Title decider warrants memorable game
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Emmet Malone On Soccer
Football seasons can be tricky things to call, as just about anyone who has ever been put in the position has usually learned from bitter experience. One of my own worst calls in this department came a few years back when I arrived a little early at Terryland Park for the first game of the league campaign to find the place pretty much deserted and the stadium Tannoy blasting out Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up.
Asked why he had played the song the guy in charge of the tape recorder and public address system pointed to a mischievously grinning teenager a few feet away and blankly answered, "because he asked me to". The start of the 2000/01 championship I think that was and after another close season full of upbeat talk about increased professionalism on and off the pitch, my heart sank as I concluded, that this might not after all turn out to be the greatest of years on the Eircom League beat. Some eight months later Bohemians wrapped up an exhilarating title race on the last day by beating Kilkenny 5-0 away while Shelbourne lost 1-0 at home to Cork City. Even after picking the wrong game to attend, a knack I have long since perfected in such circumstances, it was hard not to head for home with the feeling you were fortunate to witness such a great tussle close up.
This year, I would have bet a good proportion of my possessions on Shelbourne at least being in the final shakedown for the title but, fortunately for me, there is only one match to be at this Friday if you want to see the title decided and the Dubliners are not involved.
If you were inclined to be greedy about it you might wish that Pat Fenlon's side hadn't briefly come off the rails between mid-May and mid-June and that we had been treated to a three-way battle at the top of the table over the past few months. What Derry and Cork have offered by way of endeavour, endurance and entertainment since they moved clear together at the top of the table, though, should really be enough for anyone.
It's a little hard to credit now but neither of the managers involved, Damien Richardson and Stephen Kenny, is playing with a squad that he himself assembled and so their achievement in getting this close to a league success seems all the more remarkable.
Richardson undoubtedly inherited a strong group from Pat Dolan at Turner's Cross but the approaches employed by their respective teams down the years have tended to be significantly different. With Richardson there has always appeared to be less of an emphasis on industry or organisation - both central planks of the Dolan philosophy. And having taken City over just a matter of days before the new campaign got under way, the former Shelbourne and Rovers boss has had to gently nudge his players into a slightly more adventurous style of football while trying to retain what it was about the team that enabled them to finish last season so strongly.
He has coped remarkably well with the situation, not least in the wake of Kevin Doyle's departure for Reading after which, contrary to general expectations, Cork's league strike-rate actually improved. His problem at this stage, however, is that after leading the title race for so long it will be difficult for Richardson to sell the club's supporters, as he tried to last week, the idea that qualification for the Uefa Cup represents a successful year. Anything less than the win on Friday that would bring the title back to Cork for the first time in a dozen years and even victory over Drogheda two weeks later in the cup final will seem like rather meagre consolation.
Outside of the club there is a great deal of good will towards Richardson and many neutrals will be hoping he wins the title that eluded him at Shelbourne. He has his critics too, though, and there are a couple of other managers who are likely to take very public pleasure in the event that another strong position ends up coming to nothing.
Kenny, one suspects, would emerge from even a defeat with his reputation very much intact for he has brought Derry much further much faster than anyone could reasonably have expected.
He has added relatively little in terms of new players to a panel that hadn't been good enough to finish in the top half of the table in recent years but has succeeded in extracting vastly improved performances from those already there.
People like Killian Brennan, Ciarán Martyn and Gary Beckett have excelled this year, thriving on a lively, fearless brand of football while Mark Farren and David Forde have both come close to being the best at their positions in the league.
Collectively, the two sides have, against the odds, managed to exclude Shelbourne from the top two for the first time since 1999 and not just because last year's champions hit the rocks for five games. The points per game ratio achieved by Pat Fenlon's side this year would have had them there or thereabouts almost every other season during the last decade and won it for them rather comfortably once or twice during that time but the march of the top two has been close to relentless and only the 73 points earned by St Patrick's in '98-99, when they beat Cork into second place by three points, has been on a par in recent times with what they racked up.
The hugely improved attendances at their home games have been generated in part by the success but more significantly by the brand of football being produced. An exception, perhaps, was the cup game between the two at Turner's Cross a few weeks back, in less than ideal conditions, which was decided by a late penalty.
The bulk of the 7,000 southerners who have secured tickets for this week's game would surely settle for something similar. As for the rest of us, it could be just the greed kicking in again, but there's a feeling that a memorable season should be decided by an unforgettable game.
No pressure, though, lads. No pressure.
© The Irish Times
