“It hit me when we reached Dublin” – Derek Coughlan on the magic of the FAI Cup

Every footballer starts with the same dream.

For Derek Coughlan, it began by reading Roy of the Rovers and falling asleep imagining cup final goals. Those small-boy imaginings that feel so distant once you grow up – until one day, they happen for real.

In 1998, in Dalymount Park, he lived it. One clean header, one net rippling, one dream fulfilled. He scored the winning goal in the FAI Cup final replay against Shelbourne – as Cork City lifted their first ever FAI Cup.

“It's what you play football for as a kid,” Coughlan begins. “Growing up, I'm old enough to be from back in the day when I used to be reading Roy of the Rovers, so you'd be always dreaming and visualising scoring a winner in a cup final, and especially that week before the cup final, I spent, before I'd go to sleep every night.

“I started visualising, I didn't know the word ‘visualisation’ back then, but I'd start daydreaming about scoring a goal, or about last minute tackle to stop a goal.” 

It was the only goal of the game, and it became part of the club’s story.

“Very special. Very, very special. I suppose the players, when I came into Cork City in 1996, the players that were in that dressing room were massive, massive personalities and huge footballing people,” he explains. “They'd done so well for so many years before I came to the club, and what it meant for them to win a cup was huge because they came close on a couple of occasions.

“For that team that went so close to winning the league back in 1998, we got runners-up the same year in the league, and I suppose to mark that great team with the FAI Cup, was great. If that team hadn't won something, it would have been a shame.

“The fact that we did get an FAI Cup for the likes of John Caulfield, Deccie Daly and Patsy Freyne, under Dave Barry as manager, I suppose it was a bit of a relief and a special feeling when we did win it, because it was the first time Cork City won an FAI Cup, so it was a massive occasion.” 

Those memories are still vivid. The open training sessions, the city alive with noise, and the sense – rare in football – that something momentous was building.

“For me looking back, I'll never forget the week there was open training sessions,” Coughlan remarks. “The media were all out all week, it was a really big week, so for the Cork City lads today, that week leading up to it's going to be something different.

“It's a bit like being a Premier League player when it comes to cup final week. Everyone wants to get in on it, and it just creates a massive atmosphere in the city.

WHEN IT HIT

“You're walking down the street, everyone wants to know about it, everyone wants to talk about it, but for me, it was when we got up there on the bus on cup final day, and the next thing you start seeing the Cork City fans on the streets of Dublin.

“That to me is when it hit me – how big this was.

“Just to see your people travelling up to support you, and full of hope, full of passion for us and for the club. I think that's when it really hits, that's what makes the cup final day special, is when you get up to Dublin and you see the fans starting to congregate and cheering you on and welcoming the bus.

“It's a really, really proud day for the players. Something that can’t be taken away from them.” 

He was just 21 then — young, fearless, part of a side that felt like it was building something that would last. It’s a line that City’s current crop can relate to as they head for the Aviva next month.

“When you get to that cup final, especially now when it's on the Aviva Stadium, it'll be a full house practically.

“That's where dreams come to fruition, and as Pat Dolan used to say back in the day, big players score big goals, and that's when that happens.

“I just think that the likes of Seani Maguire, the form he's starting to hit now, if we can keep him fit for it, he's unmarkable the way he played against St Pat’s in the semi-final,” he explains. “The way he uses his body, the spring he has, the way he wins headers.

“The way he holds the play up, not to mind his finishing, but the way he involves the rest of the players around him.

SPECIAL

“He's a special player, and it's now we're seeing the old Seani back, he's starting to show that now, and especially against Pat’s, I thought he was exceptional. He was coming good a few games before it, but really against Pat’s you could see that he was confident in his body.” 

Coughlan knows better than most how these weeks feel – the buzz, the pressure, the sense of a city rising behind its team.

But in a season where results have been scarce and belief even scarcer, it was the crowd that dragged City over the line against Pat’s and punched their ticket for November 9.

“I think the crowd played a huge part in the fact we're in the Aviva Stadium, not just on that night, but the way they've supported the team all year,” he remarks. “Even when the numbers weren't that big, they were loud.

“The fans always gave the impression they were behind everything the team was doing.

“Even though they were losing a lot of games, hadn't won an away game in I don't know how long, the travelling fans still went, still supported them, still got behind them. I think that had a huge impact.” 

And if experience has taught him anything, it’s that finals have their own logic – the kind that pays no heed to form or favourites.

“We went in as favourites against Drogheda when we were going for the double in 2005,” Coughlan says. “And Drogheda beat us. So cup finals are different, they're a different beast.”