Cork City Season Review: A year of struggle and lessons for 2026

It’s been a dreadful season for Cork City. For a year that started with so much optimism, the homecomings of Seani Maguire and Ruairi Keating, the off-season promise under Tim Clancy, with the sprinkling of quality in Malik Dijksteel, Djenairo Daniels and Milan Mbeng, it promised to be different to 2023.

City came in prepared and hardened. All the lessons from two years ago and their playoff relegation to Waterford supposedly learned. A team ready to right the wrongs, stabilise, and propel themselves back to the glory days.

Yet, with the dust settled, only two of the six aforementioned names will remain in 2026.

The two that matter most, perhaps. But injuries early in the year to both Maguire and Keating left City in real trouble from the start. Game after game they would see results slip away, one soft goal at a time. By game 10, they were bottom of the table and in real trouble of being automatically relegated.

Less than a month later, Tim Clancy resigned as manager. Dijksteel, Daniels, and Mbeng would all go on to disembark the sinking ship. And what remained was a squad short on experience, stretched by injuries, and stripped of momentum.

Ger Nash inherited the sinking vessel, but the Kildare native did not have the tools to salvage it. The leaks were everywhere. Bodies, confidence, experience.

His first league win didn’t arrive until early August – 102 days after their previous top-flight victory in April. Those two, against Waterford and Galway, accounted for half their league wins all season.

For context, in 2023, City finished the year with 31 points. Eight wins from 36 games. In 2025, they won half of that, finishing seven points short of the 2023 tally.

There were moments that summed it up in cruel detail. A home collapse against Sligo Rovers where they lost 3-2 having been 2-0 ahead, then 3-0 and 4-0 away defeats to Bohs and Pat’s respectively. A 2-1 defeat away to Galway, and then finally – the coup de grâce – when they lost to Shelbourne at home to confirm relegation. And yet, in all that bleakness, there was one more ember of hope.

CUP RUN 

City won as many FAI Cup games as they did Premier Division fixtures. They won four of five. The only one they lost – the final against Shamrock Rovers.

It was a competition – far away from the dreaded relegation question that stood over them all season. A chance to breathe, a chance to play football, and with the semi-final against a fancied St Pat’s, a chance to embrace it.

On that evening in front of 5,408 in Turner’s Cross they thrived, putting three past their opponents to give City fans hope, the one thing they had been deprived of all season.

That hope would take a hit when they learned their opponents – Shamrock Rovers – chasing a league and cup double. But it’s football. Anything can happen, can’t it?

Not for City, not in the Aviva, not in 2025.

A hard season turned tragic, Harry Nevin’s red card ensured they fell short. Despite playing well, showing promise, and showing heart, they suffered a 2-0 defeat.

Fine margins proving costly in November. Just as they did against Waterford in March. And Derry City in April. And Drogheda United in May. You get the picture.

Cork City lost 20 league games this year. Twelve of them by one goal.

There were so many occasions this season where City went in front early, only for it to fall apart in the second half. So many more where they conceded a late leveller or goal to lose it.

There have been positives, of course. But the league table doesn’t lie. Their inability to close out games doesn’t lie. Their failure to deliver under pressure doesn’t lie.

A FRACTURED RELATIONSHIP 

Supporters have not been shy in voicing their frustration, none more obvious than the protest they staged ahead of the semi-final with Pat’s against Dermot Usher’s ownership.

Where there’s smoke, there’s usually an owner feeling the burn. Whether his ownership will end or mend, remains to be seen. But the disconnect is there.

Yet, in the long winter, seeds have been planted.

Keating and Maguire returned, and are here to stay. Several more players that have been so key at the close of this season will remain in 2026.

For now, the disappointment and dread will simmer, but Cork City have known darker hours. They have climbed out before.