Shamrock Rovers chairman Jonathan Roche has claimed that a tweet put out in the name of the RTÉ soccer account, in which it was falsely reported that manager Trevor Croly had left the club, “was a pre-meditated, malicious tweet (intended) to put more pressure on someone’s employment”.
Roche, speaking yesterday at the launch of a Ford campaign to discover which FAI Cup final is remembered as the best of all time, said that he has received an apology and been promised that he will be told what comes of an internal investigation at Montrose into who was responsible for the message, but he sounded less than happy. “RTÉ have gone back on it but the damage was done yesterday morning. We want to find out who did it and why.
“It’s happened to us a lot this year and last year (when RTÉ also tweeted that Stephen Kenny had left the club some months before he actually did). People think they can say and do what they want without having the facts behind it and from the national broadcaster, it’s just not good enough.”
Almost inevitably many of the questions that followed were about Croly’s actual position ahead of the club’s cup match on Friday against Sheriff YC.
Rovers go into the game lying fifth in the league, 17 points behind leaders St Patrick's Athletic, after losing on their last three outings.
Manager's future
In response, Roche sought to avoid being dragged into a discussion about his manager's future although his attempt to suggest there was simply nothing to talk about met with some scepticism, given that under Kenny the team had more points at this stage of the season.
“There’s a lot more things to do with that,” he insisted, “but the past is the past and there’s no point in raking over it. People don’t know everything that goes on behind decisions. People still think Michael O’Neill might have stayed. That’s not true. Anyway, we’re happy where we are. We’re not happy with the league but Trevor and the players have already said that. Hopefully we will improve. We still have loads to play for.”
A few feet away Croly was looking a little bemused at being asked to pose for the cameras with various cup final veterans in a vintage car.
The former Drogheda United, Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick’s Athletic defender never made it to a final as a player and there is certainly a sense that he could do with getting to one as a manager this year.
Asked about his position, he said that he does not feel the need for any particular reassurance from Roche and insisted he is simply focused on the job itself, putting things right and starting to win matches.
