Home Farm F.C.

Home Farm Football Club is an Irish association football club based in Whitehall, Dublin. It was founded in 1928. The club joined the League of Ireland in 1972 after merging with Drumcondra. Following this merger they were briefly known as Home Farm Drumcondra. Between 1995 and 1999 they played as Home Farm Everton before a split within the club led to the formation of Home Farm Fingal (later Dublin City). The original Home Farm reverted to junior status.

Home Farm is perhaps best known for its youth system which has produced dozens of players who have gone on to play for clubs throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom. In addition many have also gone on to represent the Republic of Ireland at international level.

In the mid-1920s when Leo Fitzmaurice, the brother of Trans-Atlantic aviator James Fitzmaurice, organised a street football league in the Drumcondra / Whitehall area of Northside Dublin. This league originally featured five teams – Drumcondra Road, Ormonde Road, Hollybank Road, Richmond Road and Home Farm Road. In 1928 the latter two, led by Don Seery and Brendan Menton Snr respectively merged to form Home Farm Football Club. Menton later became president of the Football Association of Ireland while Seery was the father of Ronan Seery, the founder of Dublin City. The new club began to play their home games at Griffith Avenue playing in black and gold stripes. However this was only because their first set of shirts were purchased at a jumble sale and these were the only colours available. By the next season, the colours were changed to blue and white hoops.

Home Farm soon established a reputation for developing schoolboys into senior international footballers. In 1936 when they won the Free State Minor Cup, the team included Johnny Carey. By 1937 Carey, together with Paddy Farrell and Kevin O'Flanagan, was one of at least three former Home Farm players who had become Irish internationals, having played for the FAI XI. Carey and O'Flanagan made their debut in the same game against Norway on 7 November 1937, in a qualifier for the 1938 World Cup. O'Flanagan scored in what as a 3–3 draw. All three would also play for the IFA XI. Carey went on to become a regular at Manchester United and was the first of several Home Farm graduates who established themselves at the club. In 1953 Liam Whelan, one of the so-called 'Busby Babes' and among the victims of the Munich air disaster, made the same journey.

During the 1960s Home Farm produced 20 full internationals including, among others, Paddy Mulligan. The club's senior team also gained some minor successes. They won the FAI Intermediate Cup on three occasions in 1963, 1967 and 1968 and finished as runners up in 1966 and 1970. In 1964 they also won the Leinster Senior Cup beating Dundalk in the final. Meanwhile, Home Farm Under 14s under coach Joe Fitzpatrick earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for their match winning sequence of 79 games between 1968 and 1971.

In 1972 Home Farm and their trustees, Brendan Menton Sr. and Don Seery, finally got a chance to field a senior team in the League of Ireland when they merged with Drumcondra. Drums were £6,000 in debt and regularly propping up the league table. After almost 20 years in charge, Sam Prole sold the club to the junior team down the road. As part of the deal Home Farm also gained Tolka Park as home ground. Home Farm also agreed to keep the famous Drums name alive by playing under the name Home Farm Drumcondra but, after just a year, they infuriated the Prole family by reverting to the name Home Farm.

In 1975 Home Farm won the FAI Cup for the only time. With a team managed by Dave Bacuzzi and including Noel King, James Higgins, Martin Murray and Dermot Keely, they beat Dundalk, Cork Celtic and St Patrick's Athletic in earlier rounds before defeating Shelbourne 1–0 in the final at Dalymount Park. As a result, they became the first amateur team to win the FAI Cup in forty years. The following season they competed in the European Cup Winners Cup, playing against French side, RC Lens. They drew 1–1 at home but lost the away leg 6–0.

Despite this cup success, their performances in the League of Ireland were poor and between 1972 and 1987, when they were relegated to the League of Ireland First Division, they never finished higher than ninth. The club, however, continued to produce players like Ronnie Whelan. During the 1980s, Whelan became an established player at Liverpool and was a key member of the Republic of Ireland team under Jack Charlton.