Stephen Bradley recommends drastic change be made to League of Ireland calendar in order to aid European hopes
But the Hoops boss insisted those on the outside should not be allowed to hinder the club's progress as he again called for a shorter off-season.
Two decades ago, fans came together to buy the club after it had been placed in examinership with debts of €2.6million, much of which were written off.
And as he prepared for the second leg of their Conference League tie against St Joseph's, a dead rubber
He said: 'Coming from Jobstown, there were groups coming knocking at the door, 'Buy a brick', and a lot of them would have been from my road.
'What people have done for the club should never be forgotten and I'm sure it won't be.
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'I know stories of people putting their house down as guarantees, people paying wages out of their mortgage and that wasn't just a one-off, that was a regular occurrence.
'I hope those people are enjoying where the club is at the moment and the success that this team has brought them. They deserve it.
"They're the ones that fought to keep the club going and get into Tallaght. What we're doing today isn't possible without what those people did to make the club survive and then thrive.
'I hope they're sitting back and are proud of what they've achieved.'
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The club's biggest feat to date was to reach the knockout stages of the Conference League earlier this year.
But that brought what had already been a bugbear for Bradley into even sharper focus — the length of the League of Ireland off-season.
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There were 15 weeks between the final league game in 2024 and the first in 2025, high by international standards. Rovers played five European fixtures in between.
It will be an even bigger issue if
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And Bradley believes full-time clubs have to be facilitated rather than catering to those worried about the cost of an extended season.
He said: 'The days of part-time teams in the First Division having a voice on how the Premier Division operates should be long gone.
"It's ridiculous. We either want to be serious about taking the league forward or we don't. Having such a long off-season is silly. It's not going to be great, the weather, either end, that's fine.
'Everyone in the Premier Division this year is full-time. I understand that might change with Cork if they go down. But the mentality in the league has to be wanting to get better.
'I understand the financial implication but what do we want to do? Do we want to just stand still or do we want to go forward?
'The conversation has to be had about extending the season. I don't understand why it's not happening. There's scope there to go early February or late November, to move it at both ends.
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Bradley has been banging this drum for a while
'One of our problems last year was playing in European games deep and no competitive games in between. But it's not just because of us last year. I've been saying it for years.'
There is a further fixture issue for Rovers as if two Kosovan clubs, Ballkani and Prishtina, progress this evening, their league game against Derry City — scheduled for Sunday — will not go ahead.
Instead, they would be playing Ballkani on Tuesday. Bradley said: 'It's a bit of a strange one in terms of planning for the players.
'We just have to focus on the game, play it and see what comes.'
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