Tales From The East Stand

The unofficial (?) Shamrock Rovers podcast finally returns to recap a great night against them lot and look ahead to the trip to Derry with the help of a native, Ciarán Roddy. Plus: Harry Moore has his yellow and red cards ready for Jack Byrne vs Rory Gaffney in the quiz.

We've got a recap of the Dundalk win, our first Friday night in Tallaght since June, and two brilliant quizzes: Simon Power vs Gideon Tetteh, and Dan Cleary vs Aaron Greene. We look ahead to the derby, and the women's game away to Cork, whose manager, former Hoops full-back Danny Murphy comes on for a chat about his career and the WNL.

Tales From The East Stand #255 No game to review and yet still a longer show than last week because the Members Corner returns with Giggsy Hand to talk club membership and his good friend Bobby Best, and our author series continues with Louth based journalist Barry Landy and his book 'Emerald Exiles', an analysis of Ireland's mark on world football and the individual stories behind it.

This week is all about photographer and Hoops fanatic Bobby Best who sadly passed away last weekend. There's an interview with Bobby, recorded for the documentary a couple of years ago that's never been aired before, our Tolka Park review and Graham Burke vs Sean Hoare in the quiz.

We talk the Ferencvaros and Cork games in Tallaght which ended the goal famine, and the TFTES Hotline returns for the first time in three months with 10-ish questions put to 10 supporters about Europe, superstitions, favourite podcast episodes, movies and TV.

We've only got a half hour on Budapest and all that. The remaining two hours? Five SRFC Ultras, from the older and newer generation from 2001 to present day come together to discuss The Origins of an Irish Ultra.

We talk Champions League and FAI Cup misery before the returning Kevin McCluskie helps preview the Ferencvaros tie, Lee Grace takes on Liam Burt in the quiz and there's a chat with Jess Hennessy and Justin Mason about Ireland in the World Cup and our Ringsend Rover, Abbie Larkin.

Gary is back from Turkey, along with Karl's Tallaght Time co-author Macdara Ferris in the Lair. We've broken the record for longest podcast ever but it's #TFTES250 so it's allowed. We talk about writing the book, published 10 years ago this week, there's our Worst XI's since 2009 and short, older interviews with Michael O'Neill (from BBC) and Ryan Thompson (Con Murphy for SRFC TV) on their time at Rovers. Pico Lopes takes on Markus Poom in the quiz, we painfully relive the Drogheda and Breidablik games and look ahead to the trip to Iceland, where we have a mountain, or possibly volcano to climb. From 3 hours 9 minutes onwards is our own exclusive chat with Dessie Baker, whose last career game was Rovers' 16th league title win in Bray 2010, before we pick our combined all-time best XI of the Tallaght era.

With Karl on his own again, there's an Icelandic theme to this week's show as he chats to Breidablik fan Hafstein Arnason, and there's a return to the podcast of two special guests, the goalkeeper who played in the 7-0 aggregate win over Fram Reykjavik in 1982, Alan O'Neill, and the man who scored Rovers' winning goal away to Stjarnan in 2017, Gary Shaw. Big Al remembers that week long stay in Iceland, alongside his friends Robbie Gaffney and Jacko McDonagh, and also discusses Gavin Bazunu and The Boot Room and Alan Mannus taking his club record of 120 clean sheets. Shawsy helps review a poor game in Dundalk last Friday, before taking a trip down memory lane to Bradser's first European win six years ago. Plus, #RTEGate, news on next Friday's landmark 250th episode and the last 16 of Questions From The East Stand gets underway with Gary O'Neill vs Sean Kavanagh - hosted by quizmaster Harry Moore.

Dan Fulham steps in as guest co-host in Gar's absence for reaction to the Champions League draw. He talks the Bohs and Derry games, even though he was at Glastonbury for both, DJing with EMF, European travels and causing international incidents.

No international break for TFTES as we're back with John Byrne and Martin Moore in the Four Provinces for part 2 of That 70s Show, covering the emergence of disco, punk rock, Johnny Giles and Eamon Dunphy in the second half of the decade with the help of some more Con Murphy narration from 'Who Stole Our Game'. The lads ditch the flares and dodgy moustaches as they go from teenagers to young adults and witness Rovers' rock bottom of 63 paying customers at a home game in Milltown to three Cup final wins in the space of a year.

Con Murphy joins us in the studio to talk the tonking over UCD and look ahead to Dalymount Park next week. We meet some Hoops n' Hammers in Gary Purdy and Martin Brennan after the Europa Conference League final triumph in Prague before Detective Con turns the microphone on Karl and Gary and gets a look behind the scenes of six years of TFTES, the origins of the podcast and its future.

We have a Bank Holiday six pointer over Dundalk and Sligo to talk about, and ahead of the UCD game before the mid-season break there's an interview with two ex-Hoops, Joe Hanrahan and Keith Dignam who played in the Students' 1984 FAI Cup final win over Rovers and were on opposing sides of the Manchester United friendly at Milltown in 1987, when Joe was in Alex Ferguson's squad.

We review a refereeing shambles in Cork, and, as we look ahead to the double header with Dundalk and Sligo, there's an interview with goalkeeper Richard Brush about his two spells with the Hoops, White Hart Lane, heavy metal and his Puma Kings. Pico Lopes conducts the draw for the last 16 of Questions From The East Stand, after Rory Gaffney, Johnny Kenny and Liam Burt attempt to qualify.

There's a surprise Drogheda defeat to dissect and a double feature in our author series, as Hannah Dunne meets Adrian Besley (The History of the Women's World Cup) and we interview former Cork referee Pat Kelly (It Happened By Chance) ahead of our first bus to Turner's Cross in four years.

We are top of the league after a routine win at UCD and a dramatic one against St Pat's. And the kids are alright. Panickers and politics, away trips and artificial intelligence are among the topics for our seven callers to the TFTES Hotline.

We've got another win over Bohs and all the fallout, the real and AI version, in glorious detail before we go back to college tomorrow. Our Player of the Year series returns with 2016 winner Simon Madden, who was with Boccer Bayly at Leeds, played in the first game at Tallaght Stadium and Bradser's first full season.

We have ugly and beautiful wins over Sligo and Derry from this past week to review, with a great bus trip up north, no smashed windows but one broken finger for Big Al, so we look ahead to Friday's derby with Leon The Professional in goal. Graham Burke and Markus Poom take on the quiz qualifiers.

We have a rasper, a rocket and a captain's triumphant return in Inchicore, Ed Saul previews the Robbie Keane Academy Cup and then Simon Power and Conan Noonan tackle the quiz. Finally, our second installment of In Memoriam: My Dad with sons of Jack Wilson (replay), Peter Murphy, Jimmy Cooke, Richard McGarry before Phyllis Sizmur, the daughter of club legend Bob Fullam, speaks to Robert Goggins in Slough near London a few weeks ago.

After once again inspiring Rovers to come back from two goals down in Tallaght, Jack Byrne takes on Questions From The East Stand alongside Aaron Greene and Dan Cleary (recorded before the news). There's an interview with Ringsend historian Frank Hopkins to kick off our new author series, and, ahead the women's derby with Bohs on Saturday we hear from Hannah Dunne, Jaime Thompson and Paul Donohue on the story of the season so far.