FAI Ford Cup Final - Bohs Win On Penalties

Absolutely gutted.

I've been to a number of games where Derry have won on penalties and it was a great feeling, but losing on them is the opposite side of the coin, devastated after the match, and I'd say the players feel even worse losing on penalties. Gutted.

Well, the big day itself got off to a stuttering start, I headed in to Connolly to meet Scoops to get theDART out to Lansdowne, ended up getting a lift into the station, leaving me way ahead of schedule, and the bar in the train station wasn't open, bummer or what, OK it might have been only 10.50am but a drink wouldn't have went a miss.

So headed out towards the RDS area with Scoops and meet up with Ciaran, Big Daddy and The Hitman at around 11.50am, outside of Paddy Cullens, which didn't open until 12.30pm - real run of bad luck with the bars yesterday. So we ended up across the street in Madigans??? (not to sure about the name of the pub), where the Twins Neil & Darren joined us and the beer started to flow, about an hour and a half after my first sneaky beer of the morning before leaving the house.

We then headed over to Paddy's after a while, and ran into a few heads down from Derry (the bar most have made a killing). Photos from the bar and the match can be found here - http://picasaweb.google.com/willymccann/20081123FAIFordCupFinal.

Well, before heading over to the RDS, the pre-match cocktail had to be bought - which was great fun ordering in a packed bar, so we went for a simple one - Bailyes & Creme de Mont - lovely stuff, and great fun asking the barmaid for 8 of them, that round coming in at just under 80 quid.

So over to the RDS it was, we were in the Anglesea Stand, and I'd have to say it was a marked improvement in the RDS from the Cup Final last year, with the Grandstand up.

I won't do a match report, as I'm still pissed off about it and would end up having to censor it 10 times over, but one can be found here - http://www.derrycityfc.net/season/08/news/displaystory.php?storyid=411.

2-2 after 120 minutes of play, with us conceding a soft goal and a dodgy penalty. Both teams had great chances to win it in extra-time with both keepers making excellent stops, so it came down to penatlies - which I just read their now was the first time in 88 years that the FAI Cup was decided on penatlies - by jesus didn't we pick a bad time to lose.

Derry scored 3 and had two saved by Brian Murphy, the Bohs keeper - and their hero on the day, and Bohs scored 4 and missed 1 to lift the cup.

Stilled bloody gutted about the result, but it was one hell of a game to be at, with the attendance around the 10000 mark - with people reckoning it was close to a 50-50 still on fans with the odd neutral in the crowd as well.

I couldn't stay to watch the medals being given out, as I would have been standing there going fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. So it was back over to Paddy Cullen's for a few beer and also to try and get the feet warmed up, as mine felt likes blocks of ice.

And of course, yours truely had a deck of cards, so a wee game of Maverick was got going, with Big Daddy lifting the biggest pot of the day, around €16, and me not recoving too well from bets placed before the match.

There was a good bit of banter in the bar with both Derry & Bohs fans, the way it should be really, and I lived up my nickname "The Child" when I fell asleep in a packed bar - it is a true skill with which I am gifted. Afte that, it was a taxi hoome, after a great day out, just the result didn't go our way.

Absolutely gutted.

But with the performance the team put in, it can only give us hope for the new season, which at the minute is a bloody long way off, but bring it on.

C'mon the Candy Stripes

FAI Ford Cup Final - Game On

Well, 7 months after my last post, I get the finger out to post again. This will be the pre-match post for the final, the post match post will hopefully come sometime Monday(ish).

Date: Sunday 23rd November
Time: 3.00pm
Place: RDS Dublin

The season finally, the FAI Ford Cup Final see the mighty Candy Stripes take on the Bohs, in what should be one hell of an entertaining match. Bohs come into the game in impressive form after coasting to the League Title ahead of Pats in 2nd and Derry in 3rd, and are now chasing the cup for a League & Cup double.

Derry are chasing a Cup double after winning the League Cup for a 4th successive time against Wexford Youths, and go into the game knowing that they are the only team Bohs have failed to beat this year, we've played 4, won 2, draw 2. We drew 0-0 home and away in the League, won 1-0 away in the league and won 4-1 in the League Cup in the Brandywell.

Well, role on the Final, the buzz around the supporters and on Derry City Chat is something else.

The Dublin SC have planned to meet up in Paddy Cullens Bar in Ballsbridge for 11.30am-12pm tomorrow to get the vocal cords lubricated for the match. And following on from traditions of going to other matches, we will be having cocktails just before heading up to the RDS to cheer on the Candy Stripes.

Those in attendance will be

• Big Daddy
• The Hitman
• Scoops
• The Child
• The Twins
• Ciaran

Well role on 3pm Sunday. My bet for the match is Mark Farren to score first & Derry City to win 2-0, 90/1 odds in Boylesports, but I don't care what the result, as long as the FAI Ford Cup has to make a long journey up to Derry after the match.

C'mon the City

Finn Harps Poll - The Votes Are In

Well, the votes are in for the Finn Harps poll, with a massive 16 people voting, all 5 options got voted on and here are the results

9 Points - GD +7 = 11 Votes (68%)
9 Points - GD +5 = 2 Votes (12%)
9 Points - GD +6 = 1 Vote (6%)
9 Points - GD +4 = 1 Vote (6%)
9 Points - GD +3 = 1 Vote (6%)

After Friday night we are still on course to get 9 points off Harps, with Derry winning 2-1. Was listening to the match on iCandy - which is one hell of a service if you can't make it to the games. So a big that's go out to Niall and Maribor Kev for the commentary on the match.

So in are first 2 league games we've scored in the last 10 minutes to win the games. I think it was in the 2005 season when we lost out to Cork on the last day that we picked up a lot of points in the last 10 minutes with the team pressing hard right up to the final whistle to get goals, so it's a good habit to have if we need it.

Next up is Cork away on Good Friday, and thankfully RTE will be showing the game live, as I can't make it to it. Cork's always a tough place to go. In the last 4 seasons we've been down there 6 times in the league and have come away with 3 points, 3 draws and 3 loses. Cork are yet to win in the league with a 0-0 draw at home to Bray on the opening day and a 1-1 draw with Rovers on Friday night past, so it makes for one hell of an interesting game.

C'mon the Candystripes!

This Time Last Week

7 days later I actually get the finger out to do up a report on the Linfield game.

Well this time last week the spirits were up, I was in work getting ready to hit the road to meet up with Big Daddy to head up to Belfast. In a great mood, the league had just kicked off with Derry winning at UCD. Walking into work, flicking through the radio stations on Richmond Road, yeah the road of Tolka Park, stopped flicking when I hit Phantom FM, as they were playing Tennage Kicks - talk about getting into the mood early, there was me thinking this could be an omen - how wrong can one man be.

Met up with Gary at 2pm and hit the road for Belfast, a lot of talk about tactics and what team would be on the pitch at kick-off. Got into Belfast around 4.45pm and headed off to get a bite to meet. We were close to the Students Union so ended up in The Globe getting a pint and a bite to eat for £5, good deal on what, you'd stretch to get a Burger King meal in Dublin for that money.

Then we dandered up to the Speak Easy bar for 5.30pm, going on Maribor Kev's post on DC Chat top find out it wasn't open - damn you Kev. So ended up in the other pub, with no Carlsberg in tap so ended up drinking Beat the Wife, sometimes known as Stella.

There we ran into Sinead and Niall and a few others from the QUBDCFCSC and the anticipation grew, so come after 7.15pm it was off to the match.

The Match
What can one say that hasn't been said already.

Our defense let in 2 very soft goals to allow Linfield to go up at half-time, and the worry that our defense was the weakest link in the team this season was reinforned from Friday nights game against UCD.

Come the second half, changes were made and Paddy McCourt came on and was on fire, with 2 to 3 Linfield men around him at most times. Martyn made it 2-1 and Derry up'ed the pace of the game, Linfield were tirering and the hope were up once more.

Well on the post for the UCD man I wrote "Cometh the hour, Cometh the Man" - and this match the man was the useles bastard of a referee - giving a penatly for Linfield, which can be seen here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cjMvyNacbY, thanks goes to Vinny from DC Chat for putting it up. I think the words that spring to mind are "Diving Bastard" as in no way was that a penatly, and anyone who thinks it was needs to take their head out of their asses and smell the roses.

But it has to be said that the referee was awful through-out the game, my opinion after the game was that the man should not be allowed to ref an under-12 game never mind a Setanta Cup game. Was talking with one of the lads in work the following day and he said that Setanta should go across the water and bring in refs from either Scotland, England or Wales to ref the matchs, as then they wouldn't have to be worried about being biased, and also we might actually get a decent ref.

So the match ended up 3-1 to Linfield, I can't say that they didn't deserve to won, cause our defense wasn't the best and they created more chances than we did. But what I will say is that their players are great at time wasting, the amount of time's the players went done feigning injury from tackles, like they just got hit by a double decker bus was unreal. I don't mind time wasting when players take the ball to the corner flag, or goalies take their time lifting the ball, as that's all in the game, but the Linfield players were a joke.

The Fans
As always the fans were in good voice, with what looks to be around 1500 making the journey to Windsor Park and making some amount of noise, and I believe a good number of fans agreed with me about the Linfield players acting a wack when a chorus of "You're scum and your know you are" rang out with about 10 minutes to go. You could see that the Linfield players were not used to this at home.

Well, the drive back down to Dublin was a long one, and it's been a while since I was so fucked off after a match - one of the main reasons for waiting to do this write up, as if it had off been done last week, every third or fourth word would not have been a pleasant one.

The return leg in September will be a sell out and one hell off a game, and for one, I sure as hell intend to be there.

UCD 2 - Derry City 3

A number of the Dublin SC met up in the Montrose for a few pre-match drinks. You could feel the buzz, the long wait for the season to kick-off was almost over and hopes were renewed for the season to come. The Longford away match at the end of last season seemed so far in the past. The wait was over.

"Big Daddy" being his usual self, arrived later than expected, after him saying he was 15 minutes away from the Montrose, he arrived about 30 minutes after that conversation, but he was in plenty of time for kick-off, so we can't slag him that much.

Tickets were also handed out for the Linfield match on Monday night, adding to the buzz I felt before the match. And of course, I had to get into one of the photos, so asked a nice young lady sitting beside us to take the photo with me in - what the name of the Beautiful South song - "Old Red Eyes Is Back" - well in this picture he's back with a bang.

Well, after the pre-match swally it was time to head over to the Belfield Bowl, UCD's new ground, having moved out of Belfield after last season. And it has to be said, the Bowl itself is an improve, you feel a lot more secure bouncing about that you ever did at Belfield. But it pitch was not in the best of shapes. From my understanding the UCD Rugby team alos play their matches their so it's going to make it a difficult surface to play on, but the Rugby season ends soon I believe.

So, the game kicked-off, and as always, my match report is going to be short and sweet, as my match reporting skills are not the best, and I'll prove how bad there are in a second.

Derry got off to a flyer with Higgins scoring a peach of a free kick after 20 minutes, which I somehow managed to get caught on camera, it can be viewed here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNIvN-EfOcc, but be warned it's very short, as Higgins was hitting it as the camera rolled.

Then after another 4 minutes, whilst standing in the toilets, Farren scored to make it Derry 2-0, so there's no footage of that action.

UCD managed to pull one back before half-time. So when the half-time whilst went, the talk started. Now, to be honest I was delighted at being 2-1 up, as UCD away has never been a great game, from any of the matches I've been at over the last 4-5 seasons.

Had, to take another photo, as one of the Derry faithful we all now made the trip down, good to see you again Che.

The second half was a tough one, with UCD pulling it back to 2-2 with a fortunate deflection looping the ball over Quigley in goals. And then the worrying started, as I've said, never had good feeling playing away at UCD. Some good chances fell their way, but cometh the hour, cometh the man, and Pizza stepped up on the 88th minute mark to get the winning goal. More dodgy footage shot by yours truly caught the goal, - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGXTSN6UCuw, and you'll all be happy to here that we survived the Earthquake that happened after the goal. And don't mind the foul shouting in the background, that's just me.

So, the season kicks-off with a 3-2 win at the Belfield Bowl, can't ask for any better than that (well, maybe 6-0, but I'm not a greedy man). It was a tough match, and I'd have to say, I don't believe UCD will go down at the end of the season when 3 teams drop to make the new 10 team league next year. They are going to be hard to beat at the Bowl. There is a good thread on people's views of relegation on Foot.ie, and UCD are heavily tipped, but after Friday nights performance, I don't see it happening.

Better match reports can be found on http://www.derrycityfc.net/home.php and better views on the game than mine given above can be found at http://www.derrycitychat.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=1.

Ran into a few other known Derry heads after the match, including everyone's favourite bear, pictured above, although I couldn't get him to say the famous quote "I'm smarter than the average Derry supporter."

Andy and his friend Peter where getting the 11pm bus from Busarus back up to Derry, fair play to them and all of the rest of the fans for making the trip down to Dublin on a Friday night. It's the first of many this year as we play all the Dublin teams away twice, and we also have St Pat's away in the Setanta Cup.

Well, roll on Monday night, Linfield at Windsor in the Setanta Cup. I do believe we will have to play better than we did on Friday night, but kicking the league campaign off with a win is all that matters.

2007: The Year That

Wasn’t Good for Me @ Being a Good Supporter
Might sound a bit hard, as I tried to keep up to date with all the goings on, on and off the field, but I think I only made it to about 10 matches all season, which was well below the 25-30 matches attended in previous seasons.

I didn’t even make any of the really big games like the European home game or the League Cup Final, as always timing and money came into the frame – something that will definitely have to be rectified this season. Also me learning to drive and getting a car would probably help me get to The Brandywell a bit more often.


Wasn’t Good for the League
When Pat Fenlon came in for the 2007 season, I thought we got the best man available for the job. However, one of the lads in work, a life long Shelbourne supporter said to him he believed it to be a mistake, as Fenlon wasn’t that good a manager, but considering the money he had to spend at Shels, it would have been hard not to win the league.

Well it’s often you’ll hear me say it, but a Shels fan got it right and I got it wrong, as Pat didn’t last half a season and now he’s at Bohs for the 2008 season.

He didn’t leave us in the best of shape and then John Robertson came in to steady the ship. The ship was steadied but a lot of draws in the league until the end of August meant we stayed mid table and that’s how it was meant to be for the rest of the season. We ended up 7th, 31 points behind Drogheda United, who won the league for the first time, congrats to them.

But 31pts behind the leaders after coming so close the previous 2 seasons is still kinda hard to wrap your head around. Some people may say we were punching above our weight in previous seasons, but I don’t think that was the case at all.

Well, roll on 2008


Wasn’t Good for Me @ Updating This Blog
5 updates to the Blog in 2007, the last one being in May say it all. Considering how easy it is to update the Blog and the fact that I’m not to worried about the literally content, there were ample times last season that I should have updated it, but never bothered my lazy ass.


Wasn’t Our Year for Europe
With Shels being relegated for financial reasons, their spot in the Champions League qualifiers fell to us. Unfortunately the Champions League isn’t regionalised like the UEFA Cup, so we ended up being drawn against FC Pyunik from Armenia. We were at home first, where we played out a 0-0 draw. Unfortunately we could take the chances to take a lead into the away game. I watched the match in Fitzsimmons in Temple Bar, Dublin with a load of Derry lads down working in Intel for a year.

In the away match, I ended up in the same pub, watching it with a couple from Derry, we lost 2-0 to 2 soft goals, and the European Dream ended for another year. A big mention has to go out to the fans how were able to make it over to the away game in Armenia, as it was one hell of a hard place to get to, and coming back most have been a real downer, as anyone knows travelling back from a lost away game always seems to be longer.


Was The Year for 3 in a Row
League Cup – 3rd year in the trot we’ve won the league cup. This time round it was against Bohemians up in The Brandywell. I ended up watching it in the house on my own, how bloody sad is that. Kevin McHugh won the game in extra-time with a wonder goal that went on to win Goal of the Season on TV3. Kevin scored in every round of the League Cup. You can watch it here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI-m1nQQFQ0 – all thanks goes to martyc1989 for uploading it. Check out other clips uploaded from him, some great clips of The Candystripes there to be watched.

Was Good For Killer Football & Setanta Cup Predictions Competitions
As always, I ran the ePL Killer football to raise money for the SC, and made around €250 out of the Killer alone, and it still continues into 2008, and I’ve found my form again in Round 2, going out after 2 weeks over Christmas, but with 40 people in, it’s another €80 raised for the SC.

Also in 2007 I ran a Setanta Cup Predictions competition, raising €90 for the SC and €120 being split 3 ways between the winners, each getting a massive 70pts (out of a possible 310pts), with Stephen “Haircut 100” Large flying the flag for the SC.


Stephen Kenny Returned
28th December 2007 – Stephen Kenny is unveiled as the new Derry City FC Manager. I believe this has somewhat heightened the hopes of fans for next season, although as he said in the interview at the unveiling, he believes the fans will also be realistic in expectations for 2008.