![]() ![]() On one December weekend in particular, he set course for a game in Cork at 5:30am ahead of a 2pm kick-off at the floodlight-less Turner’s Cross, landing home late the same day before journeying to Derry the next morning. Sundays were progressively becoming a write-off as McArdle’s top-flight involvement intensified. That wouldn’t happen today!”Įspecially not if The Hoops got to know you were from El Paso! “Rovers played UCD and you had to walk through the crowd to get out to the pitch. Surprisingly, he only wore the black jersey at Rovers’ famous home once. What was it like to referee at Milltown? Well, Dinny doesn’t really know. Rovers were the top team at the time, Jim McLaughlin and Dermot Keely having worked the oracle. The roar, the hair stood on the back of my neck, ‘Jesus Christ, this is different class, Denis’.”Īnother upgrade, this time to the Premier Division, followed before being awarded the linesman’s shirt for the 1986 FAI Cup final between Shamrock Rovers and Waterford. “I remember going up to Derry - they were getting thousands at their games - and walking out across the dog track just before kick-off with the place packed. McArdle was climbing the ranks and by the mid-1980s, he was a fully-fledged member of the national panel, overseeing League of Ireland games having spent just one season “learning the trade as a lino”. You didn’t go to Dublin to referee games at that time and I didn’t even know where Bluebell was or who the linesmen were.” Boyne Harps and Parkvilla, “a cruncher”, was the game he wanted, but instead he was appointed to oversee Bluebell vs Tramore in the Intermediate Cup semi-final. Markings were made known through the Evening Herald and so his Monday routine would involve scrambling for an edition to see where he was destined for the following weekend. ![]() “Sure I didn’t know what that meant,” Dinny says, laughing. He was scouting the man in the middle and informed the whistler that he’d “seen enough” when departing at half-time. He recalls looking after an encounter in Navan one Sunday afternoon when a gentleman by the name of Kevin Nugent approached. The memories are fond and as time passed McArdle’s stock was rising. He began whistling in the local divisions before earning promotion to the Leinster Senior League ranks, often taking charge of Bank Rovers’ home games. From day one, I just loved it.”Īn avid Dundalk FC fan, he was a regular at Oriel Park during the 1960s and ’70s, sometimes getting the bus from Fatima to the Carrick Road for a game.Ī tidy left-full in his heyday, officiating soon became his full focus, outside of working at McCann’s Bakery and, of course, looking after his family. “I paid £1.50 for a plastic whistle and it took me around Europe. Refereeing became the Dundalk man’s passion and he’s thankful to his neighbour, Noel Clifford, for getting him started, juvenile and friendly encounters marking the beginning of a journey which would lead to an FAI Cup final, UEFA Cup clashes and a Euro 1996 qualifier. Denis McArdle claims to have been able to kick opponents further than he could drive the ball during his days playing in the Dundalk Summer League.ĭemocrat: “That’s a bit of a contradiction.”ĭinny: “Mind you, I was only sent-off once in my life.”ĭemocrat: “Did you at least win the fight?”Ī player with Rangers in his youth, he lined out for Fatima’s West End, for whom Willie and Gerry McKeever were stars, and Wolves in the Summer League, prior to concentrating fully on a career which saw him earn the respect of colleagues both at home and abroad. ![]()
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