It's FAI Ford Cup weekend, with many clubs dreaming of a place in the final.
Between Cork City, Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers I have been involved in seven cup finals. I have been victorious five times and swallowed that most foul and bitter pill on two occasions.
From the very beginning, I was a Shamrock Rovers supporter. Growing up just off the South Circular Road meant I was, of course, deep in Hoops territory in the grand days of Glenmalure Park, Milltown.
You know, I have to admit, as an aside, that those three words, Glenmalure Park, Milltown, still provoke a resonance of genuine pride.
Anyway, I watched every game I could in those long gone days of carefree and untroubled youth. It was wonderful to see that team play, normal to see them win and trophies arrived with such consistency that I truly believed there had to be an underground bunker deep below the Main Stand packed full of the cherished silverware gathered over time by the very many great green-and-white-hooped heroes.
And yet, one of my most abiding memories was a defeat, and a defeat in an FAI Cup final at that!
Rovers lost to Drumcondra, in 1957 I think. I was 10 years of age and I can still remember the Drums players up in the Main Stand of Dalymount Park in their yellow shirts and blue shorts receiving the Cup with my players down on the pitch looking up and applauding the victors. I was shattered. It was incomprehensible. I never wanted it to happen again. I think from that moment the FAI Cup became a little personal.
Thankfully, when I played for Shamrock Rovers the silverware that mattered most was the FAI Cup. Perhaps it was the immeasurable and deeply rooted Rovers tradition of rescuing lost causes in the dying moments. Many's the game I remember an unlikely equaliser arriving seconds from the final whistle, loosening the tight noose of defeat and shattering the spirits of the opposition to such an extent that the replay was but a mere formality.
Rovers never lost a cup replay back in those days. So concrete was this fact that chairman Joe Cunningham paid us the win bonus when we drew. This man was no fool - far from it. He got another gate receipt and we got another win bonus. Happy days! No wonder I love the FAI Cup so much.
To me the FAI Cup is like a beautiful woman. It is alluring and captivating and eminently capable of stealing one's heart and mind. It ensnares and entices the unwary into a state of being that encourages the besotted individual to throw caution to the wind and embrace wholeheartedly the romance rather than the reality of the moment.
I have had many liaisons with this femme fatale of Irish professional football. Indeed, there have been times when I found myself so intoxicated with her tempestuous and teasing closeness that I was beside myself with joy and anticipation. But, as with even the most passionate affair of the heart it is important, no imperative, for a gentleman to retain a modicum of restraint and not succumb unequivocally to the perfumery of power so tantalisingly exuded by elegant and exotic females.
I speak with the voice of experience. Like most professional footballers I have, on the odd occasion, been swept along on a veritable tsunami of 'testosteronic' desire and, even in the midst of that maelstrom of male confusion, I have understood totally that I have relinquished control all too easily.
The FAI Cup has swept me off my feet, afforded me wonderful times and granted me unforgettable moments and memories. But she has also whisked me away to dark and dangerous places, places well masked by her extraordinary beauty. Sometimes those dark excursions have been costly to my career. I am sure, for example, that a league title, or two, may have slipped surreptitiously from my grasp while my attention was diverted. But I wouldn't alter a thing. The FAI Cup is a most perfect source of gratification.
