And so it was that the controlling family in the club, the Kilcoynes, decided to sell Rovers' famous old ground in Milltown, Glenmalure Park, and move to Tolka Park for the following season.

They hadn't banked on the special allure the 'jaded old shithole' had for League of Ireland and Rovers fans and a groundswell of support quickly built up to try and stop the ground being sold.

People like Bono and Maureen O'Hara popped up declaring themselves to be Rovers fans; pickets and demonstrations were held and the Kilcoynes had to have police protection during the few remaining games of the season. Keep Rovers At Milltown (KRAM) was born.

Fast forward 19 years. It's 2006 and Ireland is a different country to that of 1987. Houses are the new gold and it's become a Wild West with speculators and developers looking to get their hands on property, any property in Dublin, all looking to make a killing.

In north Dublin, close to the city, lies Phibsboro, an expanding suburb with a growing immigrant population and increasing demand for housing. And in the heart of Phibsboro lies another jaded old shithole that has been struggling on its feet for the past 25 years. One side of the terracing lies decrepit and overgrown with grass, while patched efforts at modernisation are testament to the hotch-potch progress attempted in recent times.

This used to be the home of Irish international soccer. A place that saw magical nights and the debuts of some of Ireland's greatest ever players . . .

Carey, Giles, Brady et al. If Milltown held a special place for the League of Ireland then 'Dalyer' was close to all Irish soccer hearts. Dalyer was the soul of the Irish game long before Lansdowne Road was a twinkle in the FAI's eye.

But then it came, in May 2006. . . the inevitable, really.

Seeing a golden opportunity, a developer swept in and offered cash plus a brand spanking new stadium somewhere out there on the edge of Dublin (but close to the M50 don't you know). This wasn't just millions either. We were talking tens of millions. And so it was done . . . 105 years of history washed away with the signing of a cheque.

And the reaction? A vote 86% in favour from Bohemians' members for the sale of the ground. Back-page news the next day and then on to other matters shortly after that. A muted murmur and whisper of opposition but that was all. There were no Bonos and Maureen O'Haras coming out of the woodwork to announce their proud allegiance to the ground, no protests or demonstrations, just a meeting of the club members which voted overwhelmingly in favour while, on the outside, the rest of the Irish soccer public just shrugged their shoulders and, in the Ireland of 2006 where houses are the new currency, merely said 'that's progress'.

Was it a statement of how far from our history and heritage we had come? Or was it more a statement of intent that showed just how irrelevant the League of Ireland had become in Irish people's eyes?

It's 1987 and Liam Christie, a Shamrock Rovers fan, is chairman of the Keep Rovers At Milltown campaign. Over the next two years, he is central in keeping the campaign on the front pages, involving everyone from ordinary people to politicians to pop stars and even the pope in a desperate bid to save Milltown.

As he regales you with his tales . . . some taller than others . . . of those hectic years, he does so with a laughter in his voice. Despite losing the war, along the way Christie accumulated a bank of stories to last a lifetime, and memories that will go on even longer.

"The campaign took off very quickly, " he explains. "We were getting money in as quick as possible from everybody . . . supporters on the ground, supporters away in America and England. They even got a publicity firm involved, very much like, say, a politician would do, and the whole campaign was to get as much publicity as they could in the newspapers, on the television and on the radio, to get it everywheref I don't know what it was that saw it take off. It seemed to be just one of those things. But it was organised very well. We had a public relations machine and I never knew anything about these things, I was just an ordinary Joe Soap, but the politics of things amazed me.

"Then there were the Rovers families that were split down the middle over it. Some supporters would refer to it as the Civil War. I know there was one household with four or five of them who went to all the Rovers matches but two of them decided to pass the picket and go into the matches and the others wouldn't, and there was a civil war in their house. They weren't speaking to each other. There were loads of incidents like that and best friends falling out over it because they passed the picket. It was crazy."

Ultimately the KRAM campaign failed and the Rovers ground was sold. Houses now stand as testament to the developers' success. But now it's 2006 and things in this country have gone farther than anyone could have imagined. Dalymount Park, the place where the old ghosts of Irish soccer meet, is to be turned into a housing development too.

And the battle? The campaigns and the opposition?

It's being waged in our hearts and souls as we sell ourselves for another dollar. As the crowds stay away and the interest keeps on waning, the League of Ireland stares into the future. Will its real legacy be the 'For Sale' signs going up on its grounds around the country as the developers move in?

Let's leave the last word to Con Houlihan, who summed it up best all those years ago in 1987. His words still ring true today.

"And so Glenmalure Park is to be developed. It is a symptom of our times that this word is employed to give respectability to vandalism.

Seemingly faceless men have sold it to other faceless men who will wipe out the loveliest football stadium in the island to placate their greed. And silly people who imagine themselves to be pillars of wisdom will nod sagely and say it had to happen. Their judgement will be based on the word 'money', a term which they invoke in such a way that it seems man's master rather than his servant.

And Dublin Corporation will no doubt do nothing to frustrate what they deem progress . . . the massive own goal perpetrated on Wood Quay is their trademark. 'People need offices' . . . that was the corporation's theme during the debate. 'People need houses' will be the new pearl of wisdom. And of course people need offices and houses . . .

they also need green spaces, if only to look at them.

"And I suppose the League's continued existence is something of a miracle. I would be very sad if it died. It is hardly the most glamorous competition in the football world but it has aspects that are peculiarly its own, including the scent of Bovril at Tolka Park and the pigeons in Dalymount and the intrepid wellingtoned men who fish the ball out of the river at Emmet Road. I suspect that Shamrock Rovers have sufficient prestige and goodwill to survive the exodus. And yet the loss will be enormous: for me Milltown without Rovers will be like the bed of a river that has dried up forever."

With the silent acquiescence to the sale of League of Ireland grounds in recent times, does this mean that the once mighty river that was the league is also now about to dry up?

'Who Stole Our Game? The Fall & Fall of Irish Soccer', by Daire Whelan (Gill & Macmillan), is available now