Change is afoot at Shelbourne FC as the Dublin club prepares for the completion of a takeover by Andrew Doyle, former Shamrock Rovers director.
Twenty-six year old Dave O’Connor has been brought in as CEO and former Ireland women's international Seana Cooke has been appointed to the board. Dave Henderson becomes the new head of recruitment.
What will all those changes mean for the club? Former Shelbourne midfielder Stuart Byrne joined us in studio to give us his take on the development.
"I've kind of known about a few things for a while now," he began.
"I think the debt was a huge monkey off the club's back and that's something that's only now been cleared in the last six months or so and that's given them a new lease of life and they're now in a position to try and look forward."
Stuey added that it's imperative that the club can get promoted back to the top division in order to realise their potential and also suggested that he and other former players could get involved in helping the club.
Shamrock Rovers’ manager Stephen Bradley ©INPHO/Oisin Keniry
"What I would say is that there is no shortage of people, either past or present that have been associated with the club that would love to get involved and would love to see Shelbourne get back to where they were before," he said.
"I would get involved and that's something I would have said before to people and I would know of other people who are well thought of in the game who would be the same.
"And I'm delighted to see what's going on here. I think Dave Henderson has got great experience going into that scouting role and obviously had experience with Pat Fenlon going to Hibernian. He knows the league, he knows good players, he knows how to spot a good player."
Meanwhile, Stuey also discussed the situation at Shamrock Rovers who are off the pace in the race for the League of Ireland title, having lost consecutive league games to Bray Wanderers, Bohemians and St Patrick's Athletic which has piled pressure on manager Stephen Bradley.
"I think what they're lacking more than anything is a little bit of hunger, a bit of something in their belly. They don't seem to have that about them at all and like I say, it doesn't help when your manager is out there saying, 'Look, this is a five year plan, we're not really expected to do anything for the next 3-4 years.' That's what players hear," he said, emphasizing that Shamrock Rovers are a huge club that have effectively been performing as a third or fourth place side since the departure of current Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill.
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