally came during the war years, when the Pale teams (i.e. the rest of the league) sent their players to fight bravely against the evils of Hitler. Cork took the chance to declare its independence and guarded its border with an army of farmers, confident that the smell would deter Jerry. They won their first league title in 1940/41 after Waterford United failed to agree terms for a play-off – those terms being to pay an annual fee to Cork for the honour of having such great neighbours. Subsequent titles followed in 1941/42, 1942/43, 1944/45 and 1945/46. They also won the Dublin City Cup, in a curious era of an enlightened sense of inadequacy at their own town, in 1943/44 and 1945/46. Once the war was over, however, normal service was resumed and Cork United never mounted a serious challenge to the bigger Dublin teams, and never finished higher than fourth in the league; indeed, they left the league in 1948, complaining of the shocking state the counthry had come to when the opposition were allowed to field full-strength teams against them.

They were replaced by Cork Athletic, who promptly finished second last. Once the players had gotten over the confusion of who exactly it was they were playing for, however, they turned out to be alright – winning the next two titles before reverting to type, never mounting a serious challenge to the bigger Dublin teams, and never finished higher than fourth in the league before leaving in 1957, grumbling about a massive conspiracy among the other Dublin teams, who pre-arranged all their results just to screw Cork over. Cork infiltrated the FAI to rig the election of Cork Hibernians to the league and were later seen laughing in the faces of their creditors.

After Athletic’s first title, however, egos had grown again and Evergreen joined the league, changing their name to Cork Celtic in 1959, by which time Cork Hibernians had also joined the league. They finished runners-up for times in ten years as the rest of the league deliberately played silly buggers with them. In 1961/62, they pipped Shels to the title on goal average, but a young Ollie Byrne pestered the FAI into declaring a play-off to decide the league, which Shels won after Ollie put two and sixpence, an enormous sum in those days, into a very small brown envelope and promised to paint the ref’s chicken coop. Ollie never did paint the coop; however, a precedent had been set…

Nothing much happened until the mid-70s, when George Best signed for Cork Celtic. He left shortly afterwards, complaining that he didn’t feel at home in a town where he wasn’t the only drunken egotist. However, his agreement with Cork Celtic that his pay would be in the form of a bar tab in the Horseshoe saw Cork Celtic forced into bankruptcy shortly after. Uwe Seeler and Geoff Hurst also lined out for Celtic but, after an unfortunate incident where a Hurst shot hit the underside of the bar and bounced a few inches over the line only for the linesman to admit he was taking a quick shwig out of his bottle of Guinness while trying to chat up the lovely young wan standing ten feet back from the touchline fence (Cork weren’t doing very well in those days, so the crowds were low and there was no-one in the intervening distance) and hadn’t seen the incident at all, Hurst moved on to play in the slightly-less-incompetently-refereed Marshall Island league.

With the league having had enough of Cork for a while, attempts to rig the election of a new team in the city’s favour were dismissed, and a Dublin team by the name of UCD were elected instead. UCD didn’t have many fans, which in the league’s eyes meant they wouldn’t be whining darkly about conspiracies. Cork Hibs folded in 1976 and were replaced by Albert Rovers, who became Cork Alberts and Cork United before folding uneventfully in 1982. This left the league with two years of peace without a single Cork team in the league.

The fourteenth incarnation of Cork senior football was Cork City Mark II. They went broke in the mid-90s, but by now were so well-accustomed with the routine that they bribed FAI officials and re-took their place in the league the next season, though without the seemingly obligatory name change. Bar one season when they won the league after a play-off when a sensible federation would have placed them third on goal difference, City have never mounted a serious challenge to the bigger Dublin teams, and never finished higher than second in the league. Makes you feel everything’s right with the world!!

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