Financial crisis means Galway United must shop at home
Date Published: {J}
Keith Kelly
GALWAY United are scrambling to put a squad together for the 2011 Premier Division campaign – less than seven weeks away – with only one player having put pen to paper at the time of going to press.
United have lured Enda Curran from Mervue United, and while talks have been held with a number of other players, Curran is the only one to have officially signed ahead of the start of pre-season training this weekend as United begin preparations for a fifth consecutive season in the top flight.
The majority of United’s more experienced players from last season have left the club, prompting concerns amongst supporters that the squad faces into yet another season-long battle against relegation, which has been the case for the last three campaigns.
Six of the side that started in the relegation play-off victory against Bray Wanderers in November have left the Terryland Park-based club, and there are real fears that filleting the squad of its more experienced players, and trying to replace them on a playing budget of less than €2,000 a week, means United are facing into a season which could see them record their worst finish in the top flight since the 1995/96 season, when they finished bottom of the table, nine points adrift of Drogheda United.
The defence has taken the biggest hammering with Barry Ryan, Seamus Conneely, Jamie McKenzie and Rhys Meynell having all left the club. Goalkeeper Ryan, who was United’s captain last season, has ended a two-season stint with the club by moving to Limerick FC, with the other three having all moved to clubs outside of Ireland.
Conneely has signed an 18-month contract with Sheffield United, who are just one place above the relegation zone in the English Championship; Meynell has returned to Stalybridge Celtic – where he played for the 2008/09 season – in the Conference North, the sixth tier of English football; while McKenzie has returned to Cyprus, where he also played during the 08/09 season.
The other two from the starting XI against Bray that have left United are midfielder Stephen O’Donnell and striker Karl Sheppard, who have both signed one-year deals with newly crowned League champions Shamrock Rovers.
Philip Reilly has also left the club, having emigrated to Australia; Ciaran Foley has undergone surgery on an ankle injury and has been ruled out of action for the next couple of months; while at least one other player has said he won’t sign for the “insult” offer of €75 a week which was put to him last week.
There could be one saving grace for United this season if rumours about how the expansion of the Premier Division in 2012 will come into effect prove to be accurate, with stories circulating that there will not be an automatic relegation from the Premier Division at the end of the 2011 season.
The suggestion is that instead, the top two teams in the First Division will be promoted at the end of the season, with the team that finishes third facing a play-off against the bottom-placed Premier Division club for the right to play in the expanded 12-team Premier Division in 2012.
While that scenario offers a crumb of comfort if it proves correct, when put alongside a budget what will be the lowest in the Premier Division, it is hardly the kind of bargaining power that will give United manager Sean Connor a strong hand when he tries to build his squad.
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.