History Of The Dodder Dynamoes

(or how I stopped fighting and learned to love the game)

"Each great human accomplishment begins with a dream"

Let us go back way back, back into the mists of time, back to a time shrouded in mystery back to the early 1980s. 1982 to be exact a year that saw the breakup of ABBA, the introduction of the Big Mac and the first pint for a pound. Truly these were terrible and exciting times to be Irish. With such sweeping changes to our social and cultural lives afoot we Irish were beginning to realize that the decade ahead would change Ireland forever.
Two intrepid explorers returned to this country in '82. As respected traditional Irish musicians of longstanding, Johnny Moynihan and Andy Irvine often traversed the globe plying their trade to folkies and ex-pats wherever they might be found always bringing something away from the cultures they visited. Many of these influences were musical and were to the benefit of all, this time however they brought with them a vision and a message.
The vision was of long golden summer evenings when the sun never seems to set, the haze of smoke drifting off a sizzling barbeque pit, the snow white froth resting on top of an ice cold beer and the sight of men and women engaged in athletic pursuit on a green field marked by crisp white lines. The ping of the bat on the ball, the reassuring whack of ball in glove, the cries of encouragement and excitement, the sizzle of the barbeque, the fizz of the beer, the roar of the victors the curses of the losers - this is the soundtrack to the vision. The message was simple:
Accept no substitutes - Softball is the name of the game!

Our curious heroes had discovered a game in the New World which could be played by men and women together, had a vibrant social element attached and didn't necessarily require huge levels of physical fitness. Initially attracted by the promise of chicks that really swing, the joy of softball was immediately evident. With hurling and cricket backgrounds on their cv's our Johnny and Andy took to the idea like rednecks to their sisters. They believed that the combination of an energetic sport combined with an equally robust bout of socializing, both in a mixed sex environment, would particularly suit the Irish psyche. With a rudimentary grasp of the rules of engagement and the bare basics of equipment they turned their noses east and returned to the Irish shores.

On reaching home the two sprang into action immediately and forgot about softball completely. Only when the spring of 82 began to take hold did their experiences come flooding back and they began to take Saturday afternoons in Herbert Park behind the Johnstown Mooney and O'Brien bakery in Ballsbridge throwing a ball and hitting. Passersby joined in as much as the sparse equipment allowed, with several colonial ex-pats returning with their own gloves to slowly increase numbers. As the numbers grew so did the interest. This was noticed by the ever-vigilant Park Keeper,  sworn protector of all that is green and holy in Ballsbridge, he demanded a contribution to his pension plan to be made each week. The small group decided to relocate but to where? A young tyro, who had been cycling by some weeks previous and decided to join in, recommended a park just over the bridge from his home in Dartry. His name was Fionnan Scully and the place was Dodder Park.

The park was located at the bottom of a secluded road, on the banks of the Dodder, closed in by the combination of trees, the river and wall. It was a perfect arena with a large hostelry, the Dropping Well, within easy walking distance. When the small group of 'softballers' saw this place all of Johnny and Andy's tales of lazy barbeques and thrilling games made sense. This place would be their home and they would spread the gospel of Softball.
The routine was easy to slip into - Saturday morning 11 am game followed by restorative ales and sandwiches in the Dropping Well anytime between 1.30 pm and 1.59 so as to beat the Holy Hour restriction on licensed premises. (Yes Holy Hour, who remembers that? On weekdays as well as weekends you know. Madness!) Word of mouth guaranteed an increasing number of participants checking it out, the fun morning games and the relaxed afternoons meant people came back for more. Soon there were over twenty regulars with as many casual attendees again. Having seen their message this far, both Johnny and Andy took to road again promising to return on a regular basis to ensure that their vision was being maintained.

The diverse collection of individuals who gathered in Dodder Park reflected the changing and turbulent state of Ireland. Artists, musicians, bankers, TV producers, journalists, sociologists, hurlers, philosophy lecturers, chemists, teachers, plumbers, hockey players, salesmen, solicitors, cricketers, psychologists, hippies, teenagers, school kids, Americans, sailors, Canadians, engineers, Corkonians, athletes, Germans, dope-smokers, restaurateurs, nerds, boozers, married, single - you name it and there was someone present who qualified. Everyone turned upon every Saturday almost without fail. They came from a variety of backgrounds but were united by the enjoyment of The Game.

So as not to depict Dodder Park as some softball utopia it is important to acknowledge the arguments and free ranging discussions that often erupted during the games. As with any game that has a considerable number of technical rules and participants who don't have a complete grasp of all of them, the propensity for argument was high. Strike zone, tagging up, dead balls all the topics that are familiar to anyone who has played or watched softball in Ireland. Added to this was the fact that although there was a co-ed crowd at Dodder Park each week, the ratio was definitely more men to women. Furthermore, competitive instinct - a mental muscle some people didn't know they had and others hadn't used in some time - came to the fore in the weekly game. A volatile mix you'll agree and one that inevitably led to disagreements.

There were arguments, verbal rows, spats, snarling sessions, insults and more, some of them glorious in their ferocity. Stormings off, hurling of equipment to the ground and some of the most inventive and grammatically correct swearing heard onshore in any country. One infamous occasion saw a disagreement between two ex-pat Americans develop into a shouting match across the diamond. One party delivered what he thought to be the killing final word. His adversary was momentarily stunned and then issued a conversation-stopping riposte by mooning at him. These were indeed heady days in Dodder Park.

To return to the story of the Dynamoes development we will go back to the end of 1983 beginning of 1984. Playing week-in week-out was certainly entertaining in itself but some of the players began to look for something to add to their buzz. Imagine the surprise experienced when it was discovered that there were other pockets of people playing softball in Dublin. Not only that but they had played against one another and had organized a league for the following summer. Entry into this competition was deemed imperative, as the players of Dodder Park were eager to test their skills and abilities against others. A name had to be decided upon and after much deliberation as a group the choice was narrowed down to a shortlist. And so it came to pass that in the early summer of 1984 the Dodder Dynamoes were so named.

The first campaign in the Dublin Softball League saw the newly named Dynamoes facing teams such as IBM, Lakelands, the Druids, the Fat Cats (original), the mighty US Marines, IDA and the Japanese Embassy. It involved playing 2 five-inning games a night on strange and foreign fields such as Bushey Park and St. Andrews in Booterstown. The challenge was great and although the Dynamoes coped, even insisting on playing a woman on the team against all male teams, there were several losses incurred. The Dynamoes decided to regroup, increase the intensity of the Saturday game and come back fighting fit for the next season.

The Dynamoes roared back with new T-shirts and a determined attitude. The combination of older heads and maturing youth gave the Dynamoes unshakeable confidence. A swathe was cut through the opposition, they knew us by the trail of our dead, the Dynamoes didn't just beat everyone they crushed them. The standout games were the epic encounters against the US Marines. After beating them in a thrilling game in Dodder Park, the Marines were lambasted by their Gunnery Sergeant for having been beaten by a group of gypsies, homosexuals and women. Fine praise indeed!

The following season saw an equally impressive showing, however the intensity of the Dynamo zeal meant that vanquished teams fell by the wayside. The so-called off-season s saw the increase in numbers attending the Saturday game with many new faces joining in from other teams. There was even the joyous occasion when Olivia Treacy, then Miss Ireland, and a film crew came to shoot her participation in a game. This startling footage of top class athletes in their full early eighties glory was shown to an eagerly waiting nation on Live at 3. A video of this momentous event remains and will be released as part of the 2002 celebrations. However, all this meant that the Saturday game was becoming the only one in town. If you weren't ready by 11am then you would have to sit on the sidelines and wait for your chance to shine.

As the Dublin Softball League faltered, word reached the Dynamoes of a group of teams playing an American ball game in the southwest. There were indeed several teams playing in and around Limerick and even one from Cork. A representative team came up to Dublin to play a one off challenge match, although they were beaten they had brought with them exciting news. They were organizing a tournament and were calling it the All Ireland Challenge. The Dynamoes had no choice; in the summer of 1986 they took to the road.
In what was to become an annual event, the Dynamoes would load up on Lucozade and sandwiches and motor down to Limerick. Staying in the city centre, the tournament would take place out in Auginish peninsula. The majority of teams based here were company teams such as Wang or Auginish Aluminium. A team from Cork - the Lee Roadies - the Dynamoes and a nameless team from Clare, supplemented the numbers. All in all there were usually 10-14 teams present, the standard of play was usually relatively high. Nevertheless, there was no stopping the Dynamoes. 3 victories in 3 years, 3 MVPs for the tournament:
Fionnan Scully Fiachra Stokes John McCarthy
No picture
and a trophy so hideous that it is permanently behind closed doors. During this three-year period, there was terrific softball played, good times had and even a team song - We're the Dynamoes and we're okay. The Dynamoes were introduced to the Funky chicken, a dance style that no party is complete without, by the great Nigel McConnell, who rumour had it was a former male exotic dancer. These times were the making of the team and forged the Dynamo spirit; an attitude, for example, that helped them overcome the damage Hurricane Charlie did to Dodder Park. After a brief tenureship in Terenure, the Dynamoes returned and merely took up where they left off. The Auginish championship was last played in 1988 as the game began to reemerge in Dublin.
Dodder Park was witness to terrific softball games every week including fixtures against a team from Belfast and the South-West All Stars. The Belfast team were allied to the Canadian consulate and arrived with coffin-sized coolers full of Labatts beer. Although the fixture was rain delayed they seemed perfectly content to jump ahead to the Dropping Well, resulting in unscheduled batting practice in the car park. The South West All Stars were a composite team from the Limerick region determined to face the beast in its lair. It didn't matter who they were they were brushed aside and overwhelmed by the exuberance of the Home team. The numbers attending the Saturday game were at an all time high with two teams worth of quality players showing up each week.

Such was the demand the Dynamoes organized their own blitz style tournament towards the end of the eighties in UCD. The Budweiser Challenge Trophy of 1989, the teams included the Flyers, Digital, Fujitsu, Datalex, UCD, Wang, Wet Sox, Arthur Anderson, Oddsox and Dodder Dynamoes A+ B. The final was to be contested between Dynamoes A and Dynamoes B. To say they were confident in their abilities was an understatement. During this period it would be fair to say that the Dynamoes didn't go out of their way to make new friends. They didn't need them, they already had the best players, the best ground, the best practice games, the best sessions and the most houseshakinest parties, and there were loads of them. Other teams were impressed by the skill but a little put off by the competitiveness. As teams in Dublin began to evolve into a group, the Dynamoes were considered as a necessary evil. A tag that the Dynamoes were stuck with for a long time.

As more teams began to appear in the Dublin area, the late eighties saw the beginnings of the structures that exist today. Teams such as the Oddsox and the Flyers who are still around and such as Datalex and the Fat Cats who aren't. Proper competitions were needed. 1989 saw the Aer Lingus Flyers begin their now annual blitz competition. The Dynamoes entered and won the competition without ever being behind in a game. However, their determined approach combined with a greater understanding of the rules than some other teams involved, meant that they were not necessarily popular winners. An attitude that was particularly evident in the final of the same competition the next year when the Turtle Trotters won 1-0 with a Japanese fastpitch pitcher and numerous umpiring decisions in their favour. This lack of popularity could be put down to a combination of factors, the Dynamoes aforementioned skill and zeal, their being the only survivors from the original Dublin League (and so the oldest team in the country) and the fact that in any of the discussion meetings to formulate a national association they agitated with the teams from the Mid -West for their inclusion in any organized activities.

Those teams that were still playing in the Mid-West wanted to be included in a National league. Many of the people involved at the Dublin end felt that this was unworkable for a league format due to distances. The teams in Limerick were not be included in the newly formed Irish Softball Association, and regrettably there was no softball outside of Dublin for many years to come. There was a definite cooling of attitudes as the Dynamoes were determined to take part in whatever competition the ISA had to offer but they were going to make sure that they were also involved in the further development of the association. Or else they were going to start their own religion and play God, whichever proved easiest in the long run.

The ISA began with a cup style knock out competition for all the teams involved. Over confident and under manned, the Dynamoes began a special relationship with a new team called the Marlay Martyrs and were bounced out in the first round. They regrouped to win the secondary competition but the point had been made, past achievements weren't going to win them anything. They were only going to be as good as their latest hit. This meant a more organized approach applied to the whole structure of the Dynamoes. The intervening years since their inception had seen changes in the personnel. The age profile of some of the originals had risen, along with that came the associated changes.

Family responsibilities, house buying, drug addled befuddlery, long term incarceration, the Bermuda Triangle and quasi religious conversions had taken away many of the line up that had first laid eyes on Dodder Park. The hothouse development of youth had produced a vigorous crop of talent that now came to the fore. The increase in the number of female players made further demands on the squad. Whatever the changes, there was certainly a renewed energy in the Dynamoes' camp. New challenges, new teams, new faces, new t-shirts, original equipment, and modern funky dance routines - the Dynamoes were ready for the 90s.

The early 90s saw the Dynamoes reassert themselves as the team to beat. This was reflected in the string of titles that they notched up over the first few years. There was a prioritization of the competitions that still stands with the League and Knock out competitions being treated accordingly but a more relaxed approach towards everything else. Hence the ten-year ban from the Flyers Blitz for not showing up. Certainly the social expertise was being refined to a professional level despite the appointment of a teetotaler cop as a Captain. Standards were set that were going to be hard to top on all fronts. If you couldn't win then you made whoever did work pretty hard, either way there was always the competition of the lounge bar or the dance floor. As the decade progressed the competition grew and the toll on the players had increased. As the team was now over 10 years old some of the gang had had their fun and were prepared to let others carry the torch.

Reputations being what they were, recruitment of people who could slot right into the set-up was difficult. By the laws of natural selection this could only indicate a dwindling in the numbers. The lack of depth in the squad put hitherto unknown pressures on the Dynamoes and was directly blamed for the lack of a League or Cup victory in 1994, a first in the history of the Dynamoes and the newly named IBSA. Some new faces arrived and the 1995 Dynamoes, whilst clearly evidence that aliens live amongst us, stormed back to take the League title and the Cork Blitz (as it was then known) playing some really fantastic softball. Unfortunately this was to be the last League title that the Dynamoes would win in the 20th century.

The mid to late 90s saw plenty of change to softball in Ireland never mind the Dynamoes. The number of teams playing softball was growing, as were the number of competitions. The ratio for men to women on the playing field was slowly moving towards full co-ed 5:5. Having begun at 8:2, it stalled at 7:3 for several seasons before dropping to 6:4 and ultimately 5:5. Welcomed by many, the idea of swinging chicks still appeals, it made life difficult for some. The Dynamoes struggled to have a big enough squad to cope. Indeed at one stage there were a series of negotiations with the Fat Cats and the Wetsox regarding amalgamation. It didn't come to pass as the Dynamoes wanted to maintain their identity and had just enough players to get by.

The proposed amalgamation was however an indication of how the Dynamoes stock had risen off the field. The apparent addiction to be runners up in everything took some of the edge off their reputation. When combined with the fact that the Marlay Martyrs had become the team to dislike, this meant an awful lot of support for the Dynamoes at blitzes and playoffs that hadn't been there before. This was often more of a burden than anything else, as no-one else seemed capable of beating the Martyrs regularly , it was 1997 before another team (the Batpak) won the league.

The overall rise in ability and competitive standard in the IBSA proved difficult for the team. The lack of numbers at the Saturday game led to a drop in the intensity and a reliance on pulling games out of the bag rather than the traditional method of destroying the opposition. However, guests were always welcome and this provided for Saturday afternoons turning into Saturday nights on many an occasion. Garage flowers and cheap chocolates saved several marriages, only one of them being within the Dynamoes. The development of Baseball in Ireland and the fact that 4 of the Dynamoes made the first Irish National Baseball team in 1996 provided new contacts and introductions.

There was no doubt that the Dynamoes could be considered reasonably popular by this stage in their development. Sure they didn't win anything until 1999, they lost confidence in their invincibility by losing to teams who had never beaten them before, players came and went but couldn't change things - all signs of a team in decline. But during that period there were some wild and wonderful times - 10 in a bed romps, 3 day parties, sparkling new white shirts, fireworks, laughter and blasphemy - rock n roll was the order of the day and to hell with consequences. The Dynamoes became the team capable of beating anyone on the day but unable to sustain a standard of play, again a tag that they were to be stuck with.

The seasons from 1999 to 2001 brought further changes to the personnel as the number of Dynamoes began to grow again. There was also a return to the more focused approach to practice and the desire to win had begun to spark up again. There is no doubt about the quality of players available to the Dynamoes over the last three seasons. Representation at International level in Softball and Baseball during the period by no less than 9 of the current squad is a testament to this. There has also been a return to winning ways with a steady run of titles being picked up. Consistency is the problem for this squad; unlike the Dynamoes of old they aren't in the habit of winning but in the habit of almost winning. Mixing the brilliant with the ordinary has led to some frustrating moments but it has also led to some stunning play - the Barcelona of Irish Softball.

Consider also the extensive contribution that the Dynamoes have made to the now named Irish Baseball and Softball Federation. There has been a Dynamo presence at committee level for every aspect of the game from National Executive to Provincial to project specific. Not content with providing direction, support and results that have helped put the IBSF in the enviable position that it is, the Dynamoes have also a proven record in other faculties of the game. The provision of umpires and coaches from grass roots to International level has been a feature of the commitment of the Dynamoes to the IBSF and making sure that the federation continues to develop. The level of involvement has certainly led to the difficulties that are a feature of any volunteer organization, particularly the demands put on individuals in terms of time and character.

The 2002 season promises much. The Dynamoes have had to bid farewell to Dodder Park for a variety of reasons. The Parks Dept dragging their feet on a playing permit, objections from the other tenants of the pitch, the imposition of clamping restrictions for the tiny car park and the simple fact that the Park was becoming a bit too tight for modern softballs and bats. In the good old days the park seemed to be a comfortable size but with high velocity equipment the chances of beaning a biddy had greatly increased. As with all great clubs we had to move, but to where? After an exhaustive search, negotiations were begun with St Alexandra's College in Milltown, which appear to have borne fruit and the Dynamoes have a new home ground. New uniforms, new gear, new manager, new website - things are coming together - lets get it on!
 

The Footballers

No reminiscence about the Dodder Dynamoes and Dodder Park would be complete without mention of the Footballers. From the beginning there was a tricky relationship with the football teams that played out of Dodder Park. Initially viewing us as a novelty and a considerable source of amusement, they soon began to resent this constant intrusion on 'their' field. Adopting some shrewd, political arguments and maneuverings the footballers would wander across the field of play in an attempt to put us off. Another brilliant tactic was to try to line their pitch 4 hrs before kickoff and halt our play. The ignoring of the Park Dept.'s permits was also a consistent demonstration of the level of intelligence and high mindedness that we were dealing with. An uneasy truce had been in place for the last couple of seasons but they were always there and ultimately they won in that they complained so bitterly about this foreign game that the Parks Dept were reluctant to grant permits in the future. Despite an extremely eloquent presentation demonstrating that the team was part of a National Federation, with experienced international players of the highest caliber and regular competitions, those in the decision making position preferred to listen to a group of poorly skilled, small minded donkeys playing 20,000 leagues beneath the sea. We're not bitter, given other developments, and we wish them all the best for the future and we hope that the clampers don't punish them too much.

"Think only of the best, work only for the best and expect only the best"