The Inside Forward - Cup Final Glory

We all grew up watching it. Cup final day, that most important of all footballing days when spring sun beams down onto lush green grass rolled out like a carpet. Managers wearing flowers in lapels and worried looks on faces. That extra spice in the atmosphere, the heaving crowd knowing it’s all down to one game; death or glory.

Unfortunately playing for an AUL team in Cork I have to imagine most of this. Our big finals are played at Turner’s Cross, home of Cork City. It’s no Wembley Stadium or Lansdowne Road but while it might be a bit frayed at the edges and the capacity is the wrong side of 10,000, its hallowed turf has been good enough for the likes of George Best so it’s good enough for me.

I’ve had the privilege of playing there a few times and I found that for one day only, if I squinted a bit and tried really hard, it gave me just a little taste of playing in the big leagues. Arriving hours early to secure the relatively palatial home dressing room we took a traditional walk around the pitch. Resplendent in our specially commissioned training tops, our equivalent of the fancy white suits worn by Liverpool’s Spice boys back in 1996, it only took about 10 minutes of this before we’d seen everything. After a further 5 minutes of kicking the ball aimlessly about we began to get a bit bored and wondered how far away kick off was - an hour and a half still? Hmm, now what do we do?

Finally the big moment neared and after the inspirational speech in the dressing room the referee’s whistle blew and it was time to play. Just like on telly we lined up in the bowels of the stadium, eyed up the opposition next to us. Then just like on telly we emerged from the tunnel to the deafening roar of the crowd. Well in reality the crowd were more of a small gathering of possibly a hundred souls, and they were so busy huddling together to stay warm they barely noticed we’d come out. But in my head the packed stands were going crazy for us.

There are a few disadvantages to playing such games though. The classic time wasting tactic of dinking the ball over the bordering hedgerow is ruled out as there’s a big stand in the way. Try booting the ball over that and the game will soon come to a standstill as it’s impossible to retrieve them from neighbouring gardens. Making a mistake in front of a crowd is no fun either as they wasted no time at all in informing me exactly what they made of my sliced clearance that rebounded off the chip van.

After 90 fruitless minutes and a further 20 of extra time that produced more leg cramps than goals, we had to face the dreaded penalty shootout. Taking that long walk from the centre circle to the box when it’s your turn is particularly nerve wracking when 100 plus people are roaring at you to miss. As if he was silencing a packed stand at Wembley our midfielder gave his answer to the hostile crowd by slotting home his spot kick and celebrated by cupping his hands to his ears and grinning at them all.

Thankfully the rest of us put our efforts away successfully and the memory of being presented with an, admittedly quite small, cup at a proper ground will stay with me for ever. As will the feeling of turning around to lift it in front of the packed stand, only to find a sea of empty seats and a few frozen stiff members of family desperately trying to get the last dregs of tea out of the thermos flask. Then along came the ground staff who understandably wanted to go home and we were ushered out fairly promptly. Our time on the big stage was over but the celebrations, well they were only just starting.

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