The only reason I’m writing this is because I’ve been asked a few times what I was getting at when I mentioned Showcases. It all had to do with a dream concept I came very close to realising. Then the dream perished, for reasons that are irrelevant now.
But whereas Martin Luther King is dead, brutally gunned down, I’m still alive and, if not kicking, fit and training as hard as ever.
My dream began in the early 1990s, and was centred on the concept of setting up The World International Soccer Museum. It would have been the first of its kind anywhere in the world, and was to be located four miles from the centre of Galway City.
Discussions were held with major football organisations and leading international figures in football. The proposal got unanimous and enthusiastic support from F.I.F.A. and the F.A.I., and from top football figures like Pele, Sir Bobby Charlton, Cruyff, Paul McGrath, and Ray Houghton, to name but a few.
At the time a consulting group prepared our specially commissioned Business Plan, we had already amassed enough memorabilia (jerseys, boots, medals, programmes, autographed photographs etc.) to fill 22 international soccer Showcases.
The museum would be housed in a 2-storey, architect-designed, 9,000 square foot building shaped like a football stadium. And it was predicted that it would become a major visitor attraction, international as well as local and national.
Sadly, on the cusp of being brought to fruition, the project suffered fatal failure, and the dream died. No names. No pack drill. But it is my hope that this short account will have cleared up the mystery of the Showcases.
