When Cork City meet Derry City tonight, it will be the latest chapter of two clubs whose fortunes have travelled along parallel lines.

Brian Carey arrived for the interview at a Cork hotel with a ready-made intro: by sheer coincidence, the Tuesday on which we were meeting turned out to be 24 years ago to the very day since he’d left his hometown, Cork, for England to begin a career in professional football which would take him to Manchester United, Leicester City, Wrexham, Doncaster Rovers and Wolves and see him experience almost all aspects of the game – from the glorious to the grim – as, variously, player, skipper, coach, scout, assistant manager and manager.