Building for the future starts now for Cork City after first division title success 

 It was mission accomplished for Cork City at the Belfield Bowl as they clinched the League of Ireland First Division title and promotion after one year in the basement, and now the hard work begins.

That was done with a handful of games left to play and no possibility of going on a run in the FAI Cup after a defeat to Derry City in the third round last August.

The focus now is on staying in the Premier Division in 2025, and making sure the club doesn’t turn into a yo-yo.

It’s easier said than done. 

Plenty of teams have gone up and straight back down, and a pattern starts in a year or two. UCD are specialists at it and it only now looks like Drogheda United have broken free of that cycle.

Galway United and Waterford avoided being drawn into the conversation this year after their successful promotion campaigns in 2023, purely because of investment.

Cork City’s recent history shows a trend towards that, as they fought to stay up during the final few weeks of the 2019 season only to be relegated in 2020. 

They famously went up in 2022 by edging out Galway United in a bumper to bumper race for the First Division title, and the foundations fell apart during a summer to forget on Leeside that accumulated in a loss to Waterford FC in the promotion/relegation play-off at Tallaght Stadium.

And now there’s a chance to buck that preserved trend, and the first steps towards that were taken when Tim Clancy signed a new two year contract.

The announcement came at an event organised for the Cork City’s 40th anniversary and it sparked talk of pushing on, which was reinforced by the coach’s words when speaking to the club’s media team.

“We have already started planning for next year, and I feel that we had a really good summer transfer window, bringing in Sean Murray on a permanent deal, as well as Ruairi Keating and Seani Maguire,” he said.

The two strikers were re-signed and an experienced attack minded midfielder was secured on a permanent basis during a mad spell that saw fans dream of a cup run and making it a double at the end of the year. 

They immediately added goals to the team, with four scored in two games at the end of August, and that addressed a key issue for the season.

Clancy has been good at that – finding ways to deal with existing problems instead of reinventing the way his side play to address that.

Keating and Maguire were the answer to the most obvious problem, an issue that replaced the hunt for a permanent goalkeeper after David Harrington signed for Fleetwood Town in 2023.

Brad Wade slotted in there, but that is only one part of the unit that needs to be assembled for Premier Division football next year.

City now need to focus on building a cohesive unit, as opposed to repeating the mistakes of 2023 and having a settled starting XI with nothing behind it but young players emerging from the academy and imports trying to get to grips with the pace of the League of Ireland.

With everything considered, the run-in could be quite benefitable as it will allow them to give regular minutes to emerging players like Arran Healy and Harvey Skieters, two U20s that have minutes under their belt this season in the First Division.

Adding quality to the group is a matter for scouting, and knowing the issues of the past.

Clancy knows this: “There is a great platform here with the work being done by Liam Kearney and his coaches in the academy, so there are talented young players coming through all the time, and if we can add some more experience and quality to that, then I think we will be in a really good place.” 

Knitting it all together could be hard, and it would mean taking games like the early stages of the Munster Senior Cup seriously instead of giving players a preseason run-out at the end of January against intermediate sides in the middle of their retrospective campaigns.

Whatever way Clancy goes about the next stage of the project, the important thing is that the first stage has been a success after City won the First Division at a canter and there was no late drama during the final few weeks.

Time is on their side there’s experience, something that was sorely lacking two years ago.