"The History of Dundalk F.C. - The First 100 Years", is the definitive story of one of Ireland's most successful and famous Assocation Football clubs.

Founded in 1903 as the Great Northern Railway Works team, the club was a founder member of the first Dundalk and District League in 1906. Reformed after the First World War, they played in both the Dundalk and the Newry District Leagues. In 1922 they were admitted to membership of the Leinster Senior League, which was the stepping-stone to membership of the Free State League for the 1926-27 season.

Renamed Dundalk FC after a couple of years, the club has unbroken membership of the League in the past 77 seasons, a record shared with only two other members of the League at that time, Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians.

Dundalk FC has a rich history, with almost 50 trophy wins, including 9 League Championships and 1 First Division Championship, and has contested 14 FAI Cup Finals. In 2002 it won the FAI Cup for the 9th time. Almost 100 of its players have received representative honours for Ireland and the League of Ireland. In the 1970s the club had an outstanding record in European competition at its home venue, Oriel Park, being undefeated at home for five years playing against top opposition from PSV Eindhoven, Hadjuk Split, Glasgow Celtic, FC Porto and Tottenham Hotspur.

The story of the club is not of course exclusively about trophies and glory—the club’s most regular visitor over the past century has been crisis, not honours. For most of the club’s existence it has been losing money —penury and not trophies has been its most constant companion. Financial adversity and the responses to it has been the cement that has bound the trinity of officials, players and supporters together.

The survival of the club into its Centenary Year, and the joy and pride that the institution has brought to several generations of Dundalk people, ranks above all else as a testimony to its greatest achievement. The sheer fact of its survival for 100 years, in the face of its difficulties, in its own way is a small miracle.

The author, who first visited Oriel Park in the mid 1940's, for his sins spent a number of years on the management board of the club as Financial Controller and Editor of the matchday programme.

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