John Riordan: How values learned on Leeside are being used to honour fallen teammate
Davide Giri (left) with Gary Philpott, lining out for NY Inter.
Gary Philpott’s voice was cracking with emotion for a third time during the almost hour-long conversation we shared on Tuesday evening.
Soon his commute home to Queens would begin after a long day of coaching young players at the Soccer Stars United academy. We had covered a range of topics, from his days at Cork City to the recent tragic loss of his dear friend and clubmate at New York International FC, Davide Giri.
News had filtered through earlier that day from Cork of the passing of Jerry Harris. Just like all of the great and the good of Leeside’s football people, Philpott’s father knew Harris well. And naturally, the younger Philpott would always see the amiable patriarch of Turner’s Cross hovering around the pitch or the stands and he remembers being drawn in, just like we all were.
And when it came time for the then 17-year-old youth team goalkeeper and FAI Youth champion to get a call-up to train on the periphery of Pat Dolan’s Cork City squad in 2004, it was Jerry Harris who went out of his way to make Philpott feel immediately part of a family he hadn’t known existed.
“He genuinely cared, that always stuck with me,” he recalled. “I guess that's part of the culture, right? I guess that's how teams live on. He’d seen it all through the years with all the different clubs folding and this was his way of instilling identity and culture in a club. I'll never forget that moment. Just kind of making me feel special and just a part of the club, you know.”
After Cork City fell to pieces so publicly, Philpott moved to New York City and completely away from football. You wouldn’t even catch him watching the Premier League. The game had spat him out and it was time to focus elsewhere, use his finance degree, get to know his new city, make new friends and meet his now-wife.
“I came over with $500 in my pocket so I wasn't concerned about playing football,” he says.
Around the time Philpott was getting settled in, his work colleague, a former Colchester United academy prospect called Nick Platt, was moved across the Atlantic on a more permanent basis. Before long, Platt was coaxing Philpott back into the amateur leagues in their new home. For a while the response was “not a fucking chance” but then he agreed to it one weekend.
“And we got smashed. Obviously my competitiveness kicked in and I was like, fuck this, I'm gonna bring some players in. One of the first players I brought in was Rob Horan who used to play at Cobh Ramblers. I got the love back for it, enjoying this coaching thing and getting results.”
Together the friends would eventually create NY Inter, a club built on the right foundations and with the right sort of character. They didn’t set out to build a diverse club boasting 26 players from 21 different countries but that’s what they had. They sought a setup with footballing integrity, on the pitch and off, and Platt enabled Philpott to shape values that had been instilled in the Gurranabraher native a decade previously by true football men like Jerry Harris.
There were challenges, of course, and then there was gradual success which culminated in a promotion to the second tier of New York football at the tail end of the truncated Covid season. It was all going so well.
When I spoke to Philpott on Tuesday, news had come through that he had been elevated to a US Soccer National 'D' Coaching licence.
“He quit his corporate career to pursue this because he just loves football,” Platt told me. “His best quality as a manager is his man-management. He's so good at engaging with players and making them understand their importance and how they fit into the team. He's been my best friend since I moved here, best man at my wedding. So he's an amazing guy. And he's just incredibly passionate - he lives for football.
“And that's what he's done to gel this squad together - keep everyone engaged and keep everyone happy, understanding the value they bring to the squad, no matter what their background.”
Davide Giri was one of those internationals. An Inter Milan obsessive from the Piedmont town of Alba in the Italian Province of Cuneo. Mercifully, he had managed to enjoy a summer at home this year where he enjoyed his nation’s Euros win over England.
“He was very kind to me about it," said Platt, acknowledging he deserved far less.
Two weeks ago, on what was the first Thursday after Thanksgiving, Giri, a PhD student in computer science at Columbia University, was stabbed to death in Upper Manhattan’s Morningside Heights on the way home from an NY Inter training session.
Vincent Pinkney, who was charged with the murder, is also alleged to have stabbed a second victim, Roberto Malaspina, the same evening before being arrested in Central Park. In a brutal coincidence, Malaspina, who survived the attack, is also Italian.
Giri was two blocks from home. The murder was senseless and random. Wrong place at the wrong time.
After the vigil for the student that took place at the campus of Columbia less than 24 hours later, Philpott and his other NY Inter club mates went for some drinks. The effort to process what had happened was still only beginning and Philpott recalls crying in the bathroom at one point. After reemerging, he was called upon to say a few words.
This wasn’t ideal timing but he had learned well from the likes of Harris and a variety of managers such as Damien Richardson, Alan Mathews and Paul Doolin - all individuals who needed a little bit of grace during high-pressure Cork City situations in the darkest days of the late 2000s.
But he also had a more immediate and much more important muse in that moment: Giri’s own brother back in Italy who had responded to Philpott’s messages that morning in the most measured way possible.
The tragedy was all over Twitter but the club didn't have any direct contact with Giri’s family aside from their affection for the fortunes of the club. In the early morning haze of confusion, NY Inter released a statement, mourning their player, and then Philpott decided to try and track down his brother: “I don't even know where to begin,” he texted, “we're incredibly sorry, we're heartbroken. If there are any arrangements we can help with, we're here for you. Please don't hesitate.”
Giri’s brother responded calmly, describing the “unbridgeable void” left by the loss and then he signed off the message with “From here on out, we win for Davide, we live for Davide.”
Philpott was a mess all day. At the vigil, flash photography added to his trauma. At the bar, everyone looked to him for the toast. Just two minutes after crying in the bathroom.
“I didn't know what I was going to say or if anything I would have said would have mattered. But his brother's message was still in my head. I don't think I would have been able to talk coherently or effectively to the team in that position if it wasn't for how much his brother's words resonated with me."
Philpott’s final living memories of Giri are hugging him goodbye after that training session and then an Instagram story he watched abstractedly the following morning of the gaffer instructing the player tactically on positioning.
“It still doesn't feel real. Ten days removed, there's less emotional craziness in terms of crying all day and all over the place, but it just kind of still doesn't feel real, you know?
“We're a family and everybody looks out for each other. There are the values and ethos as a club that obviously. You can use fancy words like inclusivity and diversity but in reality, it's a club built on the fact that we all genuinely care for each other and we all love each other.
“I'm the biggest sensitive soul in the world. I'm a big crier and I was probably broken down the most with the news. And, yeah, it's not like it's my job. I just feel like as a club, in times like this, you have to come together.
"At the end of the day, we're a family and everything we do from here on out, we do for Davide.”
@JohnWRiordan
