Irish Cup

League Cup, the Gold Cup final, we were in the League Cup.

We were in the Irish Cup semi-final, which I turned up to the wrong ground for.

I turned up, we were playing at the Oval.

Hold on a minute.

He could tell you a few.

I could, you know, but as I say, good people to be around and a good club at that time.

But we ended up winning the Irish Cup that year and getting into Europe.

And that was part of my decision to stay.

that's the only thing that I'm hopeful for you know we don't get up there and get spanked four or five but that seems to be a team that could easily put that number of goals past you I hope not I won't be there it's too tight a turn around to get the bus up I think the supporters bus leaves in the quarter to six or something I just can't make that in time so it'll be on the recliner a couple of setters and BBC

Hayden just off the back of what Mo has said there I was thinking about the game today and you know how on earth do we go about beating this team? And my mind immediately went back to the Irish Cup final against Lorne.

I think it was in the COVID season where Lorne were probably a better team than us then.

It was played in Moranview and I didn't get to go to the game but I watched it on TV and if I remember correctly the team set up with no playing out from the back.

So I came back from Australia and ended up having a really good season with Glen Thorne.

And I think it was the Irish Cup final.

We played Linfield and I think...

Rangers with her and I didn't know.

But yeah, there's been massive improvements and I think each year it gets better.

Yeah.

So, I think the Irish League as well, like the Irish Cup, I love the Irish Cup.

Yeah, yeah.

We're putting on in 12, 13, 14, 15 games.

winning streaks but if you go back to when we lost that Irish Cup game to Lorne last season since then we've played 18 competitive games and we've failed to win in 12 of them so it's sort of a, it dates back longer than just the start of this season and there is a lot of points still to play for and perhaps he would have put forward the possibility that he could turn it around and put the points on the board but it is his decision and all he is right he is a man of integrity he's he's a he's a very um he's a very passionate manager and i think that it's probably the right time for not just glent horn but for for deckton as well i've seen this story play out many many times and he's leaving with the best wishes of many glent horn supporters Obviously, we heard Mick McDermott's name sang from the terraces in those early days.

But Declan is the first manager in a long time that Glen Torn fans have really bought into from the stands and thought that he could deliver something.

And he became within a whisker of doing so.

And this season, he hasn't let himself down at all.

He played left back at the weekend, but, you know, As a centre-half, he hasn't let himself down at all.

And I feel sorry for him, you know, approaching no doubt with the end of his career at the age that he is and looking around him and saying, you know, I won two Irish Cups with Glenthorne when they didn't have 2D to rub together and here we are now.

Ali's £5 million deep the biggest budget a Glen Torn manager's ever had and it looks like he's not going to get that league title that he so much craves so I don't blame Tim for going out and doing the interview that he did and there's no doubt that the players need to really rally round and lift spirits here

So, yeah, it's been a really good start.

But it's probably a culmination of, you know, really the efforts of last season, that big push to finish second, took the league title to the final day, won in the Irish Cup.

Then a lot of the members of that squad now have a taste of winning, added to the players that have already won elsewhere, like Joel Cooper, for example.

And then our recruitment I thought was really good in the summer.

Look, bigger challenges may come, as you mentioned, but...

they have the points in the bag they obviously show for it and the early if you look at last season I think Dugganon I think maybe lost their first four or five yeah so think of where they could have been potentially in the table if they had actually picked up points in those games

is what you're saying is that Portadown fans should be looking at Dungannon last season and think maybe we too can finish in the top six and get to the Irish Cup final or are we talking about two very different teams

Yeah, I think maybe two different things.

And, you know, very quickly, those folks become kind of ingrained in developing football in Dublin, as well as developing the club.

So... uh those early years like they were playing on the polo grounds in the phoenix park for the first three years then we play at jones's road sports ground which is probably now better known as crow park which is the home of the ga the largest stadium in ireland 83 000 capacity i think right there for a couple years and then we move a little bit further out of the city to an area called whitehall which is just near glass 7th cemetery for people who know dublin well but that at the time is a bit peripheral but we're still growing and growing and by that stage you know we've had players capped by ireland We've gotten to Irish Cup finals.

And then 1901, we moved to Dalyman Park.

And that's a huge game changer because we get a kind of long-term lease on it.

And he's a tailor.

And he pays the first three months' rent out of his own pocket because he knows that there's a huge growth in football.

There's a story that goes that both play Linfield in the Irish Cup semifinal.

And when they're playing out in Whitehall, which is quite removed from the city centre at the time, it has gate receipts of £39, which doesn't sound like much, but it was huge money in 1900.

and then...

We played Linfield on the Saturday and the Irish Cup got beat and we played them then on the Tuesday in the League Cup and we beat them 3-2 and then I think he went on a bad run of maybe five, six losses and then he got sacked and then David Jeffery came in.

And then I was then put down in the reserves.

And then it was the last game of the season.

Yeah, I get your point with the players, but I think the players has its own history because it's the players' championship.

And I think what they could do is have the players... kind of promote that as we get to choose how things work do you know but like you get in england like football and i've compared a lot to football today which i don't normally do but um my fantasy football team is all over the shaft but uh it's like like the fa cup and the the carabao cup like they're run by the fa both very different hockey is the same but singing there as you're saying it like the irish senior cup is something that's really special and any hockey player that has coached or played first like it's the Irish Senior Cup AIG Irish Senior Cup actually there you go shameless plug is the oldest knockout competition the oldest hockey knockout competition in the world no other country is older so like that's and it's special but there's also the EY All Ireland playoffs and there's to keep them both there used to be a qualification for Europe on each one and The Irish Cup had the history and you got to the B division, but then this new playoff to try and create a spectacle was brought in to try and get your A division spot, your champs.

So there is kind of ways to do it.

But I think you're right.