Come on the Hoops! Tales from the East Stand

THE greatest (and only) Shamrock Rovers podcast makes its stage debut for the first time ever, over seven years after it initially airs.

‘Tales From The East Stand’ Live Show took to the main stage at The Civic in Tallaght last week.

In an engaging and participatory event for all Hoops fans, the show included special visitors from the TFTES Universe who connected the current and historical hall of fames: the Hoops heroes of 1987 and 2023.

We sat down with Gary, Karl, current player Aaaron Greene, and former player John Coady to discuss the podcast and Civic performance.

How did this live performance in the Civic come about?

Gary: We’ve been doing live performances for a while as regards small venues: Player of the Year Awards, live podcasts, and stuff like that.

We started off in my Da’s bar, in the shed, and Johnny Blues in Crumlin.

So we started off doing that, and we just wanted to go a little bit further.

Plus, one of the lads, Stephen Jones – one of the thespians from around here – put us onto it, and said: “You should give it a go”.

It just went from there, snowballed, so we’re flying from there on in.

But we’ve been doing them for years now with regards to live shows in the four provinces, a couple of hotels and stuff like that, and just having little small ventures here and there. That’s how it started.

What kind of work would usually be involved in preparing for an episode of the podcast?

Gary: Karl does it all.

I just turn up whenever we decide to do it, and we just go through the script, and then we’ll just spitball from there.

Whatever happens, happens, but normally with the live shows, which don’t happen that often, we’d come up with something together.

Other than that, Karl would be getting the likes of Aaron Greene or John Coady on for an interview, and having a chat with them.

Are there any up-and-coming players to watch out for?

John: I wish Gideon Tetteh had more opportunities, I really do.

I don’t understand why he hasn’t been thrown into the deep end a few times.

From what I’ve seen of him, I think he has real potential.

Gary: I don’t think we can look past who Karl mentioned as well – Naj Razi.

From what we’ve seen, he’s years, if not light years, ahead of anything I’ve ever seen at that age.

And being able to step into the men’s game like that as well, I think, is huge.

In Cork, the last game of the season, Conan Noonan was my Man-of-the-Match.

Conan seems to me like Ronan Finn used to be years ago in the middle of the park, being able to play up and down; a great engine, two feet.

He takes corners with both feet.

So yeah, Conan Noonan and Naj Razi would be the two up-and-coming players for me.

So Rovers got the four-in-a-row!

Gary: Big one.

It’s something that doesn’t happen. I think we spoke about this before.

Me and Karl always talked about it on the show, saying that it doesn’t happen that often in football in general all around the world.

It’s very, very rare.

Aaron: I actually don’t think it’s hit home for us as players, maybe fans might be different.

But it still hasn’t, because we’re still not done, really. And I’m not saying that as a cliché.

We don’t do it in this group.

Even when I met Karl and Gary before, I said we’re not happy with four; it’s unbelievable that we have four, but our aim is to go for five.

So it’s incredible that we have it, but it hasn’t sunk in yet.

Like even me and Ronan, we were friends for a number of years, and even though we didn’t play together, we kind of started in the league together.

And when I came to Rovers, I would always hear about “four-in-a-row.”

I lived directly across the road from Pat Byrne’s brother Terry, so we heard about it every day, even when I didn’t play for Rovers, so it still hasn’t sunk in.

Gary: And I think to touch on how important it really was, we obviously have a social media presence as well.

So a company called Match in a Minute got in touch with us.

And they wanted to document the last four games. This was before we crossed the line. And their documentary came out on December 28, so this is a cheap plug.

But they’re brilliant, brilliant filmmakers. And they just touched base before fans, and they wanted to film the four-in-a-row. It’s called ‘Twice in a Lifetime’.

It’s absolutely brilliant. Wait until you see it.

What are the plans for the podcast and/or club in general next year?

I’m assuming the five-in-a-row!

Gary: Yeah, definitely, the five-in-a-row. Maybe even a double. So, like Aaron spoke about, they’re hungry for more.

And the podcast is going to go from strength to strength, I think.

It’s really re-invigorated us with regards to going together as a team and doing what we can.

I think the Player of the Year awards will be hosted across the road, and the Maldron was a big thing for us. And it gave us a taste of this type of thing.

Plus, Karl is a theatre fiend. And he loves a bit of theatre. This is Karl’s bucket list. He’s been dying to get on stage.

As a partnership and a duo going forward, this is a brilliant opportunity for us to be able to express ourselves on a wider platform as well. It’s a challenge that we’re looking forward to.

It’s not just me and Karl sitting in the ‘Lair’ recording anymore!

Karl: I would like to say that we’ve interviewed everyone we need to, but players retire and new ones come in, so there’s always something new!

Gary: We had Aaron on for the ‘Greener Cast’ and it was the most popular podcast we’ve ever put out there because it was honest, it was brutal, and it was to-the-point.

Those things can always happen again because, over time, things develop.

We’ve won the four-in-a-row now; we can stick Aaron back for ‘Greener Cast 2’ and still get the crazy ratings, which it’s not all about.

It’s about content and what we want to put out there in the atmosphere, but there’s always going to be content because things keep happening.

Finally, who would you like to thank for helping the podcast get to The Civic?

Gary: Karl has to get a massive shout-out; he doesn’t get enough love.

It started off in my mam’s shed, and then it just went from there, but once you give Karl something, he gets a little taste, and he just keeps going with it, going with it, and going with it.

We’ve really grown as a podcast as regards to content, live shows, relationships with players, and stuff like that.

We would also like to thank our sponsors, Stephen Jones, Ray Wilson, Ocean Electrical, Craig Matton, all the players, and just generally anyone who’s contributed and helped us with the podcast along the way.