History of Dundalk F.C. (1966–2002)

The History of Dundalk Football Club (1966–2002) covers the period from the takeover of the club as a public limited company in January 1966 to the end of the 2001–02 season, when Dundalk won the FAI Cup, but were also relegated to the League of Ireland First Division. It also includes short articles about some of the events and people that are an integral part of that period in the club's history.

Takeover and the Fox era (1966–1974)

A new Public Limited Company took the club over in January 1966, after the voluntary liquidation of the old company. The new board set about investing in Oriel Park, which consisted of turning the pitch 90 degrees, building a new stand and adding player and spectator facilities. They also invested in new players and a new player-manager, Alan Fox ahead of the start of the 1966–67 season. The pay-off was immediate. Dundalk finally won their first League of Ireland Shield after 40 years of League membership, in front of a record crowd of 14,000 for a domestic game in Oriel Park. Fox's side then followed up the Shield success by charging to the League title ahead of Bohemians by seven points, a huge margin in the days of two points for a win and 22 games. The club's third League title brought its only League and Shield Double. To cap a memorable season, they also won the Top Four Cup (their second and last before the competition was discontinued in 1974). In addition, they were runners-up in the Dublin City Cup and Leinster Senior Cup, so a semi-final defeat in the FAI Cup to Shamrock Rovers was the only slip-up that stopped the side winning medals in every competition. They called it "the greatest year in the history of Dundalk Football Club".

Early the following season Oriel Park hosted European football for the first time, under newly installed floodlights, with the visit of Vasas SC of Hungary. A huge crowd was "justifiably proud" at their club's achievement. But a breakdown in relationships scuppered the progress that had been made. Fox fell out with the board of directors during the trip for the return leg of the tie in Budapest, and was suspended, then reinstated. They failed to retain the Shield, finishing as runners-up. But the damage to relationships was done and, with the team still being on track to retain the League, Fox was released on 7 March 1968. His final success at Oriel Park was the Dublin City Cup of 1967–68. Less than three weeks later he was lining out for Limerick against Dundalk in a bad-tempered clash that resulted in Dundalk's players and officials being smuggled from the Markets Field as Gardaí held back a mob. Dundalk had led the League after 14 of the 22 matches, but Fox's departure saw them stumble to a runners-up spot behind a Waterford side that would go on to win a total of five titles in the next six seasons. 1968–69 started with a Fairs Cup win over DOS Utrecht, and a runners-up spot in the Shield for the second season in succession. But they failed to challenge in the League, finishing fourth. Another Dublin City Cup (the club's fifth and last before the competition was discontinued) was all that the remnants of Fox's team could achieve.

Future Ireland manager Liam Tuohy took over in the summer of 1969, after leaving Shamrock Rovers, and, as a result of his managerial experience, Dundalk entered the new decade at the top of the League, as they had 10-years earlier, having thrashed defending champions Waterford 6–1 in early December. But eight points from 12 games was a disastrous finish to the season, and highlighted just how much trouble the club was in. Due to the debts from the reconstruction of Oriel Park, he was obliged to thin the squad and slash the wage bill. While successful at blooding young players (despite youth policy being neglected since the takeover) it was too much to build a side able to sustain a title challenge. The 1971–72 Shield success would be the high point of his reign, and he quit at the end of that season, criticising a lack of local support in the process. His only other trophy at the club was the 1970–71 Leinster Senior Cup. He rejoined Shamrock Rovers a week later.

Dundalk had to sell or release more players (such as Tommy McConville and future manager Turlough O'Connor) to survive after Tuohy left. As a result, the club slid down the League, with a young, inexperienced squad finishing second from bottom in the table in 1972–73. The club's worst season since the 1950s had brought what became known as "Fox era" to a close. To recover the situation a new board took over the running of the club and hired English player-manager John Smith from Walsall. After renegotiating the club's debts the new board were able to provide him with the funds to sign a number of new players. There was a fast start to the new season, and a Leinster Senior Cup win over Bohemians in a replay, (the first match in Oriel was the first time the final had been contested outside Dublin in its 81-year history), but a run of 10 games without a win that winter meant they had to settle for a mid-table finish in the League. Following early exits the following season in the new League Cup competition, which had replaced the Shield, and the Leinster Cup, Smith quit only two matches into the 1974–75 League programme for a new job outside football.

Jim McLaughlin era (1975–1983) Smith's resignation paved the way for the appointment of Jim McLaughlin as player-manager on 20 November 1974, and it was under McLaughlin that Dundalk recovered and reached a new level of success. Despite a still-meagre playing budget, he won his first league title (the club's fourth) in 1975–76, finishing ahead of Finn Harps and losing only one match in the process. The season had seen a number of formerly successful clubs, such as Waterford, Cork Celtic and Cork Hibernians, all bring in fading stars from England – Bobby Charlton, George Best, Geoff Hurst and Rodney Marsh – in a bid to entice back the support they had lost as their fortunes had ebbed. Dundalk, needing no circus acts, clinched the title by beating Cork Hibernians at home in front of a packed Oriel Park with a game to spare. The title brought European football back to the town for the first time since 1969, and in the following season's European Cup they met PSV Eindhoven, and were deemed unlucky to only draw the first leg in Oriel Park. That match started an unbeaten run in Europe in Oriel Park of eight matches over the following five seasons. They went on to win that season's FAI Cup – the club's first since 1958 – when they defeated Limerick United in the 1977 final, a week after winning the Leinster Senior Cup.

League form had been mixed in the two seasons following the title, and a bad end to the 1977–78 season (with only one win from the final 11 games in all competitions) led to rumours that McLaughlin would be let go, despite retaining the Leinster Cup, and winning their first League Cup in a penalty shoot-out over Cork Alberts. Instead, the club supported the "reorganisation" he demanded, and used funds from the sale of three players (Synan Braddish, Derek Carroll and Brian Duff) to Liverpool, for a combined £55,000, to rebuild the squad and make ground improvements at Oriel. From Christmas Eve 1978 on, his new look side dropped only three points on their way to the winning the title. It was confirmed in slightly surreal fashion – with a win away to Cork Celtic (who were about to be expelled from the League) in front of 200 people; while the trophy was presented in Oriel Park 48 hours later after a defeat to FAI Cup final opponents Waterford. 12 days later Dundalk defeated Waterford in the 1979 FAI Cup Final, thereby completing the club's first League and Cup Double. The Double winning side's 1979–80 European Cup run, where they narrowly missed out on qualifying for the quarter-finals (losing 3–2 on aggregate to Celtic in front of Oriel's record attendance), was the club's best European performance until 2016.

Dundalk couldn't keep up with runaway leaders Athlone Town in 1980–81, finishing as runners-up for a consecutive season, but they achieved their only domestic cup double by beating Galway Rovers in the 1981 League of Ireland Cup Final, and Sligo Rovers in the 1981 FAI Cup Final. McLaughlin's third and final league title at the club arrived in 1981–82, sealed on the final day away to defending champions Athlone, after an early season 10-point gap to Bohemians had been overhauled. But it was Bohemians that came out of a four match, seven and a half hour FAI Cup semi-final marathon, depriving him of a shot at a second League and Cup Double. A trophy-less 1982–83 season, however, in which Dundalk slipped to third behind Louth rivals Drogheda United in the league table (and missed out on Europe), signalled that the team was entering a transition period. But, to the shock of Dundalk's board and fans, McLaughlin resigned in June 1983, saying he needed a change. He would replace John Giles at Shamrock Rovers a week later.

Turlough O'Connor era (1985–1993) McLaughlin's sudden departure lead to two seasons in mid-table before the club sorted itself out. First, former Ireland international John Dempsey was hired, suspended, and fired, within an eight-month period. He was then replaced by McLaughlin's long-term assistant and club coach, Tommy Connolly, for 14-months. But they continued to languish in the League. Subsequently, former Dundalk player Turlough O'Connor was appointed as manager of the club ahead of the League's split into two divisions in 1985–86. O'Connor had been Jim McLaughlin's main managerial rival for honours in the early 1980s, winning two League titles and three League Cups with Athlone Town. He now had to rebuild the team following the departure over the previous two years of almost all the players McLaughlin had left behind, when a lot of money had been wasted on replacements that hadn't worked out. But O'Connor quickly built a squad capable of challenging for honours and, over the following eight seasons, his sides consistently finished in the top four.

After winning the League Cup in 1986–87, his first trophy as manager at Oriel, Dundalk finished as runners-up in both the League and the FAI Cup, qualifying for Europe for the first time in five years. The following season started with a visit from Cup Winners' Cup holders Ajax Amsterdam, (many of whose players would be in the Dutch squad that would win Euro '88), and ended with the club's second League and Cup Double - breaking four seasons of Shamrock Rovers hegemony. It was closer than perhaps necessary, with a winless streak of five matches in March threatening to derail their title hopes. But a televised 1–1 draw in the "emotion charged atmosphere of Oriel Park", against fellow title challengers St Patrick's Athletic, sealed the League title. Ten days later, at the end of an eight match cup journey, they won the 1988 FAI Cup Final against Jim McLaughlin's Derry City. Crowds estimated in the thousands welcomed the team back to Dundalk the night of the Cup final victory.