Twelfth Night

Waterford will be looking for a first win at the twelfth time of asking tomorrow night after a run of four draws and seven defeats so far. Very few teams have ever gone that far into a Premier Division season without tasting victory and none have survived, so the task facing the Blues is already stark.

Two years ago, Dundalk had to wait until their twelfth game before finally securing three points. That was a 2-0 home win against Bohemians in Noel King’s first match in charge on the 26th of April. Dundalk began that season with Stephen O’Donnell as manager and finished it with Jon Daly at the helm. They, ultimately, ended the season bottom and relegated with a tally of five wins.

UCD’s 2023 campaign only garnered two wins and eleven total points. Their first win arrived in matchweek ten (14th of April) when they beat Cork City 1-0 at Belfield. The Students finished twenty points behind Cork who were also relegated when they lost the playoff final to Waterford.

Bray Wanderers ended their 2018 drought with a 1-0 win at home to Shamrock Rovers in game eleven on the 16th of April. Ronan Coughlan scored the only goal of that match, but Bray were eventually relegated - finishing bottom with just five wins and fully 24 points from safety. That brought to an end a fourteen-year stay in the top flight and they have yet to return.

 

Alan Cawley ended the drought in 2006

The last Premier Division club to go longer than the 2026 Blues without a win was Athlone Town in 2014. It took until the Midlanders’ fourteenth league game to get a victory - 2-0 at home to UCD on the 23rd of May. Athlone finished bottom and the League of Ireland’s oldest club has spent the past twelve seasons in the First Division.

This, however, isn’t the Blues’ worst start to a season yet. In 2006, Waterford went the first twenty-one league games without a win. Alan Cawley scored the only goal in a remarkable 1-0 win away to St Pat’s on the 1st of September to break the duck six months into the season. It wasn’t enough to avoid finishing bottom of the league with a total of two wins.

Kilkenny City famously only won one game in the 2000/1 Premier Division season, but that lone victory was as early as their third game of the season on the 25th of August. If we want to take some omen from that, it came against Galway United.

If Waterford are to create history by being the first team to stay up without a win in their first ten-plus league games, then it needs to start tomorrow night by beating Galway. Hopes are fading fast and the despair amongst fans is palpable. A home match with all of the RSC backing the Blues is the best opportunity we have. Time to start making history!