Cobh Ramblers

Ground: St. Colman´s Park

Visits: 1

Date: 19th July 2014

Match: Cobh Ramblers - Longford Town 0-3 (First Division)

Attendance: 250

The only match in Ireland on Saturday was the First Division (level 2) match between Cobh Ramblers and Longford Town. Since Cobh is situated outside (24 min by train) Cork this meant I didn´t have much travelling to do today. The reason for choosing Cork vs UCD on Friday evening of course had something to do with the fact Cobh vs Longford was the only fixture on Saturday. Cobh itself is a town with a lot of history. When Ireland was ruled by the British the town was called Queenstown. From 1848 to 1950 over 6 million adults and children emigrated from Ireland, about 2.5 million departed from Queenstown/Cobh. On the 11 April 1912 the newly built Titanic called to the port of Queenstown on her maiden voyage. Titanic had set out from Southampton and called Cherbourg before continuing onto Queenstown. A total of 123 passengers embarked at Queenstown. Next to the train station in Cobh there is now a Heritage centre with information about the towns history. Kick-off for Cobh vs Longford was 19.45 but already 12.30 I was in Cobh to visit the Heritage centre and have a look around. I also made the uphill walk to St. Colman´s Park, the home of Cobh Ramblers, and even though it took me less than 20 minutes I was really tired after all the climbing. The ground was locked though and I could only take some exterior pictures. I then returned to the Heritage centre where I had a (delicious) fish pie for lunch before returning to my hotel in Cork.

The forecasts for Saturday evening suggested heavy rain and a risk of thunder storms. As I made the short walk from my hotel to Cork train station, for the second time today, ther was indeed heavy rain coming down. At 18.24 I was back in Cobh but here it was only light rain. I wasn´t soaked during my walk back up to St. Colman´s Park and waited outside the ground for the turnstiles to open. 45 minutes before kick-off I could buy my ticket, costing me 10 Euros, and enter the ground. As expected St. Colman's Park was quite a basic football ground. The main (South) Stand had six rows of seating but considering how dirty (bird shit) some of the seats were it must have been a while since this stand was full. The east end of the ground have a small seated stand as well and the far (north) side is an open terrace. Longford, being top of the table, had around 15 fans at this match and they were placed in the block next to me. Cobh Ramblers are bottom of the First Division and lost this match as well. 2-0 to Longford at half-time, much to the delight of the Longford fans to my right. The second half was a bit dull but at least Longford scored one more goal to win 3-0. Not the best of matches but at least three goals for me this Saturday evening.. The thunder storms and the heavy rain stayed away but it was yet again light rain coming down as I walked back to Cobh train station after the match. Tomorrow I leave southern Ireland and travel to Dundalk.

Pictures from Cobh

cobh, heritage centre