Dundalk - From European glory to the brink of ruin

It was eight years ago this month that Dundalk reached their zenith as a football club.

Ciaran Kilduff side-footed home from a Daryl Horgan cross to score the only goal against Maccabi Tel Aviv and Dundalk became the first and so far only League of Ireland team to win a game in the group stages of European competition.

A month beforehand, they had beaten BATE Borisov 3-0 on a rain-sodden evening in Tallaght, with long-standing supporters dissolving into tears of joy in the stands.

The win over Borisov took them to within one round of the Champions League group stage - the ultimate gated-off dream world - a feat which matched the expensively assembled Shelbourne side of 2004, which shocked Hadjuk Split before taking on Deportivo La Coruna in the final playoff round.

Two years after that game, Shels would meet their own financial armageddon, the debts accrued in chasing the European dream catching up with Ollie Byrne and his beloved club.

While Dundalk fell honourably short against Legia Warsaw - mustering a 1-1 draw in the away leg - they still had the exceptional fall-back of the Europa League group phase, already pocketed courtesy of the Borisov win.

Reaching the group phase was trippy enough, now it appeared a live prospect that they could go one further and reach the knockout phase altogether.

It was an astonishing turnaround for a club which four years earlier had been in danger of going to the wall. Owner and CEO Gerry Matthews, who bought Dundalk from a supporters co-op in the mid-2000s, announced that he was no longer in a position to put money into the club and sought expressions of interest.

Players wages went unpaid, results deteriorated, crowds fell precipitously. A supporters' trust was established to urgently raise