Bohemian Football Club Crest

@bfcdublin I'm home, says Ken Farrelly. I got back yesterday at about five in the evening and have slept most of the time since.

I can’t often say that I’d look forward to a two-hour drive on a Friday evening but if Sligo was a day's march, I’d be walking my box waiting to go.

 

You just can’t substitute any kind of football for the thrill of watching your own team. Watching two teams from the southern parts of Thailand play out a scoreless draw on a storm-soaked pitch in 30 degree heat is not the stuff of dreams.

 

But I’ll admit that the delights of the UCD Bowl might not be the idea of the beautiful game at its best to the couple of hundred Thais who, along with yours truly, witnessed the brave souls of Krabi and Nakomsitamarath ply their trade for our amusement.

A curious thing happened on the flight home. A nightmare that I find difficult to recall without a chill going up my spine. A drug-induced lack of consciousness of the sleeping pill variety might have been the cause of the visions that for a few moments after I woke, seemed more a memory of a real event than a dream.

 

Here is the best account I can give of the vision that passed before me as I slept.

I’m climbing stone steps up to a set of big wooden doors set between pillars that would never have allowed Samson to become famous. Suddenly the doors open with a sound the equal of thunder and I walk in to be met by two hooded creatures that looked like spares for the grim reaper. These gentlemen took me by the arms and led me between a throng of red and black clad people shouting things like ‘heathen’ and ‘Judas’ in my direction.

I was brought to the front of the crowd half in a daze not knowing what was happening and at the same time afraid of what could be about to happen. Then I arrived at the bottom step of five that led up to what seemed like an altar with what looked like the authentic grim reaper standing in front of it. He raised two skeleton arms and in a terrifying voice that shook my bones shouted ‘friends’.

 

Silence fell all around.

 

‘Friends you see who we have before us. How does he plead?’

I tried to ask what I was meant to plead to but try as I might, I couldn’t speak. Just as I thought I might have answered a body that seemed to resemble Danny De Vito appeared beside me and shouted ‘guilty your benevolence’.

The reaper spoke again. ‘Friends he has pleaded guilty. For what else could he do? We know from our records he has missed three games for the purpose of a vacation’. Howls of unbeliever from all around could be heard.

 

‘When all were needed, where was he?,’ and a bony finger was pointed in my direction.  

 

‘What now for this unworthy wretch. Where shall he be delivered unto? North or south brothers’?  As he said this he extended his arms so as to resemble a cross. From the brothers all I could hear was ‘South, South, South with him’.

 

Before I knew what to do, I was taken by the arms and legs and was being carried off to the left of the alter. I looked to the right and could see enormous doors with the word 'Dalymount' above them.

 

I looked up to see where I was being taken and could see doors slowly opening with the word Tallaght written above. I started to scream.

I woke still, screaming and two people woke from their slumber to join in.

 

After a couple of seconds with a beating heart and a lot of glaring faces I realised where I was. Sweating and hiding my head and embarrassment in my hands I thanked whatever is out there it was all a dream.

Roll on Sligo