Chris Todd's - Land of Tod-Drogheda

Released by Swansea at the end of the 2001-2 season, Chris soon found a new club on the Emerald Isle - Drogheda.

A local lad, Toddy still keeps up with the news of the Swans through this website and, in the past, has written several articles here on his coaching adventure in Pennsylvannia.

Toddy was asked if he'd give us an insight into his new life in Ireland - and agreed like a shot.


His article appears below.

When I first got here, I stayed in a B&B for a few days until I got something else sorted out. We moved into a cottage in the centre of Drogheda and are happy there. Lynda has a job in a travel agent's office in Dublin and gets the train in every day. She likes it. It's a great experience for her as well.

I found an email place in town that works out at only one euro for fifteen minutes.

I've now played in 4 games and I am starting in defence partnered with Aiden Lynch. He played for the Republic of Ireland Under 20 squad in the World Cup in Malaysia in 1997. His brother Damien is with Leeds and plays for their reserves. Lynch and I are building a good partnership.

There are two players here who I really rate highly, Gary Rogers a goalkeeper who is the best handler of the ball I've seen, and Declan O'Brien (Fabeo) the goal scorer. He's very fast and has a great knowledge of the game. Both are only 21 or 22 years of age and both are professionals from Ireland. Drogheda has moved to all-pros after being promoted this year. We still have a few players who are not yet pros.

The Irish Premier League is of a very good standard, with most of the clubs being all professionals. The games are a lot quicker than back home, but they do give the ball away more, so the games are more open like a basketball game -- up and down and up and down.

Training is on a full time basis. It's super. We have training Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday with just the pros. On Wednesdays, we train with all the squad together in the evening. We play our games on Friday nights, have Saturday off, and train full squad on Sunday.

It's been really good in the pro training. We have our own coach, Noel King. He is very qualified with all his badges and he lives up to that. Training is very technical, with very good drills, all with the ball. He works with small numbers of players, around 10. That's how you know he's good. What's especially good is that we have more attention from him.

The games are all hard battles. It seems like a derby every Friday night. We are doing well at the moment, in mid-table as I write this.

Last week we played Bohemians and lost 3-1. What a disappointment. We played very well and the contest was closer than the score suggests, as they are in first place and the best team in the league. We went down after about 10 minutes. It was a disgrace because he was a mile off side. I think he was pitching a tent out there, that's how far he was offside. The refereeing over here is not as good as it is back home, but it is the same for both teams. We pulled one back 17 minutes later and should have gone in front but just were not able to. After half time came we were matching them until about 20 minutes into the second half when they made a goal out of nothing and killed the game.

We were so gutted as we had played so well and matched them all the way so we were in fourth place going into last night's game against Derry. It would be tough as they had had 4 wins in a row. The game started with us really taking the game to them and we went 1-0 up in the first 5 minutes and dominated for 40 minutes until they had one chance in the first half and scored. So we went in half time gutted as you can imagine. The second half was very tight until we gave a silly goal away. We had some great chances to get back into it. I moved into right back and got forward a lot and was enjoying myself and nearly set up a goal. I put in a good cross.only for it to be cleared off the line and behind for a corner. So the game finished 2-1 and once again we were so close but not good enough, so we must raise our game for the tie against Shelborn next Friday. Let's hope we can get back to winning ways.

We have played some very good opponents and done well. We are getting better every day as the team keeps improving. The supporters are great. It's not like the Vetch, naturally, ha ha, but it's good support.

Some other news not from Drogheda.

My brothers are doing well. Thomas has signed with Llanelli where he goes to college in the mornings and trains in the afternoons. James has signed with the Swans and is doing well. He trains with the YTS on certain days instead of going to school. I used to do the same thing which was good for me because I wasn't very academic.

There are now four ex-Swans playing in Ireland. Jamie Harris and Tony Bird play for St. Patrick's, and Matty Gregg, who was on loan from Crystal Palace a few years back, plays for Bray Wanderers.

If you have any questions about Irish football or my experience over here, I'd be glad to try to answer them. Just email them to toddy@scfc.co.uk.

[I have asked my "personal editor," Tony Santore, to edit this (especially my spelling) because I don't want my old teachers to have a heart attack if they read it!]

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